In recent years since the creation of YouTube as an online source for media it has become more than a place for music videos or something funny to watch- it has become a source for advertising.
This video was posted on February 4, 2010, just a few days before the Super Bowl which has also become an advertising frenzy in itself. I didn't find out about this video by watching the Super Bowl but had first seen it on Facebook and Google Buzz. What am I getting at with this completely random commercial that has had over 9 million views?
Advertising has completely changed our society. Instead of being a means to provide information about a product, it has become pure entertainment. Each advertisement, especially during the Super Bowl or other high-profile events, seeks to outdo not only products in a similar market but also all other advertisements. Old Spice's commercial became an online hit days before the Super bowl even started and spread online through our social networks. It is trying to sell what would usually be a men's product, but advertises it to women, catering to the fear men have of smelling unsatisfactory around women. The places I first saw this video happened to be on the blogs, walls, and feeds of female friends. It seems to have worked exactly the way Old Spice intended it to.
My questions to you are,
How has social media changed the way advertising works?
Have you seen any other advertisements that are directed to an intervening public, such as women who influence men? Did they convince you to buy something?
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22 comments:
it is because of tivo's and other DVRs that i need to watch advertisements as I watch hulu, youtube, and listen to Pandora.
I think a market that advertising targets the most are children. They are the intervening influence on their mothers or fathers to buy them what they need and more importantly want. If the little girl sees the new baby doll that sings and crys and burps she is obviously not going to have the means to buy it, but her begging and tantrum in the store will eventually win her mom over to purchase the one of a kind baby doll. will it bring the little girl all the happiness in the world?? maybe not but Mom doesn't have to hear her cry anymore.
I think social media has changed the way advertising works, because it is something to share. If an advertiser makes their ad humorous enough to grab attention, everyone will be sending the add along to all their friends. By doing so, individuals are showing their friends how funny they are to have found such a clever ad. Humor boosts ad sales because of social media.
I think the one of the biggest ways that social media has changed advertising has been through the outbreak of viral videos. It used to be that you had to email those viral stories that made everyone cry, but now people can just post videos or send them to each other via social media. The videos are more fun and exciting than the old stories used to be, and thus cause us to want to share them. Social media has also helped those videos become almost a jewel - we each want to be the first one to find the next big/exciting viral video, and then be the one who shares it.
As far as any others I have seen that are sent to intervening publics, I cannot think of any off-hand, but I know that my wife does like showing me the funny videos no facebook and youtube that were most likely made for male audiences.
Going along with what Boston said, it is a lot easier to share commercials and advertising that we were impressed with for one reason or another. Videos of most commercials are on YouTube, and people can post the link to a variety of social media outlets. The viral power of advertising has grown incredibly fast, even as the traditional advertising mediums are getting overthrown by Tivo.
In a lot of ways social media has become an instrument for advertising. If a brand or product can catch on so that several people find it cool or funny, it can spread like wildfire with little work by the company. This is because information can be shared so readily with millions of people through instantaneous social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
I remember a commercial from a few years ago that was advertising either deodorant or cologne for men: Two girls are sitting in the kitchen while their boyfriends are playing some sort of video game. The girls are getting impatient and annoyed when one of the boys comes in and hugs his girlfriend, and she suddenly remembers all of the goods times they've had together, because, as the commercial said, "Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory."
I don't know if that is so much catering to the intervening public of girlfriends, but now that I think about it, maybe it was playing off of the fear men have of having their girlfriends mad at them. Buy this deodorant and your girlfriend will magically forget that she was annoyed with you?
People aren't spending the same sort of time with their televisions as they used to. They aren't glued to the screen. They multitask. They fast forward through commercials. They journey to the kitchen. They bathroom break. This makes harder and harder to break through the clutter. But in the business of advertising that is your livelihood. So companies continuously search for new ways to reach their targets in their natural settings. People spend more times with their phones. People watch more videos online. They even listen to radio on the internet. So that's where ad dollars go. But advertisers of the day are becoming more and more clever. They realize that when the commercials lose our attention we change the channel. We leave the room. In order to get away from that advertising of our day departs from its more formal structure to a more entertainment based format.
I wouldn't mind if that guy was my man...
Advertising has taken so many forms. For another class I m required to analyze an ad Upon looking through an old pop culture-like magazine, I realized that there were almost no traditional advertisements in it. Why? Because most of the articles and stories were about what products you should use to e more like the celebrities. So basically the articles themselves are ads. Isn't that interesting?
I think social media has made it so advertising is an option for almost any business. Your ad might not be on t.v., but if the ad is entertaining enough, you will have as many viewers visit your free You Tube video as you would have had on your million dollar t.v. ad placement. It’s accessible, easy, and we are seeing more and more advertisements because of it. People have to be more creative than ever for viewers to pay attention to your product.
Just like you said before, we don't have advertise for the same reasons it was originally intended for. while that is still the main purpose behind it, to inform, it has been taken to a whole new level. Businesses put thousand of dollars into their marketing and advertising each year in order to find out how they can best reach their target market. But instead of just informing they are trying to be as creative and funny and clever as possible to grab attention and make a lasting impression.
One commercial that i can think of that advertises to an intervening audiences are the women's razors commercials. they always show the women who have just shaved with a man that keeps rubbing their legs and that is so impressed their close shave. i don't think i went out and bought the razors they were advertisting for, however, the commercial did make them seem much more appealing than they really are.
Social media has definitely changed the way that advertising seeks to market its products by making them more entertainment oriented. I just wish that radio advertising would keep up with television and web based ads. Instead of being entertainment, as you mentioned in the post, most of the ads on the radio seem to be following an older model of actually making sales pitches. Perhaps it is just that radio as a medium does not lend itself to entertainment in the same ways that the other visual mediums do, but radio seems to be lagging.
As far as advertising that tries to target intervening publics, the closest product that I can think of that matches that description would be deodorant ads or ads for male "beauty" products, that try to market themselves to men through women. These advertisements are pretty unconvincing, at least in their current heavy-handed way. Now if they could all be as clever and funny as the Old Spice guy, I might watch them more attentively, and if not become convinced to buy them, I would listen to the message they're trying to send.
Being an advertising major, I have seen a huge push for companies to utilize social media for advertising. If companies can create a video that creates buzz among consumers and non-consumers alike, people will talk about their product and they might not even need traditional advertising media anymore. It will be interesting to see how different forms of social media will continue to influence advertising in the future.
I believe that social media is the new advertising. Even being an advertising major, social media is a HUGE and integral part of how advertisers strategies are created. A great example of this is the new Stride Mystery Gum, if you haven't seen it, check YouTube and you will see what I mean.
Social Media, and particularly videos are now a large part of what makes many brands cool. You can make your own "homemade" ad for something such as a contest and see it go viral within minutes.
I agree with previous comments about the children who are appealing to parents for things they want, "Go online with an adult" is a familiarly quoted add on to commercials for children's items.
Advertising has changed a lot and social media has played a role in it. However, the days of just throwing information out there are over. It has proven to be ineffective. I think that the advertising has changed to be more clever, thought-provoking, and not so obvious. Agencies try to make there materials interesting enough that they go viral and people actually do seek them out because they are entertaining.
Advertising through social media is obviously becoming huge. Companies are always looking for ways to reach their target market and social media provides just that. However, just like with traditional advertising, there is a lot of clutter to break through. Agencies have be become more creative with every ad in order to continually reach their market. The Old Spice commercials do such a good job at not only entertaining but also staying in the minds of the consumers. I was amazed at how much attention from talk shows and other media sources that the Old Spice campaign recieved. However, it is only going to get tougher for Old Spice, as well as other companies to keep that kind of attention.
For the second question, I can really only think of the Axe body spray commercials and how that plays on the idea that if you smell good you can get amazingly attractive girls. Doesn't quite work for me but they continue to do it, so I am speculating that it works somewhat...
I feel social media makes advertising a lot more personal. People can seek after the advertisements they want, like with the old spice commercial. In addition, sites like facebook and google, use information about the user to give them a personal advertising experience. In terms of fear, I think everyone has the fears expressed. Once a company exploits them, people come flocking. Although hard to admit, I am quite sure I fall for this on an almost daily basis.
Social media allows a small voice to make an impact. By advertising through social media, a product can be discussed by consumers in an easy fashion. Especially the comedic, interesting and eye-opening advertisements cause people to talk amongst each other. Social media is at the consumer's finger tips; therefore, it makes sense for advertisers to use these channels.
In the past, I think it was hard for advertisers to determine how affective their commercials on were. Now with social media sites, it's obvious which commercials are the most popular. Youtube conveniently says exactly how many views a video receives.
As far as ads directed to an intervening public goes, I can't think of any off the top of my head. But maybe the axe commercials? They seem similar to old spice in a few ways.
that Old Spice commercial is my FAVORITE! I think social media changed advertising because it allows ads to be engaging and allows the viewer to participate in something. Plus viral videos may seem like the underdog, but can yield extremely good results.
Social Media is forcing advertising to become integrated into our lives more and more each day. We can't escape it as we long on to our facebooks. There is always an invite to join a new page or someone has posted a favorite ad. I think that social media is a catalysis for getting messages shared, but in order for it to go viral the ad still has to be good quality and creative. Social media is not an excuse to create crappy ads and hope that they get spread around.
I think you are completely correct Youtube and things like it have changed the face of advertising. If an ad is funny and grabs my attention on YouTube i show it to my friends, and then they show it to theres and so on. It's a never ending cycle
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