FINAL ESSAY and COP3 PROPOSAL

How has New Media changed Advertising Techniques?

The aim of this essay is to form an understanding and form an analysis of new media advertising, paying attention to the current implications, as well as the change from contextual methods, to a mix of informational advertising and conceptual. The essay will look into the form of new media advertising, and the connection between emotional and informational style advertising has changed how the public have opinions on products and services in today’s society. The essay will look at traditional means of advertising and how they are less effective due to the technology increase and the consumer’s opinions on advertising.

Advertising has changed and adapted in its culture, with the big change from the informational methods to expressive a new, conceptual way to communicate with the public. This changeover makes the public pay less attention to the actual product, and focus more on the branding and position of a company in today’s society. Before the 1970's, the public were exposed to adverts that are informative, provide information about a product and justify why the product will help the consumer, making it clear that they want the product because it will improve their lifestyle. (IMG 1) This is an advertisement from the 1960’s for a portable TV released by sony. Including information about the tv, and being very informative with the release of this product, It provides an good knowledge for the viewers, being an effective advert in its time. Post 1970, informational adverts became ineffective, the public became aware of the deception of advertising, and how the media portrays stories, making the informational advertising methods ineffective, and a new style of advertising needed to be implemented to produce this profit and keep the public engaged and making purchases again. ‘Persuasion in Advertising’ (J. O’Shaughnessy & N.J. O’Shaughnessy (2004), Persuasion in Advertising, p.27) states: "Emotion is a factor in persuasive advertising that aims to change viewpoints and not simply to demonstrate the logical implications of data. In the grip of an emotion, a person not only feels differently, but also tends to think differently. Advertising that resonates emotionally stands more chance of inducing a change in beliefs and values/motives/wants/desires than one based on logic alone.” (IMG 2) This advert is a representation of the same company, only 50 years later, where the techniques and methods to effect the viewers have changed. Making objects desirable, and makes sure that the viewer desires that specific product. The laptop that is being advertised provides little information about the product and uses the slogan “colour like no other”, implying it is the best laptop for the screen. 

During the nineties, and into the two thousands, the new style of advertising was implemented to the public, with the new formats of adverts, that are located on the Internet. The use of video became easier and allowed interactive methods of advertising quicker and simpler. Making advertising quicker, and easier to get the consumers. The Internet provides method to supply traditional informational advertising, but changing the form of the advertisement including hyperlinks and a network of links to other pages and adverts. The internet provides a platform for learning as contextual and emotional advertising can be explored further as new aspects such as pop ups, website banners, YouTube adverts and general internet advertising allow the user to interact and explore the product and company further. Jeremy Bullmore in his 2003 edition of 'Behind the Scenes in Advertising Mark III' (P.14) states "The truth of the matter is that people enjoy being persuaded being courted, being wooed, being wanted." With this improvement in technology, there are many platforms that will provide room to advertise and “woo” customers. However such new advances in methods may prove excessive providing annoyance and irritant to viewers when accessing different websites.

Traditional Advertising Vs. New Media Advertising

The advertising industry has come to terms that the traditional means of advertising are becoming less effective to the public. Television was the most effective way of advertising to the public, reaching a large selection of the public. However "the reality for the advertising industry is that the old model is broken. The most effective advertising medium for decades has been television. But this traditional advertising vehicle is getting more expensive while also reaching fewer people. People may be watching more television hours, but their attention is spread across many more channels." (Hanna, 2007). The ability to access the Internet, and the amount of customers available to access on the Internet transforms the way advertisers target the public. Professor Stephen Bradley argues ‘new audiences are fragmented and people are demanding mobility, immediacy and control over their media consumption’ (Hanna, 2007). Meaning people want the information quickly, and easily.

Advertisers created Mass Media advertising campaigns and believed this was the most effective way to get their product or service to the public, however Nightingale and Dwyer (2007 p.23) explain how this isn't accurate ‘as audiences have become less responsive to mass advertising, and better equipped to find the information they need online’. Audiences like to feel like the advert is aimed specifically at them, so creating more personal, audience based advertising would be far more effective than a mass media style advert. This saves the company time as the adverts they produce are more personal and more effective to the specific consumer. It will also save money as a refined advert that is specific to a certain audience can be displayed to them instead of a mass media advertising scheme that will be ignored by most of the audience and the advertisement will not reach the required consumers. For Example, A customer who is looking on a basketball website, will pay attention to various advertisements for basketball equipment, and pay little attention to the adverts that are generalised such as leading washing powder brands. The specific adverts allows the relevant adverts to be more effective upon websites, and removes all the unnecessary product plugging whenever available. Making adverts more specific will increase the possibility of a consumer actually accessing it and actually finding the advertisement useful.

I looked into the Budweiser campaign “Whassup” (IMG 3). A TV advert created by Budweiser with a humorous, catchy slogan that grabbed the viewer’s attention and received huge notification as people found it hilarious. Other brands tried to replicate the humorous bro effect, but none have effectively managed to supply a single word catchphrase that hooked viewers with the silliness and an effective approach. Based on a film called “True” that featured a few friends with unique greetings that managed to turn this humour into a Budweiser add that aired in 1999. After the success of the advert it was even aired during the Superbowl of 2000. Even though the campaign had its complains from customers, saying it was too urban for a traditional American beverage and go on to say it is denigrating the image of Budweiser. However the campaign still ran and with its efforts ended up winning awards, creating parodies and being a massive hit with the consumers.

“The campaign went viral before we knew what viral even meant, as people around the world began joyfully greeting each other with their newfound urban phrase,” said Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide.

Digitally, the campaign was too advanced, the advert directing customers to website (www.Budweiser.com). Where they had the opportunity to learn “Whassup” in 30 different languages. With the technology and the limitations of the website, traffic surged. If the technology was improved and capable of handling the amount of customers trying to access the website. If this advert was released with the social media presence that is in our community today, the website would be able to hold the traffic directed to it, and would have been easier for the campaign to take off and gain more attention.

This shows that a TV adverts can be successful when a good idea, and concept is apparent. The concept behind the “Whassup” was humorous and impacted consumers effectively and even became part of pop culture. However Bud moved away from the campaign after a few years however keeping the “True” tagline for a few more years after. They understood that keeping the brand fresh and exciting was the way of keeping business growing. Mr. Lachky said. “We made that decision on everything we ever did. We want to get work out of there before the customer gets tired of it,” he added. “You don’t want people to say this isn’t cool anymore.” With this Budweiser was forced to create a whole new campaign and methods to keep there brand fresh and engaging for the customers, instead of altering the brands reputation using old and annoying catchphrases. Meaning the company has to improve its strategies, beat the last campaign and provide something new and innovative to get the customers interested. 

New Media Advertising

With the power of Internet advertising, also comes the social feedback from the users. As the community actually has a say into advertising and company images. With the Internet also comes the research and information the public can access easily and find out things they wouldn't have known if it was strictly traditional means of advertising. For example, Nike is a huge organisation, and with the slogan, "Just Do It", that became a massive success and promoted the business to become a massive corporation, but with the use of the Internet, and the publics opinion over the internet. The unique slogan caused arguments and issues with the workers rights in production countries. Causing the people of the Internet to create various parodies and jokes for the company. Such as "Just Don't Do it." This information is only available with the accessibility of the World Wide Web. With an easier access to information, the public can find look further into a company, look at the company’s details and get other feedback from customers to get more of an understanding to what sort of product or service they are going to receive. Social Media is now capable of working together as a community and offering information, and a real understanding to what people’s opinions are of a brand, and whether offers an argument to biased advertising.

Video advertising may be stated a main format of future advertising. However some websites offer a way of skipping these advertisement and people are being given the chance to go straight to the content they are looking for. Jed Murphy (Digital Director at Carlson Marketing) mentions; “do I really want to wait ninety seconds watching a pre-rolled ad before I get to the content I originally came to see?” (NMK, Nov. 2008). This isn't working, public will skip the advert, choose not to watch it, why would they? This type of format, needs some clear ideas and movements to change and make sure the advert is being effective as possible. It becomes difficult for marketers to find out how effective video advertising is as judging whether the consumer has watched and taken in the required information due to the format of the video. Videos have a linear format that has a start, middle and end, so judging how much a consumer has watched, and whether they have interacted with the video becomes hard to perceive. This makes advertisers produce innovative advertisements, that are both engaging with the consumer, keeps them interested throughout the video but keeping the video short in length so people actually watch the whole video instead of skipping or muting the add. “Approaches that incorporate interactivity are more likely to be effective” (Taylor, Charles R. 'Editorial: The Six Principles Of Digital Advertising' p. 415). Research into effects of structural and perceptual factors on attitudes toward the website conducted by McMillan, Jang-Sun, and Guiohk (2003) suggests that interactivity is a main aspect to give website success . The Internet has the ability to advertise and engage consumers for much longer, and into greater depth than the traditional means of advertising. With such aspects providing feedback, interactive clicks, hover and display providing an interaction between user and brand/advertisement. The principle is valid by the amount of academic research that supports the idea that media platforms that offer user interactivity do significantly better with much more success than platforms that avoid interactive elements. 

Even though the advertising industry is changing its methods, providing interesting and new ways of supplying products and companies to an audience, the general public still seems to avoid there efforts to try to persuade them. With the increase in technology comes the increase in effort to stop advertisements. PVR’s are being used to skip television ads, spam filters and pop-up blockers stop annoying adverts that manage to distract you and bring all attention to the advert. With the increase in technology, creating effective advertisements becomes more difficult as advertising often annoys consumers. This means that advertising needs to take on a new form, taking advantage of video and new viral campaigns to create interesting and engaging design that consumers will interact with causing a more effective piece of advertisement instead of being seen as an annoying push of a product. A more subtle, creative way of supplying a brand, product, and quick advertising may be the way to access the public again, and make them more interested in the product that is being displayed. Kim Stephen J concludes his research with a prediction into the expectations of technology within the future. He expects computer performance to increase, giving our platforms such as laptops, mobiles etc, to have greater speed, capacity, and generally more reliable. With these upgrades and advances in technology, it provides long lasting, global platforms for advertisers to supply there message. With the improvements in technology, it provides improvements in the creative elements, producing more complex advertising techniques with better experiences for the consumers.

Viral campaigns are still a new type of format for advertisement. Viral campaigns offer a huge amount of customer attention quickly, and as a campaign takes off, the attention just grows as social networking and Internet sharing promotes the campaign making sure the public interacts with the viral campaign. One problem with a viral campaign is the unknown. Viral campaigns can either take off or flop, it is difficult to create an idea that comes from nowhere and ends up generating millions of viewing figures within days. Viral campaigns makes advertisers create memorable designs that get its viewers involved and active. This creation of a campaign that needs to be remembered offers a way of some agencies standing out from the rest of the generic advertising methods and start producing this new, interesting way of advertising.

An example of the expansion and how an advertising campaign can receive huge media and consumer attention. The Ice bucket challenge could be seen as the largest online charity campaign of all time. The social media phenomenon was to pour an ice-cold bucket of water over your head and get someone to video it, then upload it to a social network and nominate a few of your friends for them to complete the challenge, after completing the challenge you donate some money to the ALS campaign. A charity which supports Motor Neurone Disease. With an excess of 2.8 million videos uploaded to Facebook, and a further 440 million people uploading, commenting and “liking” ice bucket related posts. These sort of figures shows the extent social media can take a campaign. With a total of £982,000,000 donations, compared to the £2,700,000 before the viral circulation, shows how social help, and the use of a creative idea to allow interaction, and a more unique way to get people involved and promoting the campaign. With a smattering of politicians, actors, athletes and musicians taking part, and the method of pouring water over your head getting more exciting and unique, allowed the public to see people using tractors to pour huge amounts of water, jumping into ice cold lakes, and even a 2 year old girl yelling a swear as the water hits her. The viral campaign in itself provided a format to produce more viral videos, where people would get there video shared and viewed by the millions, in a competition to find the funniest video. This then asks the point whether people are just doing it because they felt pressured, or doing it because everyone else is doing it. With some people avoiding paying and just completing the challenge, it doesn’t really justify completing the ALS challenge when you’re not going to donate.

(IMG 4) Ice Bucket Challenge 1: Bill Gates taking part.

Future of Advertising

The battle for consumer attention and purchases will always be around, but a medium will not dominate the market as television did between 1960-1980s. There will always be a mass market, but the format we access this mass market is constantly changing. Digital technology opened the gate for electronic commerce. Online sales are expanding, having global online trades such as Amazon and Ebay, allowing cheaper and quicker purchases. The form of advertising will be on a constant state of change, re-inventing itself to accommodate the new technology that will demand fresh requirements within the advertising marketplace. In addition, the format of advertising needs to accompany the improvements in technology to block advertising. I believe a subtle, new way to get people involved and actually finding advertising useful,instead of skipping and finding it an annoyance. The complexity of todays society within the advertising market forces designers to look at unconventional ways of reaching the public and creating fresh, exiting methods using old media forms. In reality, all aspects of advertising requires creative thinking and problem solving, but the refined audience makes it difficult to impress and win over the customer. “Consumers themselves are beginning to demand more from the products they buy, and the services they use. They are becoming less likely to respond to communication that does not address them on a personal level.” (Burtenshaw, K., Mahon, N., Barfoot, C., 2011) With this point in mind, It makes it apparent how traditional, and some aspects of new media advertising are missing this personal link between advert and consumer. Innovative, new strategies will be needed to target an audience, seeking different forms of relationships with a brand they purchase, and have different expectations of companies that supply these brands. 

Images

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Bibliography

O'Shaughnessy, John, and Nicholas J O'Shaughnessy. Persuasion In Advertising. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Nightingale, Virginia, and Tim Dwyer. New Media Worlds. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

Burtenshaw, Ken, Nik Mahon, and Caroline Barfoot. The Fundamentals Of Creative Advertising. Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA, 2011. Print.

Bullmore, Jeremy. Behind The Scenes In Advertising. Henley-on-Thames: Admap, 1998. Print.

McMillan, S., Jang-Sun, H., & Guiohk, L. Effects of structural and perceptual factors on attitudes toward the website. Journal of Advertising Research,2003. 400-409.

Taylor, Charles R. 'Editorial: The Six Principles Of Digital Advertising'. International Journal of Advertising 28.3 (2009): 411. Web.

KIM, STEPHEN J. 'A Framework For Advertising In The Digital Age'. J. Adv. Res. 48.3 (2008): 310. Web.

NMK. Nov. 2008. Business brief: video advertising looks to future [online]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2008/11/17/business-brief-video-advertising-looks-to-future

HANNA, J. 2007. Broadband: remaking the advertising industry [online]. Available from World Wide Web: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5652.html


COP3 Proposal Form 

Name:

Joe Valentine

E-mail:

JV251068@students.leeds-art.ac.uk

SUBJECTS OF CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH ALREADY UNDERTAKEN

Level 4:

Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel’ (Jeremy  Bullmore). Evaluate the statement with reference to selected critical theories

Level 5:

How has New Media changed Advertising Techniques?

AIM AND/OR OBJECTIVE OF YOUR PROPOSED C.O.P.3 PROJECT

The importance of design in digital platforms…looking into the analysis of digital vs print. With further analysis into what makes a good user experience.

What research needs to be undertaken into the general and specific contexts of your practice?

Research into successful digital designs. Why they work, how to make a successful digital design. Aspects of digital design that you can't get in print. Research into user experience and user interfaces within digital formats.

What approach(es) will you take and what processes, methods, materials and  tools  are to be involved in research into your practice?

Comparing digital designs with print, finding what people find more effective, which people would prefer. Looking into user interfaces and creating experiments to produce a new interface with the techniques discovered.

What preparation or investigations do you need to undertake for your creative practice to take place?  Investigation into user interfaces and what makes them successful with people. I need to compile and collect research that will gather information about digital design and the link with the user.

What research do you need to undertake regarding who your creativity is for?

A user interface is used by everyone, the research will be branched out into user interfaces for younger audiences, and what become more effective for the younger generation, then leading into the older audience and what changes when applying a new audience to a new interface.

Primary Sources of Information
1. Description - Apps, User interfaces - Accessibility Testing
Location - App store.
2. Description - Websites – Testing and evaluating
3. Description - Interviews and Surveys and emailing designers - Varied audience to give a range of opinions.

Secondary Sources of Information
1. Library – Digital Design vs Print
2. Journal articles
3. User interface websites
4. Digital Books
5. Digital Community – Online forums

Perceived problems or difficulties:  Lots of research for user interface design. To achieve the knowledge I will need to investigate different types of user interfaces with a range of ages and people. To formulate what works and what could be changed, This can only be achieved with testing and experimenting with the target audience Hard to compare the two, as one is digital and one is print, difficult to access the digital element to the target audience as a laptop or tablet will be needed.