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Critiques of the advertising medium. Future of advertising.

Critiques of the medium

As advertising and marketing efforts become increasingly ubiquitous in our culture, the industry has come under criticism of groups such as Adbusters[5] via culture jamming which criticizes the media and consumerism using advertising's own techniques. The industry is accused of being one of the engines powering a convoluted economic mass production system which promotes consumption. Some advertising campaigns have also been criticized as inadvertently or even intentionally promoting sexism, racism, and ageism. Such criticisms have raised questions about whether this medium is creating or reflecting cultural trends.

Public interest groups, such as New Ethic and Free Thinkers are increasingly suggesting that access to the mental space targeted by advertisers should be taxed, in that at the present moment that space is being freely taken advantage of by advertisers with no compensation paid to the members of the public who are thus being intruded upon. This kind of tax would be a Pigovian tax[6] in that it would act to reduce what is now increasingly seen as a public nuisance. Efforts to that end are gathering momentum, with Arkansas and Maine considering bills to implement such taxation. Florida enacted such a tax in 1987 but was forced to repeal it after six months, as a result of a concerted effort by national commercial interests, which withdrew planned conventions, causing major losses to the tourism industry, and cancelled advertising, causing a loss of 12 million dollars to the broadcast industry alone.

Future

With the dawn of the internet has come many new advertising opportunities. Popup ads, Flash ads, Banner ads, and email ads (often a form of SPAM) abound. What the advertising community is just recently beginning to do is making the ads themselves desirable to the public. For example: Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie 'The Matrix: Reloaded' which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. From some points of view the whole movie could be viewed as an ad, but since it was entertaining, the public desires to view that ad. During the superbowl each year greater sums are paid to get a commercial spot. These commercials are often very entertaining and many members of the public desire to watch them (many people watch the superbowl just for the commercials).

The advertising community has not yet succeeded in making their ads available to the public. Since the dawn of interesting and entertaining (desirable) advertising some people have been so entertained by a particular ad that they might like to watch the ad later or show a friend. The advertising community has not yet made it easy to acquire and watch an ad when and where a member of the public wants to. A few members of the advertising community have and many more may in the future wish to use the internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone who wishes to see or hear them (possibly by distributing their television advertisements for free from their websites). Considering that in most cases they have to pay to get them seen or heard it could be valuable to allow those who wish to watch them to do so freely and even distribute them to others.



Potentially (and this has not been achieved by the advertising community to any degree) we could see the advertising community releasing quantities of free advertising content (in the form of pictures, sounds and video) to the public for whatever use they wish (perhaps under a creative commons license) which would likely result in widespread viewing and distribution which is desirable for both the advertiser and the public who enjoy using the content in their own creations.

2. Shell Oil, the leading retailer of gasoline, began…

Shell Oil, the leading retailer of gasoline, began their market research project with a customer segment study of 55,000 people, who they stopped in shopping malls in six cities for a 45-minute interview into their attitudes, especially regarding driving and cars.

The result was that ten different segments with different needs were identified. Shell Oil researchers wanted a better understanding of each of these segments.

A focus group was set up for each segment; an anthropological study was carried out, which involved team members spending walking hours with people from each segment, watching them at home and accompanying them on shopping trips to see their buying habits; and a clinical psychologist was hired to create a psychological profile of each segment.


[1] Business-to-consumers

[2] Skywriting is the process of using a small aircraft, able to expel special smoke during flight, to fly in certain patterns as to create writing readable by someone on the ground.

[3] A town crier is a person who is employed by a town to make public announcements in the streets.

[4] A subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below (sub) the normal limits of perception. For example it might be inaudible to the conscious mind (but audible to the unconscious or deeper mind) or might be an image transmitted briefly and unperceived consciously and yet perceived unconsciously. This definition assumes a division between conscious and unconscious which may be misleading; it may be better to say that the subliminal message (sound or image) is perceived by deeper parts of what is a single integrated mind. In the everyday world, many have claimed that subliminal techniques are used in advertising and for propaganda purposes but officially it is denied. In Russia, however, there have been reports of subliminal messages. For example, Pravda has had stories about the discovery of subliminal messages in advertising from the West.

[5] Adbusters is a Canadian political magazine, founded by Kalle Lasn and published in Vancouve, British Columbia by the Adbusters Media Foundation. It is an activist magazine, devoted to numerous political and social causes, many of which are anti-consumerism or anti-capitalist in nature. Adbusters is particularly well-known for their culture jamming campaigns, and the magazine often features photographs of politically-motivated billboard or advertisement vandalism sent in by readers. The magazine also founded Buy Nothing Day, a yearly event held on the day after American Thanksgiving (traditionally one of the largest shopping days of the year) in which citizens are encouraged to not buy anything. They are also one of the sponsors of TV-Turnoff Week.

[6] A Pigovian tax is a tax enacted to correct the effects of negative externalities; they are named after economist Arthur Pigou (1877-1959) who also developed the concept of externalities. For example, pollution is an external activity to many industrial processes. Therefore, the government might impose a tax on polluters. There also exists the concept of a "negative tax", or a subsidy, to encourage certain behaviors (such as, say, starting a business in an underdeveloped area). Examples of other Pigovian taxes include taxes on alcohol and cigarettes Pigovian taxes are sometimes referred as sin taxes


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 342


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