Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Reflections 16. Death of ads - no.


I was reading this controversial article.

Interesting quotes :

There are three problems with advertising in any form, whether broadcast or online:

* Consumers do not trust advertising.
* Consumers do not want to view advertising.
* And mostly consumers do not need advertising.


Note the use of "advertising in any form"

If the word "consumers" doesn't strikes you as something odd, you are most likely belonging to this broad category of "consumers". You are so habituated to be treated as consumer that even those three sentences doesn't convince that you are not a consumer. What happened to the old, good people or "citizens" ?
Ancien RĂ©gime is dead, similarly the regime that came after is also dead, not even leaving a stinking odours behind. New global miasmas infiltrating mass consciousness.
Political parties are also not such creatures like they used to be when people were "citizens". Most people are not really reading and arguing about the platforms of such and such political party. They have their viewes based on branding. What is the nature of advertising ? In a very broad sense even colorful red-blue asses of mandrills is advertising. Is it intrusive, offending your Samaritan feelings ? Most likely You are not thinking about sex constantly, forgetting the matter that your stomach is empty.

A pretty long article about the imminent death of advertising, penned by the professor of operations and information management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and still not touching the essence of ads in the modern society. Should he leave it just to internet specific issues, I would be more complacent.

1 comment:

Nessa said...

I somewhat agree that a lot of consumers do not trust advertising. But, advertising works I think for the most part. Any family with kids enjoying Saturday morning cartoons can tell you about the ad power for children's toys, clothes, even breakfast cereal. Maybe how well adcvertising does depends on the target demographic, I don't know. As for me, I'm pretty set in my ways, so it takes more than bells and whistles from ads to get me to spend my $ during this financially uncertain time.

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