How Advertising is Changing
by Fred on 20/08/07 at 3:46 pm
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When I was a marketing student I used to love seeing examples of old adverts in my text books. It seems ad men in the old days liked to really labour their point. Folk in those times must have had a lot more time on their hands, if you compare how graphic, simple and clever ads are nowadays.
Think about it: when was the last time you read a long copy advert in a print media?
I know that the advertising agencies now are in a state of flux. There is a lot of doubt and insecurity in the industry at the moment, and the old models of income are no longer relevant. Media placement doesn’t provide the return it used to – up to 18% of the cost of running an advert would go to the agency, now there are high volume specialist media buyers that charge a fraction of that for ad placement…and usually they’re negotiable.
Creativity is the clincher. The more creative an agency is, the better its future. Clients are aware that, with all the noise out there, an advert has to be pretty special to stand out.
If you look at a website like Advertising/Design Goodness, a Canadian blog that celebrates excellence in advertising, most of the examples are succinct visual metaphors for their clients. With one image and a message, the benefits are clearly communicated – in a resonant and memorable way.
The thing is, even these smart adverts are not effective unless they are clearly part of an overall strategy. In the past, an agency could get away by bombing the market with a pervasive campaign. Nowadays, the consumer has way too much control, and adverts have to be more carefully considered in order to be worthwhile.
This can be a time-consuming and costly for a non-creative ad agency. After all, coming up with great ideas is not easy, and doing the research and strategy is just a pain in the arse…(for some agencies, anyway!)
With the movement to customised media and news (I don’t buy newspapers since discovering Flock’s newsreader), clients are looking to how they can get their message spread via a more measured, interactive approach. They want their communication to build visceral relationships with their clients rather than shooting massive blanket campaigns in the general direction of their target market. Marketing messages are being conveyed via public relations, social media or via direct communication and those messages must be able to withstand the scrutiny of the masses – or they will be lambasted swiftly and brutally.
For a laugh, I’ve uploaded some classics from the cigarette industry. Imagine how these ads would go down in the information age (where the truth always outs). Ironically, the cigarette industry is now pioneering the best ways of marketing since its wings have been clipped over the past two decades.
Advertising is still a relevant component of the marketing strategy. It’s just that it must work a little smarter now.
[via Adclassix]
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.
