The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising
The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising has put forth new strategies of reaching mass consumers with cost-effective messages without interrupting people. Consumers have fed up with traditional mass media ads such as TV, and digital, outdoor as well as one-to-one marketing approaches. This consumer attitude which resulted in low recall rates has urged marketers to embrace new marketing tactics to build their brands. Thus marketers are suggested to use an in-between cost-effective approach rather than two extreme approaches to mass advertising and micro-marketing. This approach involves four strategies of Catching People in the Bottlenecks, using a Trojan horse, Targeting People at Play and Getting People to Play. These strategies in contrast to traditional mass advertising strategies don’t interrupt the audience and thus get greater recall rates. These innovative ways of advertising are leveraging the old media as compared to digital advertising where cost per click on major search engines has increased manifolds and increasing the sales and return on investment for a company.
- New Concepts/Definitions:
The four new concepts have been learned in The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising as follows:
Catching People in Bottleneck: This is a non-traditional mass advertising strategy that grabs the attention of an on-the-go but a temporarily captive audience. Such as displaying ads in public places such as elevators, escalators, airplane platforms, restroom stalls, etc.
Use a Trojan Horse: In contrast to capturing public spaces having strategic value, this strategy is to infiltrate private areas with mobile ads such as ads on coffee cups, pizza boxes.
Target People at Play: This innovative strategy of reaching a broader audience is to attract people while they are pursuing leisure activities without interrupting such as displaying ads golf carts, cricket bats, etc.
Get People to Play Games: This strategy seeks engaging people in such ways that require physical interaction with displayed ads or product rather than giving handouts or free samples to the audience, for instance, presenting interactive posters and demos that help people to try them before buying.
Explain:
- Facts:
The author has used the following three main points to support his viewpoint of mass advertising through innovative advertising strategies:
- A survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, showing that 70% of the respondents said that recent technological advances would ultimately lead to the downfall of 30-second television ads. This fact supports an author’s viewpoint that traditional mass advertising media is not a cost-effective approach to reach the common targeted masses around the world.
- One of the Accenture surveys revealed that 60% of respondents said that they are seeking new technologies that would block interrupting advertising messages. This factual information goes in favor of the author’s point that ordinary people have become fed up with traditional interrupting ads and now they are looking for solutions to avoid them.
- Another fact represents how television is not a reliable option for mass advertising, and companies are slashing their marketing budget to shift their attention to new mass advertising media. For instance, McDonald’s during 1999-2004 cut the portion of its U.S. marketing budget devoted to TV campaigns from two-thirds to one-third.
- Bias/Faulty Reasoning
Here is an example that presents a faulty reasoning of the author to support his point of view that 30-second does not remain a mass advertising media in the proliferation of new media such as digital and social media networks, however, 1-800-flowers.com Inc spent 70% of its $55 million budget on offline ads in 2005, up from 50% three years earlier. By recent statistics, TV ads remain one of the most prominent mass media of building global brands.
Moreover, the author has shown biasness towards comparing only TV ads and micro-media with latest new media strategies of reaching the greater number of the masses while ignoring other offline media that has gained massive importance in the recent era such as print, celebrity endorsements, radio.
Strengths: the main advantages of the article are concrete contextual examples to support his viewpoint, grabbing the reader attention from the start till ending and pouring light on new trends in the mass advertising with minimal personal biases and faulty reasoning.
Weakness: one of the failings of the article is that it has not taken into account other traditional media mass advertising media such as radio, print, outdoor, etc.
Another weakness is that some of the ideas and supporting examples contradict each other at some point in the article.
Illustrate:
- APPLICATION/EXAMPLES:
I as a global business manager have come to know how an ad on a cup, on a golf stick, on the shelter of a bus, on the back-screen of a taxicab, in elevators, in restaurants increases the recall rates without interrupting consumers. Being a global business manager, I must keep attention to latest corporate trends for brand building in the present world where companies are slashing their traditional mass advertising budget to focus on non-traditional ways of reaching mass customers.
The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising has also helped me to understand well how micro-marketing through balanced approach has also become less cost-effective due to the advent of the latest ad blocking technologies.
In addition to The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising, digital media that one regarded a big perspective opportunity for companies to build their brands are now getting the low response from consumers, because of a proliferation of ads and tools of controlling spam pop up ads blocker. I have also come to know that ads on escalators can grab the attention of on-the-go people without stopping them such as London-based Escasite, for instance, installs ads on the revolving stairs of elevators at sites throughout the world.
RETENTION/CONCLUSION:
The Continuing Power of Mass Advertising has made a clear comparison of old and new methods of mass advertising. In contrast to traditional methods of 30-second ads, telemarketing, outdoor media, innovative ways present cost-effective solutions of brand building and increasing the recall rates because these methods no longer interrupt consumers who have latest digital technology solutions to combat them and get relaxed and enjoy.
For more Essays:
Give your feedback under comments
