Читать книгу Secrets of Advertising to Gen Y Consumers - Aiden Livingston - Страница 12

Having saved the best for last, let me introduce the most prominent form of traditional marketing: television advertising. TV ads still cost the most money and this is where most advertisers spend the majority of their budgets. For example, for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl a company will spend around 2.7 million dollars. Which I will admit of all the occasions, people specifically watch the Super Bowl for the game and the funny commercials. But at the end of the day, how effective are the ads? I mean, who is watching the Super Bowl and sees a Budweiser commercial, and immediately jumps up to go buy some Bud Light? These spectators are not in purchasing mode, they are in sports-watching mode.

The start of TV advertising is much different than the model we tend to think of today. In fact, it used to be that only one company would sponsor an entire show, and the show would be named accordingly. Who can forget such favorites as the Kraft Television Theatre or the Texaco Star Theater? This was the standard TV advertising way until the 1950s when an NBC executive named Sylvester “Pat” Weaver introduced the “magazine format.” The idea was to divide the cost of sponsoring a show to lower costs on advertisers, and enable networks to make higher advertising revenue. The concept resulted in the commercial breaks with which we are all too painfully familiar these days.

However, much like radio, this format is threatened by many emerging technologies, one of which is undoubtedly TiVo and other Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). I personally love my TiVo, but it is a nightmare for those who wish to advertise on TV. Now people can watch their favorite TV show and fast-forward through the ads. This is the equivalent of when a mouse figures out how to get the cheese without setting off the trap. Yet once again in the mind of most Gen Ys who grew up in an “instant” world, it seems absurd to have to wait around all night for your favorite show to come on, and then to have to be subjected to relentless amounts of boring commercials. Why bother when we can just digitally record it, watch it when we are ready, and fast-forward through the commercials? Like all other examples, the most efficient technology will always prevail with Gen Y.

Just like the innovators of the twentieth century did, it is still important to embrace new technology and incorporate it quickly.

Moreover, even if one doesn’t own a DVR, virtually all TV shows are available online and can be watched with either no commercials whatsoever, or simply a banner ad displayed in the background. In comparison to waiting for your show to start and having to sit through ads, this is a much more palatable system and most networks are even beginning to kowtow to the emerging importance of the Internet, and making their programs available through their websites for online viewing. In a way they are participating in their own demise. It was summed up best by cartoon character Homer Simpson when he bought his first TiVo. He was fast-forwarding through the commercials and he said something like, “I spit on your grave, commercial-sponsored television!”

Ultimately, the traditional marketing techniques most advertisers still cling to became popular because they were the technological innovations of their day. They were the cutting edge strategies for reaching customers in the most efficient and tactical way. However, let’s face it, TV and radio haven’t been cutting edge technology since James Dean was around, and nobody has been impressed by the idea of the newspaper since people were using candles to light the way to their outhouses. Just like the innovators of the twentieth century did, it is still important to embrace new technology and incorporate it quickly.

I am sure there were companies in the 1950s that said, “Aw, this TV advertising is just a Baby Boomer fad, let’s just stick to what we are doing now.” I would name companies but let’s face it, any company that didn’t adjust to the emerging technologies of the 1950s has probably gone out of business by now.

We now find ourselves on the brink of many new technologies that stand poised to change the world of marketing all over again. You can either adjust and learn to market to this newest generation using the technologies they actually use, or continue to spend money to place ads where they will never be seen.