Posts tagged advertising

Provocative and, my gut instinct tells me, basically correct.

re: advertising, business, horizons of the possible, internet

Andy:

My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again. . . .

It is frequently argued that the advertising industry will provide sufficient innovation to replace the loss of traditional ads on traditional mass media. Again, my basic premise rejects this, suggesting that simple commercial messages, pushed through whatever medium, in order to reach a potential customer who is in the middle of doing something else, will fail. It’s not that we no longer need information to initiate or to complete a transaction; rather, we will no longer need advertising to obtain that information. We will see the information we want, when we want it, from sources that we trust more than paid advertising. We will find out what we need to know, when we want to make a commercial transaction of any kind. The conventional wisdom is that this is exactly what paid search helps us to do, but all too often they are nothing more than a form of misdirection . . . [later defined as] diverting customers to companies that they do not wish to find, simply because the customer’s preferred company underbid.

I'd love to see the same study done with movies, which are narratively stitched together so that they'll work well uninterrupted. In that case the commercials might feel jarring, rather than palate-cleansing as they are between those tasty sitcom morsels. In any case, this would appear to be the same effect that allows fresh fruit in February (see this week's Five Questions) to get in the way of our enjoyment of fresh fruit in season.

re: advertising, horizons of the possible, tv

Nate:

In a plot twist worthy of Lost, it turns out that TV commercials aren’t obnoxious interruptions after all. They’re helpful interruptions, which increase your enjoyment of TV by periodically reminding you how much you’d rather be watching your favorite show.

That’s according to a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, which found that commercials restore a sense of novelty to TV programming by breaking up the cycle which we become bored with following what’s on the screen.

In one of several experiments, the study’s authors screened the sitcom Taxi for two groups. One group saw an episode with commercial interruptions, and the other saw an episode with no interruptions. Those who saw Taxi with commercial breaks enjoyed it more, by a decisive margin.

Further proof of The Onion's key historical insight: that all compound words can become archaic and hilarious with the simple addition of hyphens.

re: advertising, cultural worlds, new york, noise, sound

Nate:

A police amphibian airplane trailed a tri-motored ship from which advertising matter was being broadcast through a loud-speaker for almost two hours yesterday afternoon.

For lots of good reasons, we don't link to a lot of "cultural critique" here. But every once a while, when a big fat target presents itself, and when the critic isn't just a critic but someone who's actually creating something pretty cool with his 100 Thing Challenge, why not?

re: advertising, affluence, consumption, kitchens, marketing

Andy:

KraftMaid makes cabinetry for various rooms of your house. I found an advertisement for their products in Southern Living magazine. The advertisement read, “Everyone has a personality. Shouldn’t your kitchen have one too?” You can see the TV commercial for this advertising campaign on their site.

Let’s shelve the moral question: Is it ever right to spend overindulgent amounts of money on a home kitchen? Instead let’s ask about the cost of any of the kitchens shown in the KraftMaid advertisements.

Of course, if we are honest, we should not only ask about the cost of the cabinetry, but also inquire into the cost of the whole package. The kitchens are “personalities” that reflect the personality (lifestyle) of the people featured in the ads. That hot woman in the skimpy dress eating that huge bowl of ice cream, well, obviously she has an expensive gym membership. And notice how she has enough fancy plates to serve everyone in her home owners association. The other couples are much the same. . . .

The cost of the kitchen cabinetry alone is beyond the financial means of most poor, middle class, and upper middle class Americans. But the cost of the lifestyle associated with the cost of the kitchen cabinetry - the whole cost of the “personality” - is beyond the financial means of pretty much all Americans, with the exception of a fraction of a percent of ultra wealthy individuals. And let me assure you, those ultra rich Americans who can afford these KraftMaid kitchens, trust me, they don’t read Southern Living.

Ah, the two-week gap between when this post was written and this week's financial scariness.

re: advertising, cultural worlds, economics, horizons of the possible, poverty, psychology

Nate:

The finding from our first study, that when you make people feel poor they play more, is especially sad since playing the lottery is on average a massively losing proposition. The propensity of low income individuals to play the lottery has the perverse effect of exacerbating their poverty. Although there are no easy solutions to the problem, one obvious one would be to cease marketing and advertising that targets the poor. It probably makes sense for the state to sell lottery tickets, because otherwise they will be sold by organized crime. However, does it really make sense for the state to be inducing, through advertising, poor people to play who wouldn’t play in the absence of such inducement?

Similarly, states could promote and offer more games that appeal to wealthier players, such as Powerball, and not those popular with poorer players, such as instant scratch-off tickets. Another obvious solution, though one that is even less likely to be implemented, would be for the state to increase the payout on the tickets, and perhaps to increase the number of moderate size prizes.

Finally, a third option would be for financial institutions to issue investment instruments that have lottery-like qualities (for example, offered in small amounts, available at many convenient points of purchase, provide a small chance of a large upside) but offer a positive rate of return, providing the pleasure of playing the lottery without the steep cost. In many other countries “prize bonds” or other savings instruments are available that pay lottery winnings in place of, or in addition to, regular interest. Regulations in the United States have stymied the development of such offerings.

Public health researchers worked with TV scriptwriters to see if viewers do, in fact, learn anything lasting about healthcare from watching Grey's Anatomy. A good portion of them do—good news for public health crusaders and advertisers alike.

re: advertising, changing the world, medicine, memory, public health

Nate:

The proportion of viewers who were aware that, with the proper treatment, there is more than a 90% chance of an HIV-positive woman having a healthy baby increased by 46 percentage points after the episode aired (from 15% to 61%). This includes 17% of respondents in the post-show survey who volunteered the specific response that the woman has a 98% chance of having a healthy baby—the statistic that was repeated several times on the show.

Six weeks after the episode aired, the proportion who gave the correct response had dropped to 45%, but was still substantially higher (by 30 percentage points) than it had been prior to the show. This time around, however, only 3% volunteered the specific fact that the woman would have a 98% chance of having a healthy baby.

Sometimes the medium does transcend the message. My friend Koranteng notes that the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko stands out among evil regimes for having produced a body of self-serving propaganda that people actually liked, even outside the country and after the fact: lots of very excellent sokous tunes. From the dispatch below, it sounds like the national tradition of ignoring the lyrics is alive and well.

re: advertising, africa, cultural worlds, government, horizons of the possible, music

Nate:

A French aid worker in Congo, Cabiau admits that he has trouble telling Werrason apart from Wazekwa, but that he’s “developed a taste for this joyous cacaphony.”

Lorsque les décibels s’affolent, impossible de rester assis. Si l’on se donne la peine de s’aventurer sur la piste, au milieu des miroirs et des déhanchements endiablés, on ne peut que succomber. On est alors entraîné dans des chorégraphies délirantes que tout bon kinois connaît sur le bout des doigts. C’est le feu. De la folie furieuse. C’est Kinshasa.

When the decibels reach a panic, it’s impossible to stay seated.  If make the effort to get out there on the dance floor, among the mirrors and the frenzy of swaying hips, you cannot help but give in.  You are led out into wild dance moves that every good kinois knows at the edge of his fingertips.  It’s on fire.  It’s madness.  It’s Kinshasa.

Cabiau also writes about the phenomenon of “libanga.”  Libanga is to Congolese music what product placement is to American film and television.  For a few thousand dollars, “a company, a brand of beer, a politicians, or an officer in the army” can see his name placed in a song.  Several dozen such paid shoutouts might be in a single song.  “Curiously, that doesn’t seem to bother many people,” Cabiau writes.