Let me tell you a bit about my father. He worked in advertising for 30 years, now in this business that's a long time... like surviving to be 80 during the years of the black plague. Most advertising agencies want to constantly bring in new blood to keep things fresh as the last thing you want is for your adds to blend into the background of blandness. The fact my father lasted so long showed he had a profound understanding in how to appeal to the masses, want to know the secret?
Start a cult. Or at least make your consumers feel like they're in one.
When you make your product feel more like a community, your consumers will be more willing to depend entirely on your one product. You can even see this sort of thing in the video game console market. I'm sure I don't need to go into the way some gamers fight for their desired console and why it's better than the others. How do companies do this? By making xbox users part of a "community", same with the playstation cult.
Now there's a new method over the horizon, or at least from what I can see coming.
You want to know what scares the shit out of advertisement companies? The power for us, the viewers, to avoid adds all together. When I record a television show, I can play it whenever I want and can fast-forward through the adds. This terrifies companies so they've been trying to come up with plans to make sure we can't skip their "informative offers." You know how they've started putting adds at the start of certain youtube videos that you have to watch before the video you want loads? Well I'm sure you simply do what I do and mute the volume and do something else. But now they're trying something new.
To make sure you absolutely can not skip their advertisments, some video streaming programs require you to perform some action on the screen to continue. It wouldn't surprise me that this strategy will become more widespread in a matter of years, but I'm curious, what do you dear reader, think?
Is this the simple, unavoidable outcome of advertising we simply have to clench our teeth and deal with? Could it possibly spread from the internet into television itself some day? Or am I simply overreacting and these companies would never do this?
Start a cult. Or at least make your consumers feel like they're in one.
When you make your product feel more like a community, your consumers will be more willing to depend entirely on your one product. You can even see this sort of thing in the video game console market. I'm sure I don't need to go into the way some gamers fight for their desired console and why it's better than the others. How do companies do this? By making xbox users part of a "community", same with the playstation cult.
Now there's a new method over the horizon, or at least from what I can see coming.
You want to know what scares the shit out of advertisement companies? The power for us, the viewers, to avoid adds all together. When I record a television show, I can play it whenever I want and can fast-forward through the adds. This terrifies companies so they've been trying to come up with plans to make sure we can't skip their "informative offers." You know how they've started putting adds at the start of certain youtube videos that you have to watch before the video you want loads? Well I'm sure you simply do what I do and mute the volume and do something else. But now they're trying something new.
To make sure you absolutely can not skip their advertisments, some video streaming programs require you to perform some action on the screen to continue. It wouldn't surprise me that this strategy will become more widespread in a matter of years, but I'm curious, what do you dear reader, think?
Is this the simple, unavoidable outcome of advertising we simply have to clench our teeth and deal with? Could it possibly spread from the internet into television itself some day? Or am I simply overreacting and these companies would never do this?
?
