Term Paper: Media, Technology & Advertising

Liandra Pires

Prof. Strate

COMM 6090-81

Media, Technology & Advertising

            One of the main ideas in Marshall McLuhan’s book, Understanding Media, is that media are the extensions of man and they therefore increase and extend man’s power (Logan 20). The consequence of this is that the media creates new social patterns as they destroy older forms of culture. Because the media has the power to create new social patterns, the media becomes more important and influential than the content they carry. The medium through which we choose to communicate and advertise begins to hold more value than the message itself. This is why McLuhan made the claim that “the medium is the message.”

            The medium also changes the manner and effect of advertising campaigns regardless of the item being advertised. Media has evolved across a wide range of channels, from print, to radio, to television, to the Internet. As media has evolved, so has advertising. The Internet has had a radical impact on business models since the 1990s, including the rise of advertising on the Internet and social media. Advertisers can use many tools on the Internet to deliver their messages instantaneously. Although T.V. had traditionally been the most lucrative medium for advertising, because of the Internet, changes have had to be made in T.V. advertising to keep up with the evolution of advertising campaigns in the newer media.

            “We’re on the cusp of a media revolution to end all media revolutions. The new world will be ad funded” (Eric Picard 2006). Advertising on the Internet is very big business. Total worldwide advertising revenues in 2008 reached $65 billion or 10% of all advertising….the rate of growth is much greater for the Internet than it is for traditional mass media (Logan 156). The top sectors for advertising were technology, business, retail, finance, sports and leisure, travel, entertainment, home, health, and automotive (Logan 155).

            The Internet has become successful at advertising due to its use of targeted marketing, responding to individuals’ specific tastes, needs and desires. Because few if any products can satisfy the needs of all consumers, companies are developing different marketing strategies to satisfy different consumer needs. Since the Internet is interactive, it provides strong potential for increasing customer involvement and satisfaction and almost immediate feedback for buyers and sellers. Buyers have the ability to write reviews and rate products essentially giving the companies the ability to use consumers to advertise their products through these reviews.

            Google is very successful as a marketing medium. In 2008 annual ad revenue was approximately $21.6 billion. Google is able to target its advertising to where it is most relevant and where it will generate the most profit. It uses AI (artificial intelligence) and all of the other tools it has developed to make it the most successful search engine in the business (Logan 156). Not only is Google a great search engine, it is another way for advertisers to sell a service or a product to someone. Google will take a person’s search history and see what websites they have visited. When they go back to do another Google search, an ad will appear next to the search results with a product on a website that they have just visited.  Ads extend the psyche, as McLuhan stated: “The need is to make the ad include the audience. The product and the audience response become a single complex pattern” (Logan 153).

            Social media has changed the advertising environment forever. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have greatly changed the way people communicate and interact with one another. Therefore advertisers are using these social media to sell their products. They have a much broader range of people with whom they can interact and advertise to both nationally and internationally. 

            While membership is free, Facebook reported a profit of one billion dollars in 2011 by selling advertisements on their website. In February 2012, its long-anticipated “IPO” – initial public offering, or stock market launch-was expected to get Facebook at least five billion dollars in investment money from the public. “If Facebook were a nation, it would be the world’s third largest behind only China and India. Hundreds of new people join every hour,” Sally Deenan observed in Success magazine in April 2011 (Levinson 13). The ability to target audiences based on users’ social activities and their friends, is considered to be a major advantage over other media forms, attracting enough marketers to make Facebook the largest advertising website. Social media is more effective than Internet searches or banner ads in developing connections with the brand (Belch 493). For example, when someone goes on Facebook and ‘likes’ different brands, or companies, or products, they are essentially creating a message to the companies to let them know what they are interested in. Based on the information provided by the consumer, the advertisers can use that information to sell them something that they know the consumer likes. This is a clever way for advertisers to use personalized advertising to sell something to someone. They are also creating a groundswell of interest in these products and advertising to their “friends” that these products or services are something to be noticed. The people using social media become their own advertisements. They are doing the work for the marketing people. Coca-Cola, one of the most ‘liked’ companies on Facebook, has 82 million likes. Right now they are having a promotion for people to send their ‘soccer selfie’ to the opening match of the FIFA World Cup. Here is what Coca-Cola’s Facebook page looks like: https://www.facebook.com/cocacola.

            Twitter relies on venture capital and advertising, and is free to its reader/writer users. Twitter is the second fastest growing social medium, after Facebook. As of 2011, 3oo million people in the world have a Twitter account (Levinson 29). Companies like Samsung Mobile have 8.4 million followers as of now. Twitter has become Samsung’s go-to place to alert consumers about future Android app updates and new product and service launches. Here is what Samsung Mobile’s Twitter page looks like: https://twitter.com/SamsungMobile.

            YouTube, with an estimated annual revenue of $5 billion, created the market for short-form video. YouTube not only runs ads on its site but also offers revenue-sharing options to anyone who uploads a video that does not infringe on someone else’s copyright (Levinson 3, 4). YouTube is heavy on advertising, but not in the way you might think. YouTube has plenty of “stars.” Some even have audiences that rival cable TV in the young demographics.  According to Robert Kyncl, YouTube content chief, “YouTube creators build audiences of “superfans” gathered one by one” (Learmonth). Some of YouTube’s current stars are; Michelle Phan who has a fashion and beauty page, Rosanna Pansino who has a cooking show, and Bethany Mota who has a fashion page. These YouTube stars now also have a presence on TV commercials.

            Television has traditionally been the most lucrative advertising medium. In the past, if someone wanted to see their favorite show on T.V., they would be forced to sit through commercials. This was the perfect time for advertisers to showcase their newest products and convince their audience why they should buy them. Now, with newer technologies such as DVR’s, people have the ability to fast-forward through commercials. They may see no commercials at all if they are streaming a program or have bought a DVD. Therefore, television advertisers do not have the same access to audiences for their products as they did in the past. Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, stated “Traditional TV has too many ads and doesn’t serve consumers, because viewers want programs to start at a time that is convenient for their schedules, not at a time dictated to them (The New Yorker).” Another solution for TV is to have more live events which other providers don’t have and which attract higher advertising rates.

            Advertisers rely on attracting a large-enough audience to their programs to deliver their messages. According to How to Watch TV News, Neil Postman believes that the whole point of television in America is to get people to watch so that programmers, performers, and others can rake in the money (Powers, Postman 3). Advertisers spend a lot of money to find out what people are watching, along with every other bit of information they can get. The kind of knowledge that advertisers seek gives them power, and the more they know about someone, the easier it is to sell something to them.

            In order for advertisers to be successful on T.V., they have to spend a lot of money, create content and be able to tell a story. For example, the most memorable ads during the Super Bowl were ones that told a story such as the ‘Budweiser puppy love commercial’.  Anheuser-Busch is the Super Bowl's top sponsor. The beer giant has spent $149 million in the big game since 2009. Advertisers are also already taking advantage of creating programming with hour-long infomercials which seem like information but are, in fact, advertisements.

            The newest technology on T.V. is digitally streaming video services, such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Hulu.  Netflix has no commercials.  Its revenue derives entirely from subscription fees. Viewers pay a set fee of $8.00 a month in order to watch, uninterrupted, films and shows, whenever they want, on whatever device they want. Cable is no longer the only answer for viewers. At the moment, Cable offers more channels but Netflix is much cheaper. According to the Netflix website, Netflix is the world's leading Internet television network with over 44 million members in more than 40 countries enjoying more than one billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, including original series. This is the future of television but advertisers will have to figure out how to use streaming services to advertise their products.

            In 2007, the creators of Skype, announced their latest Internet-based service called Joost, which allowed a merger of the computer and the television set. The user downloads free software and can then browse the Internet for channels and select the shows that interest him or her. The business model is to sell advertising on this new medium for watching TV. The ads will not be universal as they are on regular TV, running only one minute per hour of programming. The ads will be targeted, making them more valuable to the advertiser (Logan 203).

            The fastest growing medium for advertising is the mobile phone. The large number of cell phone users (over 80 percent of the population), and the rapid adoption of smartphones like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Droid have created a wealth of new advertising opportunities. No other medium is as personal or interactive and constantly with the viewer as the cell phone. In addition, the variety of applications (apps) seems endless. There are apps for games, entertainment, finance, lifestyle, and social networking to mention just a few. Mobile ads can be delivered in the form of messages, banners, and full page ads, mobile search ads, mobile videos and mobile coupons. One of the most attractive characteristics of mobile for advertisers is the ability to target customers. Marketers can determine the user’s location, behavioral and demographic information, frequency of use, reach, and usage contexts (Belch 515).

            Advertisers will not be able to rely on time-tested advertising campaigns anymore, especially on television and the Internet.  They must even make adjustments to how they advertise in print media with the loss of readership of newspapers and magazines to digital devices. Advertisers must find new ways to advertise to cater to the “cyber” audience. With the host of technological advances in media, including the Internet, game consoles, mobile phones, tablets and other streaming devices and now the introduction of wearable media, such as Google glasses, Apple iWatches and Oculus Rift, advertisers will have to make a shift to conform to these new forms of media. Advertisers will have to be creative and figure out how to use the new technology to benefit their industry by finding new ways of delivering content to consumers.

             In the following commercial for Polar Beer, posted on YouTube, Brazilian beer makers, Polar, have attempted to rectify the social disengagement of people using their cell phones while in a bar by producing a signal-blocking beer holder, designed to discourage drinkers from checking their devices when in the company of friends.  It is offered to drinkers when they purchase a Polar beer. This commercial pits technology against technology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN7Fg0LWZsI

            Technology has given advertisers incredible opportunities to make advertising more creative and more profitable and has increased competition. It has helped small businesses grow, and helped to make giant corporations richer. Advertisers  have had to make greater use of new technology where consumers are in charge of their own destiny and have more freedom to choose what they want to view and ultimately buy. If Marshall McLuhan were alive today he would see that he has remained a major influence for marketing, advertising, and anyone trying to make sense of the relationship between society and technology. The impact of the medium itself is more significant than the content it carries. Each medium conveys a different message to its users. Each medium has developed specific ways of advertising as new technologies emerge and older forms of advertising may not work as well. Even though McLuhan criticized the advertising world, he acknowledged its increasingly important role in shaping society.

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