Ads, Ads, Everywhere!!

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does” – Steuart Henderson Britt

As someone with a marketing degree, I was taught years ago there is advertising everywhere.  Literally everywhere! 
Many people simply think of advertising as television and radio commercials, ads in magazines and newspapers, billboards and internet advertisements, but it's much deeper than that.  One of the ways marketers "discretely" advertise to consumers is through product placement.  

In laymen's terms, product placement is the promotion of branded goods and services within the context of a show or movie (or even personal videos) rather than as an explicit advertisement. When you see a product or service appear in a TV show, or in a motion picture, the company behind it has usually (but not always) paid for their brand to appear on screen or on the radio.  

So, let's say you are watching a movie with several chase scenes in it.  Have you noticed how there is typically one type or brand of car being used throughout the entire movie?  And chances are, that car company has paid big bucks to have only their cars used in the movie.   Or it might be a game show, such as The Price is Right, where product placement is basically the focus of the show, because contestants bid on the products and play games based on brand and assumed value of the products.  

Having already been aware of product placement, it's not something I put too much thought into until the other day, when reading about it again for class.  I have even learned a couple interesting facts that I didn't already know:

• This is another way filmmakers earn more money from their films.  I guess this makes sense.  Filmmakers have been working with marketers and companies of some of the world's largest brands for many years.  When the movie is successful, then the brand used typically makes money.  The filmmaker will usually work out a deal to get a percentage based on the product featured in their film or show.

• Product placement started long ago, far longer than most people realize.  Hershey's used product placement in the Best Picture Oscar winner in 1927, a silent film called Wings.  They put a chocolate bar in view during the movie, making them the first company to use product placement in film.  

Example of Poor Ad Placement

Typically, product placement is used by marketers as positive advertisement to consumers.  Although it can sometimes be annoying, especially if the product is displayed or promoted repeatedly throughout whatever you are watching, it can also turn out to be funny when marketers' poor product placement backfires on them.  I've often wondered if ads (see example of poor ad placement to the right) is just a bad judgment call, or someone's idea of twisted humor.  Whatever the case may be, poor ad placement can often be rather hilarious, crude, disgusting, and even unethical depending on how you look at it.  But if you can look at most of them with a sense of humor, they can really make you laugh!      

But not all advertising involves products though.  Political advertisements are typically positive or negative messaging, not both.  The days of political ads that simply talk about policy and how the candidate is the "best person for the job" are pretty much a thing of the past.  Negative advertising or "attack ads" have become very popular in politics, especially in the last several major elections. But did you know attack ads have been around in politics for more than 2000 years?  I always thought attack ads didn't make a difference to voters, because naively, I guess I figured that the majority already had their mind made up regardless of what an advertisement said about someone on television or the radio, etc.  Apparently, I was wrong.  Jacob Burak, founder of Alaxon Magazine explains: 

Negative events affect us more than positive ones. We remember them more vividly and they play a larger role in shaping our lives. Farewells, accidents, bad parenting, financial losses and even a random snide comment take up most of our psychic space, leaving little room for compliments or pleasant experiences to help us along life’s challenging path. The staggering human ability to adapt ensures that joy over a salary hike will abate within months, leaving only a benchmark for future raises. We feel pain, but not the absence of it.

I guess this makes sense if you think about it.  When you have a bad experience at a restaurant or store, how many people do you tell?  Many people don't even wait until they leave the place before they are online posting their negative review to Yelp or the restaurant's website or Facebook page, etc.  But how many people do you tell if you have a good experience?  They say the average person tells approximately 10 people or friends when they have a bad experience but they might tell 1 or 2 when they have a good one.  What does this say about us as human beings?  We thrive on negativity.  And who am I to judge because I am completely guilty of this myself.  People try to pretend they are not one of the "victims" of the negative political advertisements, that they haven't been duped.  Their candidate is not capable of such negative messaging.

When pollsters show negative ads to focus groups, they reflexively scorn them. Then when we ask if the group participants would vote for the subject of a negative ad, they typically say no and cite the facts from the ad. 

If people want politics without the negativity, mudslinging and wrapped in pretty bows - good luck!  Because political advertisements are only going to get worse.  

At the end of the day, the good old days of advertising your products in the newspaper, magazines and commercials during your favorite prime-time programs is slowing becoming obsolete.  Viewers have the ability to DVR programs so they can fast-forward through commercials and print media is slowly becoming a thing of the past as the internet has made news, communication and entertainment much more affordable and accessible.  So marketers have just had to get a little more creative in order to reach consumers.      

    “Creativity without strategy is called art, creative with strategy is called advertising”    – Prof. Jef L. Richards