Rachael Bradley
42870593
Mas110 Online Essay
Over the past few
decades there has been a significant cultural shift in how people use media to
access information and entertainment. Traditional, or ‘old media’, has been
somewhat disregarded with the emergence of ‘new media’ platforms, demonstrating
a trend of convergence,
allowing for convenience and efficiency within modern day society. Convergence,
in its simplest form, allows consumers to access multiple services across
diverse platforms or devices (Dwyer, 2010). With this development of media
technology, advertising has also changed its traditional form/s to take
advantage of the opportunities new media has presented it with.
Current trends within society reflect how technology has
continued to enhance and change our individual lives as well as society as a
whole. New media can relate to the “cultural objects which use digital computer
technology for distribution and exhibition” (Manovich, 2001). With
the internet, television and smartphones being a part of everyday life, it
demonstrates how ‘new media’ has developed and flourished. As a result
of new media, people are able to communicate and express themselves online
through blogs and websites, as well as social media networks. This shift
towards digital culture or convergence can also be related to a ‘confluence
culture’. Reflecting the characteristics of convergence, a confluence is where
things “merge or flow together”. For media industries, this culture “is the
situation where traditional methods of work adapt to embrace the new reality of
interactive content” (Sheehan, Morrison, 2009). It allows agencies, as well as
consumers, to create ideas about and associate emotions with a brand, therefore
advertisers are able to thrive within this environment through new media
technologies.
Whether we notice it or not, most of the media we consume is shaped and
sustained by advertising. New media technologies have “radically multiplied the
spaces and opportunities for the production, distribution and consumption of
all types of media content” (Khakis, 2012). As a result of this, advertisers
have had to change their marketing strategies in order to adapt to these new
dynamics of media technology and consumer interest. With the shift from print
media to online, advertisers have developed numerous techniques as an
innovative means of reaching consumers.
Due to the success of search engines, such as ‘Google’ and ‘Yahoo!’
advertisers have developed search advertising. These advertisements are placed
on the search engine’s web pages and are targeted to match the words which the
consumer has typed into the search bar. Rather than targeting consumers, search
advertisers target search terms. Companies aren’t able to pay for their website
to be at the top of the search results but they can pay to have their ad at the
top or on the side of the results. For example, searching ‘car repairs Sydney’
on Google or ‘flower shops Sydney’ on Yahoo! presents the user with numerous
advertisements relating to cars and flowers respectively. This style of
‘targeted’ advertising is also found on social networking sites. Facebook uses
user profile information to generate their advertisements which show up on the
left hand side of the page. For example, an 18 year old female will be
susceptible to advertising featuring online shopping and weight loss programs.
The success and popularity of search advertising has meant that it is “the
largest, and one of the fastest growing segments of online advertising”
(Spurgeon, 2008). This form of convergence has allowed the “rapid emergence of
search engines” as a powerful and influential form media technology within
society’s new media.
With convergence allowing the shift from print media to online, companies
have created websites specifically for classified advertising. As people are
increasingly using the internet to access news and information, rather than the
newspaper, classified sections such as jobs and car sales have converted their
advertisements to an online format. Online classified advertising has been
operating since almost the start of the internet. In the mid-1990s, companies
generated “web-based services which systematically targeted the three major
classified advertising categories of employment, automobiles and real estate”
(Spurgeon, 2008). Online recruitment agencies such as ‘Seek’ allow for an
efficient, convenient and cheaper way through the employment process, as
employees and employers are able to assess each other with ease.
Advertising has become such a prominent feature within mass media that
other industries have now synchronised themselves with it in order to reach a
wider audience and generate more awareness of their brand or product. Branded content
aligns advertising and entertainment with the intention of presenting a form of
entertainment, which is highly branded. It is a marketing based strategy which
"contextualises brand images in ways that are appealing to customers” as
it associates a personal or emotional connection between the brand, product and
the consumer (Spurgeon, 2008). The term “Madison and Vine” refers to the
strategic alliance which has been created between the marketing and
entertainment industries. With the advertisers from New York struggling to be
innovative with new media, and the producers from Hollywood struggling
financially, came this collaboration of industries who discovered they could
help each other out; simply because “the advertisers had the money and the entertainment
companies had the creativity and the attention of audiences” (Donaton, 2007).
Demonstrating convergence, many of these branded entertainment campaigns
generally take the form of online videos. Through this medium, advertisers are
able to reach a wider audience and generate awareness of their advertisements
through an ‘online word-of-mouth’ approach, as consumers share the video
through their online social networks. This cost-effective and innovative
approach has demonstrated its popularity amongst new media advertising through
many successful campaigns. Blendtec’s ‘Will it Blend?’ campaign started in late
2006 with the hope of creating brand awareness for the then unknown company.
The 1.5-3 minute videos feature CEO Tom Dickson demonstrating the blender’s
strength and ability to blend objects such as iPhones, marbles, Nike sports shoes and a golf club
into hundreds of pieces or even ash. The comedy style commercials were an immediate
success, reaching 6 million views within the first five days of the campaign
launch (Snyder, 2012). Blendtec released the ads on the internet rather than
through traditional mediums as it was a “cost effective way to
demonstrate that Blendtec blenders are not your typical blenders” (Dickson,
2007). Blendtec’s viral video campaign is an example which proves the
effectiveness of branded entertainment as an advertising technique which has
adapted to new media and convergence.
As a result of the changing media
patterns within society, advertisers have adapted their marketing strategies to
collaborate with new media. They have taken advantage of convergence and
created innovative advertising campaigns to attract consumer attention and
influence their behaviours. With search advertising as the “flow of content
across multiple media platforms” and branded entertainment as “the cooperation
between multiple media industries” (Jenkins, 2006), advertising can directly
relate to convergence as it distributes content within new media boundaries in
order to be successful within this ever changing and developing technological
environment.
REFERENCES
Dickson, T 2007, “Will it Blend?, The interview with Tom
Dickinson, Squid News, viewed 24/08/12 <http://web.archive.org/web/20090914154032/http://www.squidnews.com/2007/02/09/will-it-blend-the-interview/>
Donaton, S 2007, ‘Madison & Vine: A Look Back, a Look
Ahead’, Advertising Age, 11 October
2007, viewed 25/08/12 <http://adage.com/article/madisonvine-case-study/madison-vine-a-back-a-ahead/121042/>
Dwyer, T 2010, ‘Media Convergence’, McGraw
Hill, Berkshire, p1-23
Jenkins, H 2006, ‘Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide’, New York University Press, New York
Khamis, S 2012, Week 4 Lecture
Slides: Advertising and New media, Macquarie University
Manovich, L 2001, 'The Llanguage of New Media', Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
Sheehan, K, Morrison, D 2009, 'Beyond Convergence: Confluence culture and
the role of the advertising agency in a changing world', First Monday, 14,
3
Spurgeon, C (2008) ‘Advertising and New Media’ Ozon Routledge, p24-45
Snyder B, 2012, Branded Entertainment? What is that?!, Quanti Studios, viewed
25/08/12
<http://quantistudios.com/what-is-branded-entertainment/>
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