Media, marketing and advertisment - Research Paper Example

?Introduction Just like money, advertisements and media in general make the world go round. This cannot be truer especially with the fact that consumers would not be aware of product and services’ availability, content and usage. This is how advertising and marketing are important. Increasingly however, with the changing media and the ever emerging options, media plays a crucial role when making marketing and advertisement decisions (AMS 2011). Technological advancement has necessitated changes in media technology as well. Marketing scholars and thinkers alike have thus been deliberating profoundly on the need to understand the morphological advancement in media industry. This is more compounded in the fact that marketers have increasingly stated that with advancement in advertising, the level of copying by target audience or consumers need to be scrutinized. This is given that some pundits have constantly argued that consumers tend to be inexperienced with technology (AMS 2011). It is increasingly clear that a consumer in the modern world is exposed to a number of choices emanating from adverts and marketing. This comes with a number of dimensions as we live in a postmodern world and attempt at building a culture of consumers being the driver of decisions and processes that manufacturers and distributors engage in. Postmodernism as an age and a phenomenon had increasingly bore the greatest responsibility as far as consumerism is concerned. In the United Kingdom for instance, a number of departmental stores have cropped up in response to consumerism (Hincliffe 2009). Hincliffe (2009) again notes that one of the escalating habits nowadays is that with the arrival of convenience stores, people spend a great deal of their money shopping in supermarkets and the decisions they make have to do with adverts they see in the media, whether mainstream or otherwise. On average in the USA, most people consume 275 pounds of meat which is quite a high margin and this is attributed to advertisement regarding this commodity. Further, according to him, there is an average of one passenger car for every two people in the US, One passenger car for about three people in Europe and one passenger car for 49 people in the developing countries. Overall, the argument that consumer society is driven by choices or that it drives choices as far as consumption of goods and services are concerned must be examined in a number of ways. These should include understanding what consumer society is all about, the features of the Consumer Society, the drivers of Consumer Society as it is today with advertisement and phenomenon e.g. technologies like the internet, and other gadgets used nowadays by people all of which ensure that consumers purchase more and more. This paper focuses on the advertising and promotion within the context of media, taking into account consumerism as a recent phenomenon which has necessitated consumption landscape and other market changes. It focuses on overall view of advertisement and zeroes on the forms of media other than the traditional media technology. Advertising as a Promotion and Marketing tool: Overall View Advertising is considered to be a central part of marketing and distribution mechanism of a variety of goods and by large, creation of choices in a consumer society today. This is more because, it is mostly propagated by the media. Even though advertising is relatively new as a profession, its effects beat those of religion and education in shaping public view and perception. In the United States for instance, the money spent annually on advertisement outsmarts the total public expenditure on natural resources, higher education and police protection combined. Usually if one goes to a departmental store the goods they see displayed are often correlated with adverts they have seen either on billboards, in the media (print and otherwise) and this aids in decision making (Hincliffe 2009). Today, advertising is seen as quite crucial in promoting the Consumer Society. The argument is that it springs off data about services and goods that are in the market or which are soon to be available in stores. Beyond this, it is important in appealing to people’s distinct values, emotions, desires, fantasies as well as their needs while touching on practical reality. The centrality is that they are “selling the joys of buying, upholding the idea that purchasing things is in itself a pleasing mania” (Hincliffe 2009). Forms of Media in Advertising and Marketing A part from the mainstream traditional media-Radio, Television and Print, there are now other mediums of communication that marketers and advertisers are employing. E-Marketing and Advertisement through media: Overall Overview Electronic marketing as an advertisement mode is now being used by a number of organizations with an increasingly profound impact on trade and marketing communication. This is more so due to the advent of global trade and need for convenience (Albee 2009; Fox 2000). Broadly, e-marketing is tailored around a number of aspects. These are often mandatory and are classified into analytical, customer relationship management and communication in the marketing plan. Communication actions include pop-up ads, immersive advertising and email newsletters. In doing so the adverts seek to ensure that frequent inquiries about a company or products and services are addressed. These questions may include where are the products are found, what quantities are available and so on. Analytics on the hand often times involve optimization of the search engines to respond to demands for enhanced impact and many times it entails shaping up the content to increase its ranking in the search engine (Goldenburg 2003). The other advantage of e-commerce and advertising is tailored around the traditional methodologies of communication and marketing strategies and therefore complementary in many ways (Nicholson 2002). This makes its adoption less expensive. Indeed, internet has changed businesses significantly for instance in enhancing interactive technology which in literal sense predominantly takes the mainstream part and parcel of marketing and shopping. This is with the advent of the consumer society. In a nutshell, it significantly minimizes physical walk that people would take in shopping and seeking of goods and services. Even though some arguments against the percentage of the number of people seeking online marketing and shopping is incredibly low, the number of business entities that have adopted e-marketing and advertising are many across the world. Social Media and Advertising: Advantages and Bottlenecks The modes and medium of communication in marketing and advertising in particular have changed and mutated overtime. The current information age can be rightly called the “Renaissance Age of Technology and Information”. Internet in particular has hugely changed society and more so in relation to marketing and advertising of goods and services. Nielson (2000) attributes this to subjective satisfactory usability of the internet in relation to social media marketing. He however recognizes that much as these media and modes have influenced how people communicate in the business environment and in conveying messages about particular goods and services today there has emerged unintentional and unforeseen problems as well. This is largely due to ‘misuse’ and ‘overuse’ of the Internet in today’s working environment and at personal level. Misuse is seen in the way some people choose to have fun at the work place. Some people use emails and social media for their entertainment value more than the intended advertisement value in them. This has generally been the trend among many social network users for example Facebook. Beyond this, email communication has some other bottlenecks. One such is to do with Libel litigation. Joyner (2006) observes that businesses can be held liable for the e-mails or internet adverts that their employees execute especially when they contravene policies and regulation of governments or when they are of damaging nature. Krug (2000) also affirms this rather differently by observing that many companies have undergone legal implications as a result of an employee’s misuse of the internet marketing. Secondly, companies or businesses lose a great deal of money and productivity in the process of personalized social networking. This happens when they surf the internet to read such adverts thereby eating up on working time. Krug (2000) reinforces this when he says that this issue presents a managerial dilemma to seniors in many organizations. The multibillion dollar question should therefore be (according to him): How much should employees be allowed to use the internet for their personal reasons, even reading adverts, during working hours? Then there’s the problem of overuse of such adverts especially when they are portrayed in social sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The misuse of the internet and e-mail includes many things such as an over-dependence on these media to communicate, engaging in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and general cyber-loafing and sometimes sending inappropriate e-mails and downloading copyrighted advertisement materials without paying for them. The other disadvantage is in relation to work in organizations where productivity is seen to drop with many man hours lost in browsing social sites. Joyner (2006) observes that employees in the US spend about 20% of working time in social media, whether of advert nature or for personal fun and communication. Fifth, there is the looming danger of unintentional publicity and disclosure in such advertisement endeavors. There’s the tendency of not using it appropriately, because social networking is still, relatively, a new method of marketing communication. Jackson (2003) claims that conveying such messages to the wrong recipients is commonplace and sometimes result in one exposing important and confidential information about the company that goes a long way to harm its business. Lastly, use of social networking adverts brings about ‘Losing the Benefits of Face-to-Face Communication’’ Krug (2000). Krug also describes social network advertisement as been “ambivalent, hybrid, multivalent and even ambiguous”. He profoundly asserts that this is due to the fact that situational cues, which are important in communication, are often ignored. In sum, it appears that while the world of digital citizenry has insurmountable advantages to be written about, some dilemmas especially in the work place must be recognized. This is especially tailored around Internet and e-mail use and addiction which have serious implications on organizations. Thumbnail Media Planner Based on the foregoing concerns, a number of solutions have been advanced, including the use of thumbnail media planner. Thumbnail Media planner synchronizes many sources of media information, that is to say media survey and studies. It has been associated with convenience on a number of fronts. This is more because the information is converged into one package, with one reference and size where it conveniently fits into the pocket. It is indeed a shortcut gadget retooled for more convenient planning. It is a media plan guide which enables one to fast track exploratory media plans. This means that it ultimately saves time since you can erase pieces of information which are no longer useful. Further, one is able to give responses to questions that come up in meetings quite promptly (Chaffew 2006). It appears that this technology; the new Thumbnail Media planner provides an avenue for advertising for the mainstream media. Regardless of one’s line of interest, regardless of the specific industry, it is imperative to be aware and be informed about the right applications to use and the current media trends. Further, one ought to have a media plan that does not provide one with dead ends. As such it is crucial to choose a media guide which is convenient and takes little time thereby enabling one to make rough sketches of media plans within a short time (AMA 2011). Conclusion This paper draws a number of conclusions. First is that Consumerism and Consumer Society are driven by choices and it is a phenomenon that cannot be shaded off in the near future. Instead, it will continue and mutate it terms and its causality as well as manifestations. Media advertising and marketing is part of the expansive set of social factors that influence, propel and maintain our tastes as well as attitudes when it comes to buying or consumption of items or services. Secondly, the world of digital citizenry presents both advantages and bottlenecks. This is especially tailored around internet advertisement which has serious implications on organizations both positive and negative. The challenge therefore is to mitigate the latter by applying appropriate strategies. Thirdly, as Albee (2009) observes, internet usage presents an incredible opportunity to shape and enhance marketing component in businesses. The template design for e-marketing, he argues, places team managers and heads of various organizational departments at a vantage point to market their services or products with scientific back-up that fosters planning and analysis of e-marketing tools and promotions that they get involved in. References AMS 2011, Improve your media and marketing decisions with the Thumbnail Media Planner. AMS. Albee, A 2009, E-Marketing Strategies for the complex marketing, Interaction Inc. Chaffew, G 2006, Total e-marketing: Maximizing your results from integrated e-marketing, Bulling-ton, Elsevier Limited. Goldenburg, L 2003, E-Marketing and CRM, Prentice Hall. Hincliffe, T 2009, Making social lives. Fox, S 2000, Next Generation Marketing Strategies for Making millions Online. New York. AMACON. Hoffman, D 1995, Commercial Scenarios for the web: Opportunities and challenges, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. Jackson, T 2003, Understanding e-mail interaction increases organizational productivity. Communications of the ACM. Joyner, T 2006, Internet marketing, New York Times. Krug, S 2000, Don’t make me think: A common sense Approach to Web Usability, Sage. Nielson, J 2000, Designing web usability, New Riders. Read More