Advertising in an Online Bi-Directional Communication World

 

Online advertising is inherently different from advertising in the old days.  The key difference is not so much the media, although that is very different, but in the nature of the media.  Old ads were one-way communication.  An advertising team put together a campaign and television radio, newspaper and billboards shared similar images and words to push a unified message forward.

 

Now advertising happens amid two-way communication, and we have added an extra variable, direct requests for feedback about the advertising – whether it is relevant, offensive, etc.  In a world of two-way communication, it almost becomes the consumer’s responsibility to create comments on other people’s content.  That becomes part of the content.  Many people spend far more time reading other people’s comments than they do the original content everyone else is commenting on.  This has created an interesting problem.  People are choosing to be offended, simply so that they have something to write about in the comments.

 

This used to be referred to as “flaming” back in the days of email LIST-SERVEs.  The idea was simple – send an email to the LIST-SERVE and it would replicate the email to every subscriber.  If there was a correction the proper protocol was to send a private email back to the original writer, but it was all too common to hit REPLY, which meant an automatic REPLY-ALL through the LIST-SERVE.  Then five more people would respond (to everyone) complaining about how private email was supposed to be used (while violating the rule to announce it to everyone) and that would be followed by complaints from people saying that all of these emails were filling up their inboxes and putting them over their monthly email limits (that used to be a thing) and could they please take the conversation off the LIST-SERVE.  That was usually where everyone else who was ready to comment decided to drop it and things would be quiet for a week.

 

Flaming happened, most often, when someone misread another person’s post.  They missed the negation or (too commonly) did not catch that it was satire (grin, snicker) and got all flustered about it (red eyes, burning tongue, hair on fire) so people started adding parenthetical information to help clarify (ha ha) if it was serious or not.  This caused the creation of emojis (seriously… it did). 

 

True flaming was easily identified BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS – WHICH HAD THE EMAIL EQUIVALENT OF SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF ONE’S LUNGS.  Unfortunately, new people to the LIST-SERVE might accidentally use ALL CAPS, or even intentionally do so because they thought it made the message easier to read.  Meanwhile, half the readers were ready to flame back in their explanation that ALL CAPS equals yelling, and they have enough yelling in their lives already and it really bothers them (sob) and could we keep it civil, etc. on the LIST-SERVE, please (sniff).

 

There were no ads, at first, on the LIST-SERVEs.  It was kind of an unwritten rule.  Then people got the wise idea that they could market relevant products to people on certain LIST-SERVES.  Maybe the people on a teaching sign language LIST-SERVE would want to know about new teaching materials – books and videos – that might come in handy next semester.  Some people appreciated these.  At least a few FLAMED BACK and people were left unsure how to proceed because the ads made sense, but they were not expected, there was no way to pay for them and the job of the LIST-SERVE moderator was born to weed out the flames and advertisements so that the conversations could get on with the point of the LIST-SERVEs – to share ideas and innovations from people with common interests.

 

To my knowledge, LIST-SERVES are no longer a thing.  Online communication has evolved and continues to evolve but two things remain true: 1) it is still two-way, no longer just one-way and 2) Flaming will never go away – choosing to be offended is the easiest way to have something to say in the comments.  This means that advertisement is also part of the two-way conversation, and no advertisement will go unpunished without someone choosing to be offended by it.

 

The most productive advertising today appears to be ads that are generated in response to information searches.  Two primary ways currently exist: paid sponsors of related content to the search have their websites identified at the top of the search results (usually with the disclaimer of being a “paid advertiser”) and the other is banner ads that appear at the top of the results page.  These are effective because the consumer is seeking information about the same topic.  Advertisements are one form of information that we now expect on the results page for a search.  Savvy consumers know the difference, but even they might benefit from ads related to their search.

 

Similar to ads that are created by search requests are the ads within certain platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, that may or may not be related to the content being viewed within the platform.  Some of these ads might be location based – where are you logged in and what paying advertisers are near you?  Many are tied to previous searches done within the platform, regardless of the current thread of content being viewed.  Regardless, there is some data being analyzed which results in certain ads being placed into the platform.  And of course, there are the opportunities to provide comments, especially for those who have chosen to be offended.

 

So now the question is whether the response to the advertisement deserves further responses or any action at all.  When Pepsi put an ad together that included police officers monitoring a social justice rally, the goal was to have a parallel image to the historic “flower power” photo but modify that image by handing out Pepsi products instead, making everyone happy and no one gets hurt.  People chose to be offended because it appeared to belittle the point of social protesting.  So, does that mean the point of a protest is that violence ensues, and people are hurt without good reason (just because someone chose to be offended?)  Pepsi should never have responded to the complaints except to (maybe) publish the famous “flower power” picture.

 

 

 

 

References

About Mailing Lists and LISTSERV. About mailing lists and Listserv. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.lsoft.com/manuals/16.0/htmlhelp/list%20subscribers/AboutMailingLists.html

Hall, B. (2022, February 17). 6 types of guerrilla marketing: Affordable but persuasive marketing tactics. ReferralCandy. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/guerrilla-marketing-tactics

Heitman, S. (2022, January 5). 6 terrific types of online advertising you need to try. LOCALiQ. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://localiq.com/blog/types-of-online-advertising/

Herhold, K. (2017, December 7). How consumers view advertising: 2017 survey. How Consumers View Advertising: 2017 Survey | Clutch.co. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://clutch.co/agencies/resources/how-consumers-view-advertising-survey-2017

Leswing, K. (2021, March 19). Apple's privacy change is poised to increase the power of its App Store. CNBC. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/19/apples-privacy-change-could-increase-the-power-of-its-app-store.html

Manjoo, F. (2010, August 6). The Joy of Listservs, one of the internet's earliest innovations, is still one of its best. Slate Magazine. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://slate.com/technology/2010/08/the-listserv-one-of-the-internet-s-earliest-innovations-is-still-one-of-its-best.html

Morrison, S. (2022, February 2). How technology is changing online advertising. business.com. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.business.com/articles/how-technology-is-changing-online-advertising/

Pogue, S. (2019, February 19). 12 bad ads and marketing failures to learn what not to do. Workzone. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.workzone.com/blog/bad-ads/