How Changes in Technology Affects Advertising

¶ … Technology Affects Advertising

The world has changed and it seems obvious that it will continue to change. Businesses today need to please both shareholders and customers and the only way they will be able to do that is to also change. In other words, in order to meet growth, quality and social expectations, organizations will have to continuously reinvent themselves in order to capture new and future business opportunities. In this highly global and technologically advanced business environment, traditional methodologies need to be reevaluated. It is no longer acceptable to perform or initiate business, marketing or advertising ventures in a 'business as usual' manner. The bar keeps being raised as new expectations and standards are set. This line of reasoning has affected many aspects of our lives because new technologies dictate media choices such as print and television. This report therefore aims to present three ways in which change in technology affected media types in advertising.

The objective of this paper is to show how new products or services and the advertising mediums will change because of changes in technology over the course of the next ten years. For example, in the realm of advertising and marketing, traditional means have mostly become or will eventually become outdated. New approaches and methodologies will emerge and prove to be more effective. In the past if I were to have chosen a Ford Mustang to advertise, I would most likely have used very different approaches to getting the word out. But technology today has changed that way of thinking -- consider three innovations and their effect on marketing a car. The innovations are:

TIVO

Databases

the Internet

TIVO has shown that consumers no longer watch television commercials if they do not have to and databases and the internet have provided cheap, highly reliable, interactive communications opportunities for businesses.

Successful communication will always be an essential part of business success and the majority of all business success revolves around attracting and retaining customers. "It is well recognized that a key issue in gaining brand awareness, trial, and subsequent loyalty is to reflect deep-seated values in advertising and augmented product offerings. When marketers address consumer values, target consumers sense that the product's purpose is to benefit their individual lives." (Durgee, O'Connor, and Veryzer) So, if communication is such an instrumental part of marketing and advertising strategies, the modern and future ways of doing things will be to personalize that communication through direct mail, Word of Mouth and internet marketing. The traditional means of radio, television, magazine and newspaper advertisements are being left behind because they can not focus on personalized messages to consumers.

Today, customized and individually-tailored marketing and advertisement efforts are necessary in order to justify the marketing efforts as well as the Return on Investment. Companies today have resources that companies of the past could only dream about -- existing database technology for example has enhanced and personalized marketing strategies which has allowed a move away from the phenomena of mass-marketing. Today, customers have an expectation that only their needs will be met and database marketing is the key component that allows for this way of thinking. Companies have the luxury of housing data on almost every single customer that has ever inquired or purchased a product or service from them and they can buy information on the rest. This information has become a gold mine in the information era as companies now utilize their vast amounts of information to complete focused data-base marketing campaigns that help capture market-share and better service customer bases.

Database technology makes it possible to evaluate existing and new customer's value and basically score them. This in turn will allow companies to create listings of more valuable customers or customers who could potentially become valuable through cross selling opportunities. Companies would also be able to service customers better and to create select target-markets for specific products such as blue Mustangs as opposed to red ones. Statistical analysis of a calculated customer's life-time value greatly enhances a company's ability to calculate potential new markets, target-groups and new products all within the company's existing database structure.

New database-marketing campaigns save time, resources and money while pinpointing marketing and advertising efforts in a precise manner. This will continue to increase customer satisfaction and therefore improve business performances. Once specific customers are chosen as valid buyers of blue Mustangs, they will then be able to go the internet to order their customized car on a webpage. This type of personalized service will alter the way products are made and the way they are sold.