This time, it was a television commercial for a community college targeted toward adults who want to go back to school. The purpose of the college, Cortiva Insitute, was to train adults returning to school in practical job related fields such as massage therapy.
The target market of this advertisement is most likely adults who are either unsatisfied with their jobs, have recently lost their jobs, or who have never been employed. The MTV audience, however, is traditionally made up of young people who are not yet ready to consider a professional career. Though an advertisement for a four-year college seeking high school students or students who had recently graduated might be appropriate for this audience, a commercial targeting adults who want to move on with their careers is not. By advertising on MTV, the marketing planner choose to advertise to an audience too young and too inexperienced with the work world to desire going back to school or moving up in their careers.
Because the commercial was aired during the daytime, however, the marketing planner may have assumed a target audience -- the unemployed -- would be watching the program. The marketing planner may have noted that unemployed people are often home during the day while others are at work or school. Because this advertisement is targeted toward those who do not have jobs or want to improve theirs, this may have been a motivation for the marketing planner.
But misplaced advertisements T.V. And in magazines have just scratched the surface of the bulk of misplaced advertisements. The Internet has become a social, political, and information highway, in addition to a haven for advertisement. Companies can now market their products and services on the web and reach far more consumers than they would if advertising in a traditional media outlet, but misplaced advertising still occurs. For example, the popular social networking...
In fact, the site was open first to college students, then to high school students, and only recently became available for everyone to host a page. Many Facebook users were unhappy about the change, and though the site now allows anyone to join, the community still caters primarily to students.
For this reason, most Facebook advertisements seek people who want to loose weight, volunteer in Africa, make quick cash, and express their views politically. One ad, however, stands out among the rest -- a baby photo contest. The Great American Photo Contest, a baby contest and referral program, is the only advertisement on the site's ad board that has to do with children. The ad is obviously geared toward parents with children, and though students with children surely exist, most college students would not be interested in the advertisement. Although the marketing planner probably knew the site was geared toward students, he or she placed the ad in order to attract the non-students who are beginning to use Facebook, although that target market is not yet very large.
From magazines, to television, to the wide world of the Internet, advertisements are a way of life for consumers and marketing planners worldwide. Most advertisements are targeted toward specific audiences, but some seem to be misplaced. Through these examples of the phenomenon, one can assume that marketing planners may have reasons to place their ads in media outlets that seem inappropriate to the product or service being marketed, but consumers may still be baffled by the ad's presence.
References
Honda Fit, Honda. The Fit Is Go! Advertisement. Game Informer. June 2008: 81
Unknown. (2008). Ad Board. Facebook. Retrieved May 30, 2008, from: http://www.facebook.com/ads/adboard/.
Cortiva Institute. Advertisement. MTV. May 30, 2008.
