Online Advertising and Internet Marketing

Social Media and Modern Advertising

Q1. Limited Budget

I think so-called good old-fashioned advertising is indeed a thing of the past. First, the online marketplace is far more crowded than it was previously, not only with offered goods and services but also with messages about various products. To get seen and heard requires more than a catchy jingle or slogan. It requires building a relationship with consumers. A good example of this are companies which have engaged consumers over Twitter, creating edgy and snarky voices for respected brands like Wendy’s and MoonPie.

But even a marketer with a limited budget can thrive in the online marketplace of ideas by forging a respected brand image and cultivating influencers on Instagram and TikTok to create buzz about the product. In fact, many of these seemingly more organic forms of marketing generate greater trust in the much-coveted younger consumer demographic, because they do not seem like obvious forms of advertising, but appear sincerely generated out of interest.

As noted in Chapter 19, personal selling can be a powerful tool. Being promoted by individuals who do not seem to have an apparently self-interested connection with the brand can be an important part of generating such trust. Although awareness and knowledge, as also noted in the textbook, are very important to generate interest, so is the idea of liking a brand. Liking the consumer who uses the brand can likewise generate interest.

The segmentation permitted by Facebook, Google Ad Words, and other techniques to enhance targeted advertising can enable small companies selling unique goods to specific target demographics to reach those consumers more effectively, perhaps just as effectively as larger brands deploying more traditional forms of advertising. Online advertising can also be relatively low in cost, compared with print and television advertising, and can offer brands an instantaneous feedback loop about what ads are high-performing and which ads are low-performing.

Q2. Love/Hate

Advertising can annoy viewers, because it is a propaganda tool explicitly created to prey upon our weaker impulses—fear, desire, shame, a craving for social status. It can be like a nagging voice, telling us what to do, that all the convictions we have about our lack of self-worth are accurate (we are too fat, have zits, need a new car, need a new phone, and so forth). Advertising tries to be memorable to stimulate a purchase, rather than to be art. It is designed so consumers will think about the product immediately when the consumer is in the store or clicking a link. Even if the ROLAIDS advertisement was irritating, generations of people thought of the slogan when making the impulse purchase of an antacid made it an effective advertisement.

Advertising can also craft an image for products that do not have to do with those products’ essential attributes but rather with the image the target consumer wishes to attain. For example, alcoholic products and fast foods are a good example of this, because the mass-produced tastes of beer and vodka and different burgers are not particularly different between brands. But advertising can ensure certain images are associated with those products and thus be very compelling. This was the case with Absolut Vodka, but also Budweiser versus Miller beers, as well as McDonald’s Big Mac versus Burger King’s Whopper.

When there are powerful associations given to products because of advertising, people may become nostalgic and even fond of the ads, as they are of the Budweiser Clydesdales. When products become part of consumer’s lives and identities, so do the ads that helped forge those identities.

Even when the advertisements are memorable, and do not irritate, however, there is a limit to which advertising can convince people to purchase products they do not want. New Coke is a good example of this. Coca-Cola had built so much of its brand identity upon consistency. An advertising campaign could not convince people to change their deeply held conviction in the quality of the original product. But that was many years ago, and the marketplace was less crowded. People are consuming less soda, for example, because of health concerns and also because there are so many other products to compete with Coke.

I would disagree that advertising today lacks creativity. In fact, I would suggest that the need to use social media and more organic forms of online word-of-mouth has, in fact, made it more rather than less creative. On the other hand, since online advertising is much more interactive, this may make it more imperative for companies to invest more into creating excellent products and services that deliver upon their promises. As anyone knows, an unpleasant experience with a product can generate a great deal of social media outrage and blowback online. A catchy slogan is not enough, given the continual feedback loop which exists between brands and online consumers.

Q3. Online Advertising: Boom or Bust

Particularly for smaller companies, online advertising is a boon. It enables companies with tiny marketing budgets to reach consumers all over the world and to target them with effective ads. Online advertising’s role in leading to direct sales via a point and a click is also much easier to measure than with traditional advertising campaigns. On the other hand, it can force companies to remain monitoring their social media 24/7, in case there are complaints. Effective social media requires professionalism and special skills that can seem easy to replicate, but may challenge a brand which is more focused upon doing business than posting on Twitter and Instagram. Relegating social media and monitoring online advertising to someone without expertise, such an administrative assistant or an intern, may not be feasible. Larger companies have more resources to devote to a diversified staff.

There is also the concern that a meltdown on social media because of a poorly worded post may cause controversy that has nothing to do with the quality of the product or service itself. Finally, just as companies can use organic virtual marketing to promote themselves, companies may also be the victims of slander campaigns, or people who gain a great deal of traction in posting negative reviews that are not genuinely credible. It can be costly to attempt to fight this with more advertising. Add into this the expense of tracking advertisement performance and using SEOs wisely in online content, as well as maintaining an active website, for some companies online advertising may simply be an added burden.

Q4. MasterCard Priceless Campaign

It is very unusual for an advertising campaign to be as durable as the MasterCard Priceless Campaign, particularly given the high level of competition which exists for credit cards. Part of the reason for this is because MasterCard touches upon certain universal themes, such as the need for love, connection, and belonging. The MasterCard baseball advertisement posted in YouTube from 2007 depicts a boy and his father going to a baseball game, lists the various items they purchase over the course of the game, but then notes that the conversation they have is priceless. It is difficult to watch without growing teary-eyed.