This week's entry attempts to discuss the evolution of advertising, from the humble origins to the present day. When advertising was first created, it took the form of pages in newspapers or magazines, or posters. This isn't terribly efficient, as the advertising was not tailored to people's interests or tastes. As a result, the advert will be witnessed by people who are not interested in the product or service advertised. John Wanamaker, a merchant in the 1870's once said "I know half my advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half."
Nowadays, advertising can be tied together with the audience with make your own advert competitions, or submitting a question as part of an ad campaign. The idea is that some products thrive from the input of the general public, but this can sometimes backfire, as the commands given to the Burger King Chicken gradually got ruder and sillier. An advantage in involving audiences in advertising is that there is less chance of disasters such as McDonalds accidentally encouraging sexual relations with their burgers in the "I'd hit it" campaign. For anyone wondering, McDonalds was aiming for a "younger, hipper" audience. Clearly, the advertising agency didn't know that "I'd hit it" was a slang term for sex until the campaign was ridiculed by the very audience they wanted to attract.
Source: Digital Advertising (2009) McStay, A, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
