A new revelation has come to my attention recently in class- ad blocking. So apparently this is a thing, and after researching it, it indeed is a thing! This particularly affects me because I recently have taken up the show Dance Moms on Lifetime (I know, embarrassing), and since their website www.mylifetime.com streams the show for free, of course there are advertisements. Let me tell you how annoying they are- they play the same three ads over and over again, this morning I actually woke up singing one of them. Anyway, as soon as I heard about the ad blocking amazingness, I downloaded it immediately. Oddly enough, there is a three-way relationship between advertising, user affordance, and digital content. An example of this would be, a user going on Youtube to look up a video on how to bake a cake. Before the user can watch this video, they have to watch a fifteen second advertisement for Pillsbury. Now, with this ad blocker, the user doesn't have to sit through this ad. Well, companies are not very happy about having their well paid ads blocked by users so they can actually watch what they want to watch. So, what do companies do about this? Well, the obvious thing I can think of is product placement. Product placement is when a company sponsors a movie/tv show in return for their logo or their product to be featured in the movie/tv show. Sometimes you don't notice it, but if you're paying attention, it's blatantly obvious. The reason for doing this is so that the user is unconsciously brainwashed into wanting to purchase their products. It's pretty messed up if you think about it. I was watching Inkmaster on Netflix last week, and Netflix doesn't have any ads, so I was thinking that I wouldn't have to see any advertisements during the show. Wrong. Apparently Inkmaster is sponsored by Monster, which makes energy drinks, because as the people were getting tattooed, the tattoo artist would take a sip of a can of Monster; the logo was always so conveniently pointed right at the camera. An article from the Los Angeles Times proposes that Netflix's original series 'House of Cards' should actually be called 'House of Product Placement". Since it's an original show from Netflix, you would think that they would refrain from doing this, since they do pride themselves on no ads. I guess they just couldn't help themselves. This is how advertising companies get to the user, even when the user takes all precautions against them. It's like a game of chess, you move your pawn and get an ad blocker, and they check mate by sticking ads inside your digital content.
Fleischer, Matthew. "'House of Cards,' or More like House of Product
Placement?" Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 03 May 2013.
Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
--Marissa
In today’s digital age consumers have become desensitized to traditional advertising such as TV commercials, print, and banner ads just to name a few. During the mid 90s banner ad click through rates were at 3%, in the early 2000s dropped to .5%, and in 2010 hit a low of 0.1% (Vanyerchuck, p.25). Corporations have been shifting their ad budgets significantly from these old marketing strategies to creative internet based digital solutions. In just the last few years, we have seen a surge in advertising across streaming platforms, social media sites, and even news websites. While some of these ads appear to be similar to that which we see on TV, most of the time they are actually quite unique. Using browsing data, click history, purchase history, and thousands of algorithms, data mining companies like Google and Facebook sell this information to advertisers to create targeted advertising towards the individual consumer. While a targeted YouTube ad might seem more effective than a traditional TV ad, click through rates are still relatively low. As Marissa described in her post, consumers have found ways to combat these types of advertising by using plugins like AdBlock. AdBlock is a fantastic service; however there are many types of advertisements that it cannot filter out and these are the ones a consumer should be most weary of.
Marissa describes in her post product placement being pervasive in television, which can brainwashes consumers into wanting to buy their product. I do agree that product placement can create associations with the brand that would increase the likelihood of them to buy something. However, product placement is never subtle and I think most consumers can easily spot paid placement. The more worrisome types of advertising are those that mimic native content to the point where it is indiscernible between which is an editorial and an ad. Just a few months ago the New York Times included it’s first native ad on their website, a 1500 word piece about women in prisons. Even though the story never explicitly mentions the series Orange is the New Black, Netflix contracted the piece as a promotion for the new season premiere. “In the first quarter of this year, the Times broke a three-year losing streak of ad-sales declines, posting a 3.4% boost in ad revenue. Although Paid Posts had only just been introduced, and likely had little impact on the bottom line, Times CEO Mark Thompson made sure to note in an investors call in April that Paid Posts "launched successfully during the quarter."" (Sebastian) Even though the NY Times does indicate which articles are paid, there still seems to be a lack of transparency. Any content, but especially news, can become untrustworthy when its creation is funded by a biased and self-motivated source.
It will be interesting to see how frustrated consumers combat advertisements like product placement and native ads. Will consumers become so fed up to the point where they refuse to watch ads, once again forcing advertisers to adopt new strategies? Or will programmers find a way to blur or remove entirely that monster energy drink that makes an appearance in Inkmaster? I anticipate that product placement, like YouTube ads, will become customized by the tracking and aggregating of our digital behaviors. For example, if I were to buy a case of RedBull on Amazon that data would be sold to an advertising company which is used to construct my personalized product placement on my favorite Netflix shows. So instead of seeing the tattoo artist sip a Monster energy I would actually see him drinking a RedBull instead. Naturally many people are becoming more and more weary of these data mining sites and privacy is taking priority. People are buying unhackable phones and privacy software is on the rise, its safe to say many have been driven to the point where they would actually pay to opt out. Even though I’m just making conjectures, these proposed scenarios don’t seem that unrealistic. As Marissa mentions in her last line, it really is a game of chess where both the actions of the consumers and advertisers drive each other’s movements across this digital playing field.
Vaynerchuk, Gary. "Round 1: The Setup." Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World. 1st Edition ed. HarperBusiness, 2013. 244. Print.
Fleischer, Matthew. "'House of Cards,' or More like House of Product
Placement?" Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 03 May 2013.
Web. 26 Feb. 2015.
--Marissa
In today’s digital age consumers have become desensitized to traditional advertising such as TV commercials, print, and banner ads just to name a few. During the mid 90s banner ad click through rates were at 3%, in the early 2000s dropped to .5%, and in 2010 hit a low of 0.1% (Vanyerchuck, p.25). Corporations have been shifting their ad budgets significantly from these old marketing strategies to creative internet based digital solutions. In just the last few years, we have seen a surge in advertising across streaming platforms, social media sites, and even news websites. While some of these ads appear to be similar to that which we see on TV, most of the time they are actually quite unique. Using browsing data, click history, purchase history, and thousands of algorithms, data mining companies like Google and Facebook sell this information to advertisers to create targeted advertising towards the individual consumer. While a targeted YouTube ad might seem more effective than a traditional TV ad, click through rates are still relatively low. As Marissa described in her post, consumers have found ways to combat these types of advertising by using plugins like AdBlock. AdBlock is a fantastic service; however there are many types of advertisements that it cannot filter out and these are the ones a consumer should be most weary of.
Marissa describes in her post product placement being pervasive in television, which can brainwashes consumers into wanting to buy their product. I do agree that product placement can create associations with the brand that would increase the likelihood of them to buy something. However, product placement is never subtle and I think most consumers can easily spot paid placement. The more worrisome types of advertising are those that mimic native content to the point where it is indiscernible between which is an editorial and an ad. Just a few months ago the New York Times included it’s first native ad on their website, a 1500 word piece about women in prisons. Even though the story never explicitly mentions the series Orange is the New Black, Netflix contracted the piece as a promotion for the new season premiere. “In the first quarter of this year, the Times broke a three-year losing streak of ad-sales declines, posting a 3.4% boost in ad revenue. Although Paid Posts had only just been introduced, and likely had little impact on the bottom line, Times CEO Mark Thompson made sure to note in an investors call in April that Paid Posts "launched successfully during the quarter."" (Sebastian) Even though the NY Times does indicate which articles are paid, there still seems to be a lack of transparency. Any content, but especially news, can become untrustworthy when its creation is funded by a biased and self-motivated source.
It will be interesting to see how frustrated consumers combat advertisements like product placement and native ads. Will consumers become so fed up to the point where they refuse to watch ads, once again forcing advertisers to adopt new strategies? Or will programmers find a way to blur or remove entirely that monster energy drink that makes an appearance in Inkmaster? I anticipate that product placement, like YouTube ads, will become customized by the tracking and aggregating of our digital behaviors. For example, if I were to buy a case of RedBull on Amazon that data would be sold to an advertising company which is used to construct my personalized product placement on my favorite Netflix shows. So instead of seeing the tattoo artist sip a Monster energy I would actually see him drinking a RedBull instead. Naturally many people are becoming more and more weary of these data mining sites and privacy is taking priority. People are buying unhackable phones and privacy software is on the rise, its safe to say many have been driven to the point where they would actually pay to opt out. Even though I’m just making conjectures, these proposed scenarios don’t seem that unrealistic. As Marissa mentions in her last line, it really is a game of chess where both the actions of the consumers and advertisers drive each other’s movements across this digital playing field.
Sebastian, Michael. "Native Ad Production Values Keep Growing With 'Orange Is the New Black' Promo." Advertising Age. 13 June 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. http://adage.com/article/media/york-times-runs-native-ad-orange-black/293713/
Vaynerchuk, Gary. "Round 1: The Setup." Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World. 1st Edition ed. HarperBusiness, 2013. 244. Print.
Sophia Marsh