Old Strategies of Mass Advertising

The Marketing Department

The marketing department is a key commercial tool used to increase sales and facilitate business development and growth in a world embracing globalization and financialization which contributes to increasing competition and expanding market base. One of the challenges marketers face is the desire to avoid advertising that comes with the development of ad-free listening and programming that consumers find desirable and try to fight high prices to avoid unnecessary advertising. (Wright, Camphor, Harrington, Kaiser), 2010). These changes contributed to a major transformation from old mass his marketing strategies to the introduction of new approaches. As highlighted by Nunes and Merrihue (2007), the old strategies included catching people in passing, occupying the consumers’ territory, paying for attention, and giveaways. For example, the companies and marketing executives would focus on moving targets such as highway billboards and dominance of public spaces with ads. The companies would also include giveaways that allowed sampling of their products and incurring huge costs with marketing in radio and TV. However, the new strategies include catching people in the bottlenecks that focus on attention on the go with captive technologies such as ads on elevator screens, use of Trojan horse that infiltrate private spaces through technological devices such as mobile devices pop-ups and coffee cups in the conference rooms. Marketers today also use play a critical marketing strategy by targeting people at play and getting consumers to play through engaging people in techniques that are interactive and interesting.

Why Advertising Has Changed

The old strategies of mass advertising included adopting an approach that used one message fits all with a higher reliance on platforms with a wider reach such as televisions, print marketing, and radio. According to Nunes and Merrihue (2007), marketing executives devoted over 60 percent of ad allocations to over 40 percent of television advertising in the 1960s in a one-to-one targeting and broadcasting of 30-second television spots. Consumer media channel preferences have played a central role in advertising, and numerous marketers have had to adopt emerging technologies to meet the needs and market diversity. According to Talafuse and Brizek (2014), previous marketing executives relied entirely on their marketing skills providing ads that sought to promote their products based on individual skills and marketing competencies which has been changed as modern day executives conduct consumer research that allows them to tailor ads that are specific to a particular target market in the mass advertising approach.

The Shift towards Target Market Specific Marketing

The one fits all system has been replaced considerably by a target market specific marketing strategy. For example, previous marketers could structure an advert that failed to incorporate the needs of any group that would provide a generalized message such as an overview of butter products with no relation to a particular market. However, current marketing strategies include determining the most appropriate platforms and structuring a message that meets the needs of a particular target market For example, a young celebrity will advertise a wireless Bluetooth speaker, a respectable and middle-aged man or woman will advertise a cooker that is targeted for the young family, while an older representative will market a commodity that targets the older population. According to Perlberg (2016), the market has changed, and marketers are required to adopt these changes. There is an increased use of online mass marketing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter which have led to a reduction in the number of television ads. Previously, televisions were the most dominant sources of information which have been significantly reduced by the increased availability and use of smartphones and other portable technological tools.

References

Nunes, P., & Merrihue, J. (2007). The continuing power of mass advertising. MIT Sloan Management Review, 48(2), 62-72.

Perlberg, S. (2016). Advertising isn’t dead, but market is changing. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/advertising-isnt-dead-but-market-is-changing-1466610850

Talafuse, A., & Brizek, M. (2014). Traditional and digital media advertising preference: A descriptive evaluation of billings, Montana mothers. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 1-21.

Wright, E., Khanfar, N., Harrington, C., & Kizer, L. (2010). The lasting effects of social media trends on advertising. Journal of Business & Economics Research, 2(11), 73-80.