What's to Come

The Value of Advertising

As I conceived Finity Technologies, there were some underlying principles regarding the value of advertising. First, advertising has a content value to the consumer when properly targeted or addressed. Second, advertising has a high entertainment value to the consumer when well developed.

Content Value: Say you're in the market for a new car. You begin to focus on ads, cars you pass on the road, websites that discuss and compare cars, or the Auto Show in your area. You want to learn as much as you can about what you like and don't like before you make the purchase. Ads can be very valuable to you in this process and thus can have a high content value. These same ads have very little content value for someone who is not in the market for a car or who just bought a car. Traditional advertising methods don't discern these situations and thus send their ads to everyone. Targeted ads have the opportunity to focus in on the most likely consumers - creating high content value for them and hopefully a sale for the advertiser. For those consumers who are not likely to buy, this is just noise in the background. We all know there is a lot of noise out there right now.

Entertainment Value: Two words; Super Bowl. There is great anticipation every year for the ads that run during the Super Bowl. Most viewers can wax eloquently about the ads, what they liked, didn't like and how outrageous they are, but cannot tell you the score of the game or who made a great play. There are online polls that allow you to vote for your favorite commercial and many articles before and after the event talking about the "Show" which is not the game itself, but the commercials. Advertisers and their agencies pull out the stops to make their ads entertaining and compelling during this event. It's easy to remember scenes from the past that were rendered in commercials. Remember; I can't believe I ate the whole thing, or Mikey will eat it, he likes everything!, or Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun? I think you get my point. People are entertained by ads, sometimes more than the programs they watch. So when the industry gets worried about ad-skipping technologies, ultimately I think they miss the point.

Advertising is entertainment and coupled with proper targeting can have a high content value for the consumer. Ads are here to stay because they not only pay the bill for the media in which they reside, but they are fun and informative.

Post your Thoughts!

-Andy

posted by Andy Huckaba @ 9:21 AM