Once upon a time, advertisements were simply a fact of life.
Your favorite hour-long TV show was actually just 45 minutes to make room for advertisers – in fact, writers even built in mini-cliffhangers that would come just before the commercial break. Magazines and newspapers were fat with inserts and full-page advertorials and radio listeners were a captive audience while waiting for the sponsors’ messages to be done and they could keep listening out for their current favorite hit.
Some commercials were boring or annoying, sure, but others were little works of art – some would be talked about for weeks, even years after they aired. Some even have websites dedicated to them, like the 50 best Super Bowl ads of all time.
Then, along came the internet and things changed – fast.
After just a few short years, ad-blockers are keeping all your preferred news outlets free of those pesky pop-ups; TV series are being produced specifically for the online market, minus interruptions and with a focus on story alone; online radio stations all come with a very inexpensive commercial-free option, allowing listeners to enjoy their music uninhibited by ads.
Even those places where advertisements still creep in aren’t safe – let’s be honest here, when was the last time you actually watched a commercial all the way through on YouTube? Even Bill Murray famously Tweeted: ‘Dear Youtube, I will always “Skip this ad.”‘
It’s been a long and storied history – for a century and a half, consumers and advertisers have been entwined in a relationship that seems so familiar. It has known the bliss of naivety and the whirlwind of abundance; it’s been simple give-and-take and it’s been… complicated.
And, just like any great romance, despite the evolution and revolution the people involved have gone through over the years, it has its times when one or another is fed up with the routine and looking desperately for some excitement to make things new again.
The Rise of the Opt-In Mentality
Nowadays, people go out of their way to remove ads from their sight and statistics show that you are more likely to survive a plane crash or win the lottery than to click on an online advertising banner.
It’s clear here that consumers are doing everything within their power to avoid ads and to create a sales-free viewing experience. Because of this, it makes sense that they hold all the power in choosing what they will and won’t buy into.
This has led advertisers to look into an opt-in approach, where consumers literally have to say, “yes, I want to watch this”, or “yes, I want to get involved in this.”
Multi-choice ads were the first rung on this ladder, but today we can see this structure in exclusive communities, user-generated content (like Red Bull), and segmented ads that have been re-worked for different audiences.
As a result, companies have shifted from mass broadcasting to niche marketing, targeting smaller, more-focused audiences.
This allows them to create communities amongst their consumers which, in turn, may lead to a smaller, but more loyal following.
Advertisers are starting to realise that humans make connections with other humans, and to create a compelling ad experience that gets people to sit up and take notice, they have to tap into the complex and innovative nature of the human mind.
Short-Lived Trends
The constant arrival of new trends and advertising fads has seen agencies scrabbling to gain traction on a plethora of platforms that turn out to be a flash in the pan.
Short-lived social media campaigns struggle to garner followers, while haphazard competitions calling for user-generated content receive just a handful of entries.
No one is ready to delve head first into any one method because who knows when it might disappear from the spotlight in favor of the next new shiny thing?
Despite the endless opportunities the technological revolution has brought to ad agencies, there are very few that seem to be making the most of it. Spreading messages too thin over contrasting platforms seems to have led to a lack of imagination in the advertising pool, where the aim is cheap production and quick campaigns that don’t hold much standing in the greater scheme of things.
Longevity is getting harder to come by as agencies opt to promote messages for a couple of weeks at a time on a couple of the latest platforms. They believe they’re keeping up with the times, but instead they’re giving in to the gimmick of the moment, not really establishing themselves anywhere.
Yes, the new technological age has brought opportunities, but it’s also brought the confusion of too many outlets.
Where advertising used to simply take place on televisions, radio, and magazines, it is now spread thin over emerging social media channels, blogs, podcasts, videos, and everything in between.
Advertisers struggle to know where to reach their audiences but, perhaps more importantly, they struggle to know how to reach their audiences.
Moreover – largely due to the internet’s reach – consumers are significantly more skeptical and spend a lot more time researching a product before buying it. No matter how clever or convincing the advertising, people are much more likely to read up on a product, visit sites that review it, do cost and benefit comparisons, and even research the ethics of the company selling the product, before ever deciding to spend a cent.
And it’s not just consumers in developed countries, either. Even in developing countries, mobile technology and internet access are massively widespread, with even underprivileged people having access to cell phones and the internet – and thereby, all the information they could ask for.
In other words, modern advertisers cannot simply be content to come up with a great concept for a commercial, produce it, put it out there and wait for the sales to roll in. To really get consumers’ attention, there have to be several layers within an ad campaign, including the initial hook, much more in-depth discussion of the product’s attributes, development and how it compares to other, similar offerings on the market, and, preferably, something more..
The Need to Constantly Adapt
What this has meant for the advertising industry is a complete shift in attitude and approach. This consistent pattern of fresh advertising channels and short-lived trends mean ad agencies are constantly having to adapt their skillsets and their ideas.
It’s no longer possible to stick to one advertising method, because it might just disappear a couple of months later – we only have to look at Vine for this. Back in 2014, Vine was all the rage with advertising agencies looking to connect on a more casual level with consumers.
Today, less than 10% of companies use it to promote themselves, instead opting to create a presence on newer platforms like Snapchat.
When advertisers are constantly having to learn new tools and add to their skillsets, they lose out on really honing in on consumers, finding out exactly what it is they want, and providing content and ads that are really relevant and really resonate.
It’s clear to see ad blockers and an endless supply of new platforms serve as a barrier between advertisers and the general public, so what do advertisers need to do in order to make sure their flame doesn’t burn out?
Advertisers are slowly realizing that in order to keep this scale from tipping over, they need to find the balance by giving consumers more within the ad itself, so that consumers feel that ads serve a beneficial purpose which makes them want to be exposed to them and even take on the active roles that the ads call out for.
Slowly but surely, brands and advertisers are taking this in and a great leap forward has been the introduction of innovation that provides an extra layer to the traditional advertising methods.
New Ways to Engage Consumers
Now, in order to grab and maintain the attention of consumers, advertisers are having to get creative with their methods. It’s simply not enough to run a print campaign or a sales-based TV commercial.
Instead, advertisers have to tell a story, resonate with their consumers, and ultimately involve the consumer in the process.
Numerous companies have been implementing exciting new tactics to blast through the “no ads” mindset consumers are moving towards.
General Electric, for example, created an entire, 8-part podcast series that wasn’t product-based or even sales-based in the slightest. The Message, as it was called, was produced with the creative input of playwrights, touching on a narrative that resonated with the core beliefs of General Electric without fishing for sales.
It was like a TV show that just happened to have been created by a brand, rather than a production agency or network. When it was released, it shot to the top of the iTunes chart because it wasn’t actively selling GE. There was no sales pitch; no “call this number” spiel at the end. It was pure, uninterrupted storytelling.
Taking an Innovative Step Forwards
In a bid to bring some real excitement back to advertising, some agencies have tried tech-based value-adds to bring greater awareness to their clients’ products.
Nivea, long a staple of beaches worldwide, offered parents in Brazil an ingenious way of tracking their children on the beach – a simple strip, embedded with Bluetooth 4.0 technology, that could be pulled from the print ad and attached to the child as a bracelet. A quick app download later, and parents could easily find their child among the thousands of others on the beach. This clever combination of print advertising and mobile technology not only worked really well, but cemented Nivea’s reputation as a protector in the minds of many consumers.
On the flip side of the coin, we find the seemingly ingenious Life Paint by Volvo – a simple spray-on high-visibility paint that adheres to clothes and helps cyclists be more easily seen on the roads at night. Unfortunately for them, the backlash was significant – some accusing Volvo of victim-blaming and smokescreening – and the online reviews scathing about the product’s lack of effectivity.
Then, of course, there are those who simply embraced entertainment, didn’t make any promises they couldn’t deliver on and simply used available technology to its best effect to create a buzz and get people talking about the product. One of the best examples in recent years is the Pepsi Max Unbelievable Bus Shelter, which shocked and delighted London commuters – and the YouTube video garnered over seven-and-a-half million views and got people interested in advertising again.
There are many other examples of companies moving towards more innovative advertising approaches.
However, out of the hundreds of thousands of agencies around the world, only a handful may actually have technology experts that know what to look for and where to find it – and let’s face it, Google can only take us so far.
There are numerous tech-forward news sites and databases that may take you where you need to go, but most of them focus on financial information, or act as news outlets for what’s coming out.
The Urika Difference
This is where an engine like Urika comes in. Inventors, innovators and creators who don’t happen to work for the large, famous tech companies (you know the ones) are still coming up with ingenious inventions daily and, rather than just putting a video on YouTube and hoping it gets seen among the more than three hundred thousand videos uploaded every single day, they need a space where their products can be showcased.
Our unique associative search engine allows consumers, advertisers, or anyone else looking for something new and exciting to search for innovations using relatable keywords. This means that it’s not only the super-savvy tech whiz kids who are masters of the keyword who can find what they’re looking for; anyone with even a vague idea of what they are looking for can easily use the search engine to find what they need.
For the advertiser, this means you could be at the forefront of brand-new tech that could inspire your creativity, boost the imagination and give you unheard-of ways to grab your client’s potential customer’s attention in a way nobody has ever thought of. It means that, whatever your brief, you could easily use a few random keywords to find something out-there and forward-thinking that will transform your buy-the-numbers campaign into something out of this world.
For the consumer, it means finding something new and exciting and not having to spend hours finding out what it does. Urika’s platform allows innovators to upload a video showing exactly what the product does and how to use it – no guesswork, no vague marketing-speak and no wondering whether it is what you’re looking for.
What it means for start-ups: no more battling to get your genius noticed. Instead of getting lost in the crowd of innovators, inventors and, let’s face it, useless inventions that flood the internet, you can find an interested audience that’s actively looking for something just like your product – even if they don’t know it yet.
New Life for Advertising
Advertising has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years. Yes, we may be long past the days of simply standing behind a table shouting at passers-by to try out our wares – although, if you’ve been to a flea market lately, you’ll discover that tradition is actually alive and well – but sometimes it pays to step back and look at a simpler approach.
With a straightforward search function that allows you to find what you need, you may find your next advertising or marketing campaign standing out above the crowd – without needing to spend weeks searching for inspiration or millions of dollars on the tech that’s available.
We believe the romance between advertisers, innovators and consumers isn’t over – it just needs to take a good, long look at itself and make a few changes for the better, inject some new life into the relationship. It’s time for the advertising industry to re-embrace its creative roots, the mix of the sublime and the ridiculous that made it a modern art form quite unlike any other.
Robert Iger, CEO of The Disney Company, famously said: “The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation.” With our unique platform, Urika hopes to bring both of these essential elements back to not only the advertising industry, but to start-up tech innovators as well and help give a centuries-old romance a new lease of life.
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