Ads Specific to You

Advertisements catered to you and your interests have not been around for a very long time. What is this trend? Lets look at this new trend and how it is affecting the world of advertising.

Have you noticed that alongside your Facebook page or news feed there are several ads? The ads that are placed there are not the same for everyone. Have you noticed that the ads you see there are usually for something that interests you or for something that can be found around your geographical location in the world?

This is a screen shot of my Facebook account with ads specific to my interests and recent activity while online.

The ability to specialize the ads, which people are seeing, is due to the new concept of behavioral targeting. Lauren Drell, associate editor of supported content of Mashable explains how behavioral targeting works:

Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf.

Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected.

The advertising companies use that information to personalize the ads that will show up during your time online. This seems like a neat feature for both the advertising company and for us as the consumer. The ads we will be seeing will be for products that we actually enjoy or would like to have.

At first thought it seems to be a win, win situation. But do I really want my activity online to be recorded? It works for specializing my ads but is that all that that information is used for?

This act of behavioral targeting is now spreading to your mobile devices. There is still much room for improvement when it comes to the mobile devices but it is predicted that mobile ad market will generate $20.6 billion by 2015 and paired with behavioral targeting the number will only keep increasing.

http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/our-smart-tvs

This concept is now also being introduced to TV. To the left is the TV that Samsung recently came out with that is able to connect to the Internet. 

 I do not believe it is not too far into our near future when we will only see ads that are chosen for us based off the shows we watch and what we browse on the Internet through our TV.

$3.5 Million enough for ya?

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Super Bowl? My guess is, a big football game with a very close second, commercials. It is not uncommon for people to watch the Super Bowl purely to watch the commercials and not the game. I am one of those people who could really care less about the game but if I were to watch it I find more enjoyment in watching the commercials verses the game itself.

The commercials during the Super Bowl are not cheap. Volkswagen paid $3.5 Million dollars for their 30-second spot during the championship game. That is sure one pretty penny, if you ask me.

As a senior at North Dakota State University who is finishing up my minor in public relations and advertisement along with my degree in Architecture I find it very interesting how companies use their very expensive 30 seconds. 

It never fails, after every Super Bowl there are two lists. The good and the bad. Just think spending $3.5 million dollars and the commercial ends up being a dud. However, is it really a dud when so many people are taking about it, good or bad? In the world of advertisement talk is talk and even if it is negative it is still causing attention to the ad and then in return the product the commercial is promoting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/
why-super-bowl-ads-keep-getting-more-expensive/250810/

Super Bowl 46 was also known not just for it’s commercials, like every other Super Bowl, but also for being the most “social” Super Bowl ever, and broke new ground in several areas of integrated digital marketing. This year the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee and the local social media agency Raidious joined forces to create the first ever, social media command center right in Indianapolis for covering the game.

Fans everywhere were able to watch the game on television while also logging into their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ accounts and get updates or have any questions answered that they might have about the game. Those sites have their own advertisement, which are automatically built in. So with those advertisements, plus the very expensive advertisements aired during the game, people were surrounded by more advertisements than they probably even knew what to do with.

Why you ask is commercial air space so darn expensive? Why the heck would a company want to pay that much money for airing and advertisement?

According to Jordan Weissmann, associate editor of   The Atlantic, “audiences have fractured the age of      Hulu and DVR, the Super Bowl is among the last of an     increasingly endangered species: The truly mass audience live TV event. In good times and bad, that distinction has been worth a premium to advertisers.” The amount of people that watch the game is huge and increases every year. And Nielson found that, Super Bowl ads are 58% more memorable than regular TV ads.

Are all those circumstances are enough for 3.5 million dollars for 30 seconds right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-9EYFJ4Clo