Current Topic: Advertising

The rise of social media has made watching television more fun and interactive. We get regular status updates from our friends who are commenting and sharing the latest trends and their opinions on current TV shows (not to forget about the endless amount of hashtags and tweets giving us live updates on current developments as the show proceeds).

On top of this, it seems as if the sudden rise of niche influencers has radically increased the volume of online chatter. These recent developments seem to have kickstarted a new multi-screen phenomenon, otherwise known as “social TV”, which is the joint viewing of TV shows alongside the consumption of program-related social media chatter.

This rapid growth of social TV has raised numerous questions for today’s advertisers: How can shows with a high volume of social TV activity, so called “social shows,” benefit today’s advertisers in this age of a multitasking TV audience?

When I was a student, I once had the honour of giving a presentation to the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company. In this presentation me and my project group proposed multiple recommendations in order to improve their communication efforts. This was one of my first big presentations, so naturally I was a bit nervous. This feeling caused me to refer to their communication efforts as “shit”. In all honesty, those communication efforts were certainly suboptimal, but my choice of words was even more so. I can still hear my group leader grunting loudly in the background when I think of it.

We live in a returns culture, where delivery is free and so are the returns. Zero shipping fees and favorable in-store return policies make it very attractive to bulk buy products consumers don’t need. When consumers return their purchases, it causes losses for the companies due to extra logistical and repackaging costs. An increasing amount of returns have a negative impact on the environment too.

Marketers should strive to reduce the returns to save costs and reduce the adverse footprint on the environment. A recently published study has discovered a simple yet highly effective technique companies can use in this regard.

Sex in advertising campaigns can go both ways. On the one hand, it is an attention grabber. Being able to capture a consumer’s attention in this overly crowded world is potentially one of the best qualities an advertisement can have. Additionally, watching a sexual advertisement is a positive and rewarding experience.

On the other hand, sex can disgust people. Imagine watching tv with your friends, colleagues or family. All of a sudden, a naked woman is promoting the newest fragrance by some brand. You go red and avert your eyes. Seeing such a sexual image makes you feel dirty. How and why does sex sell, when it can bring about such different feelings in consumers?

The use of curiosity in marketing is nothing new. Every day, our curiosity is activated by teasers, advertisements, blog titles, and e-mails in our inbox. They evoke a motivational state to obtain missing information. We feel an irresistible urge to gain the missing knowledge. And…before you know it, you fell for it! You have watched the full video or clicked on that email to read its content. Your curious itch is scratched.

But that’s the problem. In order for this type of marketing to work, the consumer has to take that extra step to actually satisfy that curiosity. Although we experience an urge to close the gap between what we know and want to know, nowadays we are bombarded with click-baits and teasers. And the more it’s used, the less we fall for it.