Advertisment In The Age Of New Media by Ian Schultz

Our deep desires for new, fresh entertainment unfortunately also come with those little, pesky vermin I like to call advertisments. You might call them commercials, billboards, previews, ads; but it's all the same. What's even worse is that new types of marketing are always being sought out; every time you hear about a new, cool product on the market (be it a video game, cell phone, brand of cheese) there are dozens of people out there in the world who are thinking of interesting ways to get you to buy it. That's right you. You and everybody else in their regional market.
Suppliers want you to feel special, they want you to think that their product makes you unique. The suppliers speculate that if they can do that then you'll continue to consume their product often and faithfully, but this is wrong. What we want is constant variety and varied prototypes along with giveaways, free stuff, and if possible more free stuff. They can't very well give everybody stuff for free so they do promotions. The way promotions work is quite simple, the suppliers say that they'll give a fabulous prize to one lucky customer to move more units and then don't give anything to anybody. It's actually quite genius when you think about it. If that doesn't work then a liquidation soon follows. Liquidations are also simple, the supplier says he's going out of business and giving 80% of all merchadise, then he takes about 30%-40% off everything. What he does when the liquidation is over is the best part. He takes all the money he's just made and the left over product he has to move the store and change the name. That's just good business ethic.
Now imagine what suppliers and companies could do with access to the internet, broadcast radio, satellite radio, cell phone numbers, television, movies, billboards and more. We are soon stepping into the age of new media. Be prepared to get offers for things you never wanted in forms you never thought possible before. It all started with the rise of span and now it's growing uncontrollably. We're going to see the McDonald's infamous "M" an estimated 2,500,000 times in our lives, isn't that infuriating?
I personallly believe that to a certain extent we know what we want and don't want, therefore excessive advertising is redundant. I'm not saying that any is terrible but too much is sickening. If there is one thing I can think to say to make you believe that excessive advertising is damaging it's this-you are aware of more products on the market that you wouldn't buy than those that you would.