Effects of Technology on Advertising - Essay Example

? Effects of Technology on Advertising Introduction In contemporary terms, to advertise is to publicize a product, service, or event in order to promote sales or attendance. This therefore implies that advertisement is the process of making known the existence of a particular product. However, commerce and journalism defines advertisement as any paid form of non-personal representation of a good, service or event by an identified sponsor; in which case the sponsor could be the producer of the good or the service provider. Journalism becomes of essence in the study of advertisement since adverts are run on media and target large, heterogeneous audience. Advertisement is therefore a type of mass communication just as journalism (Tabbush, 2011). Advertisements are the main sources of revenue for the conventional or old media outlets. Old media refers to the basic media of mass communication which include television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. In radio and television, the cost of an advert is determined by the time the advert takes to run on air, the time of the day in which the advert is played, and more importantly, the coverage of the media. An international media outlet such as the BBC and the CNN charge higher especially for their prime time than local media, which would more often run adverts on local products. For newspapers and magazines, the price of the advert is determined by the paper space occupied by the advert. Full-page adverts are more expensive than mere columns of texts and graphics. Furthermore, newspapers charge on the importance of the page on which the advert is placed. The first pages are more costly than the inner hidden pages that not every reader would pay much attention to (Bogomolova, 2011). Advertisements improve brand visibility thereby possibly improving sales of the product or dispensation of a service. Companies invest extensively in advertisements of their products and services. This is because advertisements form the basis of competition for companies operating in the manufacture or sales of similar products or provision of similar services. Before settling for the use of a particular media to run adverts, companies consider a number of factors which include costs and the effectiveness of advertising through the media. Not all companies would find essence in advertising in international media such as the BBC; smaller companies that produce and sell products in smaller geographical locations prefer the use of local media since they reach their target market unlike the CNN and the BBC. The region and scope of operation forms the greatest factor considered by most companies in search of advertisers. Cost affectivity is achieved when the amount invested in advertisements achieves the purpose by giving the brand the projected visibility in the market. Companies will always be willing to spend as much money as possible on advertisement provided the investment on advertisement resonates in improved visibility thereby improving the sale of their products (Frey, 1956). New Media New media is a phrase coined to refer to the use of the internet to gather, package, and distribute information to a large audience, which is synonymous to journalism. The advent of the internet literally transformed various aspects in reference to human life. Every industry got affected with the use of internet and the digital media. It introduced new concepts on the previously existing industries. In journalism and mass communication, the internet introduced the aspect of online journalism. Online journalism refers to the use of computer networks key among which is the internet in the gathering, packaging, or processing and the dissemination of information to an increasingly computer literate audience. This new type of journalism influenced the previous old media by changing some of the rules of journalism that had determined news access and mass communication in general, which included advertisements as well. Among some of the key changes introduced by this new media include being spontaneous. Unlike in the old media where the communicator determines when to play the advert or to communicate a particular information to the audience, the new media makes it possible for communicators to access their audience spontaneously at anytime of day or night. The new media brings a possibility of everyone becoming a mass communicator. Unlike in the past where mass communicators had to be trained on mass communication before eventually being employed by media institutions, the new media makes everyone with access to the internet to become a mass communicator. This possibility has been greatly used by companies in running their adverts through blogs and the social media. Above all these is the fact that new media communication is cheaper in comparison to the old media. In the old media, competition for the advertisement slots make the service providers hike the advertising prices depending on the demand for ever hour of the day in broadcast media and according to the page and space availability in the print media. The new media brings the possibility for users to access the cyber space, which is virtually limitless; this space is readily available to all internet users through the social media, blogs and websites which after posting are accessed by the target audience based on interest, specialization and the marketing mechanism employed by every communicator (Beatty, 2001). The new media introduced an easier way of interactivity. Communicators and their audience can easily interact through the different channels made available by the type of service used by the communicator. In the old media, advertisers could not get feedback from their target market, the new media on the other hand brings a possibility for both the advertisers and the target market to hold discussion, chats, live vide calls among other means to communicate. This possibility further makes it easier for advertisers to conduct market studies. The internet through the data retrieval and movement monitoring tools such as the Google Analyst, marketers conveniently monitor the movement of their visitors onto their websites, this way they determine which products is mostly visited and which performs poorly. This way they easily change their market activities to suit the perceived demand of their market. This possibility makes internet a cost effective means of advertisement since it is cheaper to use and encompasses a number of technologies in one some of which include online trade or as commonly known, e-commerce. In this customers interact with their service providers online and hold their transactions online, the international money transfers make possible virtual payment and the goods or services are also dispatched online (Barrett, 2003). The Development of Digital Technology Digital is an adjective derived from the noun digit, which refers to the numerals of 0 to 9 especially when forming part of a number. Technologically this term gained relevance with the advent of the computers, which uses signals or information represented as digits using discreet values of physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarization. Computers use this technology to provide a stable platform on which subsequent applications are installed with soft wares. A computer is therefore an information management tool which when formatted is as blank as a new cupboard which until fitted with specific soft wares will not run any application. The technology used by computers later became emulated by other smaller electronics such as mobile phones and television sets. A computer uses a series of chips and a huge motherboard that provides the essential connections. Televisions and mobile phones among other electronics also nowadays use motherboards unlike the conventional connection wires. Additionally, mobile phones and televisions borrowed the idea of an installed memory as is with computers. The preinstalled expandable memory allows for the installation of the additional applications and programs. Mobile phones primarily were invented to aid communication, for a long time in the history of mobile phones; this was kept at the mere minimum; making phone calls and texting. Through time and with the insertion of the computer microchip into phones, newer and more advanced capabilities tagged a long as phones became polyphonic and migrated to color crystal display. Today mobile phones perform functions similar to those performed by computers. Smart phones are a caliber of phones that have capabilities and complexities to perfume all the functions of a computer. The use of such operating systems as Android makes it possible for users to reformat their phones leaving them empty and devoid of any other application apart from the calling and texting capabilities that are regulated by a totally different aspects of the phone. A user therefore begins the reinstallation of new programs and applications as he or she prefers (Fournier, 1998).  One of the greatest breaks through in the mobile telephony was the insertion of the internet access capabilities. These made mobile phones more powerful than computers since they are pocket sized and carrying them a long is easier. This way one gets instantaneous internet connectivity at the press of a button. From smart mobile phones the technology migrated to the invention of I pads, these arte neither mobile phones nor computers but perform all the functions of both. They are sizable and easily portable because of their lightweight. Smart phones and I pads either have the capacity of 3 or 4 G, this implies that their access of the internet is as fast and reliable as would be in a high quality laptop or desktop computer. The Use of the New Media and Digital Technology in Advertisement The ability of mobile phones to access the internet increased the internet access by over a hundred percent in less than two years. The resulting increase in internet usage led to the rethinking of the internet capacity, business people had to change their tactics on marketing and ways of conducting business. Today nearly every business including media houses have their websites and online versions. These are means of increasing their brand visibility since more people log into the internet everyday. Websites offer companies with the unlimited ability to increase their presence thereby maximizing sales (Bracey & Culver, 2009). Internet usage increased multifold with the invention of the online social media, Face book. This is the largest social media globally with a user population of more than two billion subscribers. Online social media were primarily invented to aid socialization among friends spread over a large geographic area. The idea of social networking sites received a positive welcome thereby leading to the inception of many others. Today there are more than a hundred online social networking sites key among which include face book, the largest in terms of user population, twitter, the fastest growing, Skype, a free video chat service provider and Google + among many others priding themselves in different specification (Napier, 2006). Following an understanding that more internet users spend most of their online time in the social networking sites, most advertiser began embracing the idea of social network. Currently every company and service provider run a face book account and twitter among many other commonly used social networking websites. The use of social networking sites is an effective way of advertising owing to its cheap cost and its affectivity ion conducting market researches. Interactivity makes communication and counter communication possible between the marketers and their clients. Most companies and service providers have Facebook accounts and a number of fan pages; the companies literally add and tag possible users of various sites into their profiles. This is an effective way of keeping a client loyalty list and a means to maintain a constant touch with clients. Companies are kept a breast with the trends of the market and are always in constant communication with their loyal clients. The sites, through their interactive capabilities offer the clients a chance to criticize and suggest new brands and possible changes to the branding of the products and services. To enhance connectivity and ease of use, the social networking sites have developed their own applications; these are downloaded freely and thereafter installed into the hand held devises. The applications provide a direct linkage to the websites thereby not requiring the numerous directions and redirections experienced by various websites. The internet has a number of mechanisms of interactivity, one of the most commonly occurring type of interactivity on the internet is the navigational interactivity. In this, a user freely switches from one site to another following the provided hyperlinks. The companies have their face book handles lead directly into the homepages of their company websites. They thus lure their possible clients to link their sites while on face book (Abrams & Kliner, 2003). Additionally, some of the most established firms have their own applications to enable ease of communication with their esteemed customers. The old media embraced the onset of the new media and all major media companies run parallel online versions of their companies. Such companies as the CNN, the BBC and the entertainment oriented BET among many other companies have their own personalized applications that their esteemed customers install into their hand held devices and with a single click they get connected thereby saving their online surfing time and the related misdirection that normally lose new users. In brief, the uses of the internet and the subsequent development of smart phones and other hand held devices have not only changed the conventional means of advertising but have also changed the manner through which people conduct business. The social networking sites have therefore provided means of effective market monitoring and effective means of advertising that every marketer and service providers have turned to and the sites have proved their efficacy by their continued development through increased usage everyday (Luckner & Weinhardt, 2008). Bibliography Abrams, R. & Kliner, E.. 2003. The Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies. 4th ed. Palo Alto, Calif: The Planning Shop. Napier, A. 2006. Creating a winning E-Business. New York: Cengage. Bogomolova, S. 2011. Service quality perceptions of solely loyal customers. International Journal of Market Research, 53(6) 793-810. Bracey, B. & Culver, T. 2009. Harnessing the Power of Cell Phone Technologyfor Education: A Multi Stakeholder Approach. Washington: University of Washington. Frey, A. W. 1956. The Effective Marketing Mix; Programming for Optimum Results. Hanover, N.H.: Amos Tuck School of Business Administration. 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