I was passing through Times Square in New York City last weekend when I stopped to just marvel at it. Every flat surface, and even some curved ones, were covered with giant billboards.
The very first time I was in Times Square, 20 years ago, it was plastered with static billboards, but today the place more closely resembles Las Vegas with its LED and animated displays. It seems everywhere you turn someone or some company is trying to compete for your attention. The result? Message overload.
Time Square represents what advertising has become, a virtual arms race to come up with a bigger and better campaign to draw your attention. But what do we really do? We train ourselves to block it out.
In 2007, Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., did a study on the phenomenon of Internet “banner blindness” and found that most banner ads on the Web go completely unnoticed. For years we’ve had popup blockers software and tools because their use got out of control and prevented us from seeing the content we were there to view. We put spam filters on our e-mail. We have Tivo and DVR recording devices to skip past commercials. As consumers we waging our own battle against the growing onslaught of advertising messages.
The problem with advertising is that it often assumes exposure translates into consumer purchases. In reality, advertising may play a role in raising awareness of a brand, if you advertise enough in the right places, but it doesn’t actually sell anything. Today’s consumers are intelligent and make their purchasing choices based on research and word of mouth.
Al and Laura Ries wrote a famous book in PR circles called “The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR” to explain the decline of advertising credibility and the rising influence of the third party (journalists, friends, family, colleagues). Pick it up for a good read.
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