Yesterday, I was inspired by a link that appeared on a friend’s Facebook wall a few weeks ago. Click here to see the experiment (unless you speak German, click below the picture for the English version of the article).
In 2005, Neubaugasse, Vienna participated in an art exhibit called “Delete!” which essentially “deleted” media (“signs, slogans, pictograms, company names and logos“) for a period of two weeks. Advertisements were covered with (what looks like) yellow foil, and causes consumers to examine their everyday world without advertising, and shows us how many messages we are really exposed to on a daily basis. I highly recommend looking through the picture deck on the right side of the link.
According to a excerpt from Marketing Without Advertising by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry (available online at the link listed below), “236 billion will be spent this year in the United States on print, radio, online, and broadcast advertising” to cause the average American to view in excess of 5,000 advertising messages daily.
As a mini experiment, I tried to count every single advertisement that I came into contact with. My rules were the same object could not be counted twice (for example, I could not count my cell phone more than one time just because I looked at it multiple times), I could only count messages that were clearly branded (i.e. I only counted the brands of the clothes that I have on, and not count of all of the other brand tags of the clothes in my closet because I didn’t necessarily see them), and it had to be an official logo or advertisement (my seeing a handwritten note about calling a client did not count, while seeing a client’s display ad counted). Needless to say, I decided not to wear my glasses to work, made sure that my pop-up blocker was on, and tried to avoid CNN.com, Pandora, and Facebook.
Before I even got out of bed yesterday morning, I had counted 37 branded items, and by the time I left the house I had counted 74. For safety reasons, I decided not to count advertisements while driving to work, but was already up to 236 visible ads by 9:30 this morning (I get to work at 9am). By 1pm, that number had increased to 693—and these are counting ads that I am cognizant of! I can’t imagine if I really had the time to actually look around and listen for various types of advertisements and count exactly how many messages I’m exposed to regularly.
There are so many different ways that advertisers are able to reach consumers, that a lot of the time the message is lost in advertising white noise. Advertisers need new and exciting ways to cut through all of the other marketing messages to reach consumers and make them remember their brand above all others using a variety of traditional and atypical methods—display, search, print, broadcast as well as word of mouth (including social networking), charitable contributions, microsites/widgets, and other innovative and cool ways for advertisers to touch consumers in a way that will cause consumers to remember their brand, and have that brand be top of mind when they go to make a purchase.
At the end of the day, I had counted 1,492 ads. An experiment worth trying in your own life.
References:
http://www.steinbrener-dempf.com/index.php?article_id=5
Marketing Without Advertising by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry
http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/objectID/5E5BFB9E-A33A-43DB-9D162A6460AA646A/sampleChapter/5/111/277/#summary
About Me
- eckramer
- Growing up in Atlanta, GA, I moved to New Orleans, LA to achieve my BBA in Marketing and Management from Loyola University New Orleans. After being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, I spent a semester at Georgia State University, but was able to return to New Orleans to achieve my degree. Following graduation, I returned to Atlanta to pursue a coveted career in advertising. Currently, I am working as an assistant traffic manager at a prestigious advertising agency. I am a self-motivated, organized, detail-oriented, advertising professional with a strong sense of project ownership and proactive approach to issue resolution. Although my background has been primarily focused on online media, I have the ambition to learn and master new technologies, processes, departments, and other innovative facets of the advertising industry including broadcast and print production, public relations, communications, and strategy. I interact with a variety of people, personalities, and overcome unique challenges on a daily basis in a highly-dynamic environment under strict deadlines. I am always looking to increase success for myself, my agency, and our clients.