Advertising – The Yellow Brick Road

In Marketing, the two main goals are to have a good product and happy customers in order to create positive attention for your company. The Digital Revolution did not make this or change this. It has always been this way. yet, the Digital Era has enhanced the ways that technology can intertwine with business in a beneficial way. Nowadays, the internet has many tools that allow us to work for a good user experience. For example, when I search for a nail salon it is going to generate locations near me in the Bay Area. If when I searched for a nail salon and it came up with results in Los Angeles, I would be less likely to attend that salon due to it not being within a close proximity. This not only helps me, the searcher, but it also helps local nail salons near me gain my business without me having to have seen it in real life or know it even existed prior.

Additionally, the internet has impacted Advertising in positive ways. Before the internet existed, traditional media considered an advertisement to be effective if it reached 2% of its market. These ads were extremely pricey and still are to this day. Today, companies and organizations spend so much less and are able to send their message to the people who are really interested. One of the ways that this is possible is through “programmatic ads” which use people’s data in order to project what ads they want to see and would benefit from seeing. Also, applications like Yelp and Trip Advisor have proved as working well for Advertising due to consumers having the ability to read and write reviews and ratings.

What marketing tools do you use for your small business? Do you invest enough into your business marketing? via: https://t.co/fQhT3k6Bxy pic.twitter.com/IWHr8QpJKW
— FabLocal (@fablocal) March 30, 2020

A new type of Marketing that has developed is called Viral Marketing and there are six main types. The first is called send it which is an easy way to reach a large amount of people through SMS. For example, Urban Outfitters asked me for my phone number when I made my first purchase and now they send me text messages about sales and other news. The second is called viral incentivized which is when people get a reward or benefit from sending the message to someone else. The third is called masked marketing which is when mysterious information is sent out that makes people interested enough to figure it out and it does not seem to be an ad campaign. The fourth is called rumor marketing which is when people read some amazing things published about Taylor Swift two days before her new album release. This tactic is often used by the film, television, and music industries. The fifth is called social database which is an online-service that offers a database so that clients can add contacts. Lastly, the sixth is called invitation. This is when the prospective customer is provided with a personal invitation to try the new product or service.

The current market that has been flooded by Social Media Marketing in recent years has become an environment for the evangelist customer to flourish in. An evangelist customer is defined as a customer who fell in love with a product or enterprise and tires to share that with others. Prior to this, people were able to tell their family, friends, and co-workers in their close circle about things that they liked. Now people can turn to social media to defend and promote some brands over others.

Every company is now a media company
Tom Foremski

Marketing in the 21st century has become less about stressing that your product is the best and more about values. For example, one ad that has always stuck out to me is an Extra Gum commercial. It intertwines a young couple’s love story with a gum wrapper. This commercial makes you forget that it is even an ad. This connects to what Foremski has said about business because nowadays companies are becoming storytellers in promoting their products. Although the Digital Era has not changed the core goals of Business and Marketing, it is clear that there has been a huge impact on the ways that companies have built a bridge between themselves and their customers.

Public Relations is defined as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics by the Public Relations Society of America. As it is more commonly referred to as PR, this focuses on becoming newsworthy through storytelling.

“We govern what people think about.”
Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays is known for being the “Father of PR.” In 1928 Bernays published his work titled Propaganda which argued that PR is a necessity. According to Bernays, PR controlled what people thought and how they thought. An example of this is shown through analyzing why women smoke in the United States. Many years ago, it was looked down on when women smoked and the primary consumers of cigarettes were men. When the owner of Lucky Strike realized that he was missing out on half of the market due to women refusing to purchase cigarettes, he turned to Bernays for help. Bernays suggested that they speak to a psycho analyst and they suggested to promote cigarettes as “torches of freedom” for women. This was because many progressive women were beginning to revolt against men telling them what they could and could not do. Then, Bernays went to a women’s march and began spreading the word to women about lighting their cigarettes as torches for freedom. Within six weeks, women smoking cigarettes started becoming socially acceptable. This example highlights how Bernays showed how PR can not only impact sales for a company but it can also change the ways that people think in society.

Today, PR people not only work with journalists but also influencers in order to do the same. For example, I have been watching my favorite “beauty gurus” in their PR box unboxing videos. This is where my understanding of PR began. At first I was confused as to why influencers were sent an obscene amount of products for free, but in my studies of business and PR I began to understand. It is clear that companies choose to send people like Laure Lee for example, who has over 4 million subscribers on Youtube. Ultimately, they are hoping for her to promote their product to her millions of followers so they go and purchase it. It is more simple when it is broken down that way, yet this is where many people begin to get PR, Marketing, and Advertising confused.

Some misconceptions about PR are that they buy advertisements, they order journalists to write stories about their clients, they produce cute radio jingles, and they hand out free samples at the mall. In reality, PR is about promoting their clients, their products, and themselves. This is where many of the confusions between PR and Advertising come into play. Unlike advertisers, PR people persuade their external or internal audiences through unpaid or earned methods. They communicate with their audiences through trusted sources. Ultimately, their goal is it try and persuade journalists why their story is newsworthy.

When distinguishing the difference between PR and Advertising for example, it is easy to make clear distinctions. In Advertising, it is a paid way to build exposure in which they have complete creative control. The message that comes across in ads is, “This is important!!!!” But for PR on the other hand, it is an earned way to build trust and the media controls the final version of what it put out for consumers to see. The message that comes across is “This is important.” This is because the company has earned the right for it to be believed so due to the media promoting it free of charge. This is how the credibility is built when the New York Times or a Youtube influencer is talking about the product.

In asking the question, why is PR good for business? The answer can be drawn from these conclusions. PR creates credibility, increases awareness, it positions a company as an expert in its field, it humanizes companies through spokespersons. Bernays never could have imagined the world in which we live in now, but what he did know was that PR would be a pivotal piece of not only business but also societies to come. The Digital Era of Web 2.0 has taken this and shown its advancement in many more ways than just business in general. Social Media and the Internet has shown its importance and impact on society that keeps grown and changing no matter the time.