New Technologies

As time goes on we are developing more and more ways of entertaining ourselves, making things easier for ourselves and simply changing the way we do things. It is these changes in technologies that are changing the way companies advertise to us as an audience. As our technologies develop and become more advanced so does the way products are advertised for example before the invention of the TV the main adverts would be posters or possibly radio adverts however back then adverts were not as common as they are now.

There are now unlimited possibilities of advertisement through new technologies that companies can choose but there are a few main ones that seem to work best and these are:

Online shopping: A much more simple solution to going to the supermarket, we can now sit at home on our computer and order or weekly shop direct to our door without having to move an inch. This method allows companies to have large advertisements on the page that are created to try and draw in the audience and attract them to purchase a product e.g. on the Asda website there are flash images of products that we might like to buy around christmas time (chocolate, crisps, sweets, sunday dinner food e.t.c) and this flash image has a picture of the product with the price on top. This is because the company hopes that the audience will look at the image and think ‘Wow I could really do with some chocolate, and look at that price I must have it!’ Although this method might not always work people are definitely more tempted to buy certain products through they way they are advertised by the company.

Social networking: Social networking sites are websites we people can interact with there friends through; chat, pictures, profile, comments, messages and a few other ways of communication more specific to each site. These sites are always looking to target users with very specific adverts to them e.g. if you have entered your favourite drink as coke on your profile you will more than likely receive many adverts trying to make you buy coca-cola. The site also has groups or fan clubs that can be created by users of the site to generate a wider audience for a certain thing or person e.g. some movies will create a group on facebook and advertise the film through it. People who join this group will receive notifications, messages and news feed updates on this certain group which might persuade them to see the film or buy the DVD e.t.c

Billboards: Billboards are giant signs usually placed along roads used to target a wider audience. Due to the sheer size and positioning of these billboards it makes it almost impossible to avoid them or not take notice of them and these are a very clever way of advertising because there are a very passive way of doing things (there is nothing you need to do to see the sign other than be walking, driving or cycling past the place it is located).

Text messaging: Phone networks will send you offers and updates through text message to try and attract you to purchase something for example o2 will send you texts on offers about the o2 academy or the o2 arena trying to tempt you to buy tickets and spend your money. They might also send you offers on your phone e.g. o2 use a prize system for pay as you go customers every time they top up there phone they can go online and claim a prize ranging from 60 free minutes on your phone to a brand new laptop.

Email: When a person registers to a certain site usually a shopping company’s site (sainsburys, boots, john lewis e.t.c) you have to enter your email this is so they can make sure you are a real customer and will therefore have to verify your account via email and also so they can send you new offers on products through email to try and tempt you to come back and buy some more. Email is a very clever method of advertising because the only way you can stop the emails are to delete your account and therefore mean you can no longer use that account or to delete your email so if you ticked ‘yes’ to send me emails there just going to keep coming.

Blu-ray/DVDs: Blue ray and DVD’s are new ways to watch your favourite movies and films we are always looking for easier ways to watch films and movies and now that we can watch them in high definition a lot of people are going to be more tempted to buy the film after seeing it to recreate that cinema affect in their own home. When videos first came out people found it very annoying that they would always have to rewind it to get it to the start of the film so when DVD’s came out and we no longer had to rewind every time people couldn’t wait to convert all there films from video to DVD and maybe in the future people will change all there DVD’s into blu-ray.

Blogs and Podcasts: Blogs and Podcasts are for people to publish things about themselves or others that people might want to read or hear. E.g. radio1 release a podcast so people can download there favourite show and listen to it on the bus on there iPod. Blogs are a lesser know form of advertising being as the person has to go and locate the blog themselves (below the line advertising).