Advertising in a Digital World

Jorja Butt

jorjabutt14@gmail.com

 

Marketing and advertising agencies have created a system where they are able to target specific audiences and create content that they know will attract more views. Advertisements are everywhere and most of the time, they have been tailored to be seen by a specific audience. While these ads may only be a 15 seconds long video, the viewers have unconscious reactions that affect their everyday life. 

While social media is free, advertisers are paying for users attention and a platform to debut their ads. Most social media platforms have created algorithms that are specific to each individual user and tracks their digital footprint. While each platform has a different algorithm, they all do similar tasks. The Digital Marketing Institute provided a small insight into what each platform's algorithm's main goal is for their users and how it affects what they see on their timelines. Facebook's algorithm is focused on showing their users the posts made by family and friends, but also allows advertisers the opportunity to showcase their ads at a price. "Paid content is ranked separately but still revolves around engagement, customer response, and relevance to the subject matter," the Digital Marketing Institute reported. 

Picture source: JanMar Agency

This new way of advertising on social media has given marketing agencies the opportunity to expand their audiences and gain more traction for consumers to buy their products, but how does it affect consumer's personally?

Consumer behavior is an important factor that marketing agencies look at in order to find the best way to advertise their products and encourage viewers to buy into them. Advertisers create a positive experience revolving around their product to encourage viewers to buy them because of how likable the product is to other people. A Psychology Today article revealed that even if viewers aren't paying attention to the advertisements, they are still affected by them. An experiment was conducted that appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research that showed that an advertisement that connected the product to other likable experiences, made for more consumers to buy that product. "These results suggest that the most powerful effect of advertising is just to create a good feeling about a product by surrounding it with other things that you like," the Psychology Today article revealed. In order to promote positive feelings for one the advertised product, it must resonate with the viewer.

Advertising is everywhere. Whether viewers are paying attention to it or not, those ads play a key role in the decisions that are made on a day-to-day basis and are tailored to their emotions. It is important to look around and realize that those advertisements play a bigger role in our lives than we may have thought.