Changing Times

We are in a new age. We have entered the digital age of the twenty-first century, as many say. Those who grow up in this time will have a very different outlook on life as our parents who grew up in a different time. Most of us already have different views of our parents. The fact is, if you were born anytime in between the eighties and the early years of the twenty-first century, you are in a very different world than those who were not. That means many things that were big and worked before, will not work now.

The truth is we do not know a lot of things that our parents grew up with. Many of us do not know what film, or video tape is. We do not know what a landline is because many houses now only have cellphones. Our parents do not know what an MP3 is, nor of they understand how the internet works. What does that mean? That means there is a huge disconnect between the two generations. That huge disconnect means we all have to change the way we do things because of the difference. The truth is the way advertisement used to work, does not work on us any more.

Those of us born a millennials have grown accustomed to new technology. We have grown accustom to having our phones with us all the time. Being able to go online anywhere at anytime is something most of us have come to have. Being able to look whatever we wanted up online is another key thing. The simple fact is, we are more interested in our phones and what is on our phones than the world around us. That is why advertisement is failing. It is because we have different interest than the last generation. We tend to control the flow of information in our lives, asking our friends about the product rather than looking to ads. We are interested in downloading new apps. We believe that our loyalty to a product should be rewarded with coupons. We want more, and we want it now. All ideas, similar to The Persuaders. This shift in our views has forced companies to take on different approaches in advertisement.

Is forcing a shift in advertisement bad? Is the way the new generation sees the world wrong? I hope not because I would technically be a part of that. At the same time, let's consider this, may be we have come to the point where we no longer need the companies to do the advertising for us. Maybe, and this is a scary possibility, we are the only ones that need to advertise the products we see. Maybe we are the next best advertisement method because we like to communicate with our friends about what we have seen and heard. Perhaps, the time for old commercials, billboards, and printed ads has come.

An article discussing the ineffectiveness of current advertising:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2015/04/28/research-shows-millennials-dont-respond-to-ads/#51334e325dcb

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 8, 2017 at 8:50 PM

    I think it's interesting how you specifically mention billboards in the list of ads that might come back - I, personally, have never found billboards to be a very effective way of advertising in the first place. Maybe it is partially that generational gap you talked about, but a platform of advertising where you can only see it for a few seconds before it's gone doesn't really seem... practical, to me. However, in general, I do agree with what you've said; I think that in many ways the "tried-and-true" methods are coming back in style already and we'll only see more of them in the coming years.

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