I still remember when I began to become aware of the ads around me. It was my grandma's house when I was staying there for a weekend as a little kid. Being there was always great... I had access to all the food I wanted and more importantly, all the TV I could watch. Nike, McDonald's, Starbucks... they all popped up on my screen and I loved their ads. At the same time though, I began to notice that a lot of my grandma's stuff didn't have labels or branding on them. So what had happened in the past several decades to create this influx of branded marketing? PBS's Frontline series attempted to answer this same question in their episode "The Persuaders" on the evolution of advertisements and marketing.
As "The Persuaders" puts it, our society has quickly become an advertising-friendly world. This is due in part to the constant feeling of ads being around us in the world. With so much pushing information bombarding us, we as humans adapt to it and develop a shield against it. Thus, advertisers must adapt as well and constantly up the ante. That basic ad with two different types of deodorant next to each other with a voice-over saying one is better? Not good enough anymore. Now, the "superior" deodorant must be shown with a ripped NFL player chopping down a tree next to a supermodel, at least until that ad no longer appeals to consumers and it must be upgraded even further.
This shift in marketing comes down to society's acceptance and acclimation to older ads. When you are being told that everything you see is a superior, cleaner, or better product, it is hard to take any of them seriously. That means that marketers have to come with some other way to make the product appealing. Their solution was to make their products a piece of a lifestyle, a societal staple. An example of this is Apple's original iPod. The iPod was not that much different than other MP3 players of the time and was probably of lower quality if anything. However, Apple made it the gold standard by marketing the iPod with its own exclusive white earbuds (at a time when all other earbuds were black). By highlighting the earbuds in the commercials as a white line against a colored silhouette of a person, Apple made the iPod a luxury item, something that was more than a product, but a status symbol. This has continued to this day with their newer products like the iPhone and AirPods. These products are not necessarily better than other competitors', but they are unique enough that they can be effectively marketed as a lifestyle.
Ultimately, "The Persuaders" is able to explain the shift of our society to an advertising-friendly world by discussing the acclimation of society to older marketing techniques. By constantly creating new marketing tactics, advertisers and consumers engage in a perpetual war over what is effective in selling a product and in a world full of chatter, voices must be clear or loud to stand out from the crowd.
As "The Persuaders" puts it, our society has quickly become an advertising-friendly world. This is due in part to the constant feeling of ads being around us in the world. With so much pushing information bombarding us, we as humans adapt to it and develop a shield against it. Thus, advertisers must adapt as well and constantly up the ante. That basic ad with two different types of deodorant next to each other with a voice-over saying one is better? Not good enough anymore. Now, the "superior" deodorant must be shown with a ripped NFL player chopping down a tree next to a supermodel, at least until that ad no longer appeals to consumers and it must be upgraded even further.
This shift in marketing comes down to society's acceptance and acclimation to older ads. When you are being told that everything you see is a superior, cleaner, or better product, it is hard to take any of them seriously. That means that marketers have to come with some other way to make the product appealing. Their solution was to make their products a piece of a lifestyle, a societal staple. An example of this is Apple's original iPod. The iPod was not that much different than other MP3 players of the time and was probably of lower quality if anything. However, Apple made it the gold standard by marketing the iPod with its own exclusive white earbuds (at a time when all other earbuds were black). By highlighting the earbuds in the commercials as a white line against a colored silhouette of a person, Apple made the iPod a luxury item, something that was more than a product, but a status symbol. This has continued to this day with their newer products like the iPhone and AirPods. These products are not necessarily better than other competitors', but they are unique enough that they can be effectively marketed as a lifestyle.
Ultimately, "The Persuaders" is able to explain the shift of our society to an advertising-friendly world by discussing the acclimation of society to older marketing techniques. By constantly creating new marketing tactics, advertisers and consumers engage in a perpetual war over what is effective in selling a product and in a world full of chatter, voices must be clear or loud to stand out from the crowd.
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