Digitial Advertising – Life In The Fast Lane

Advertising holds a strong grasp on the public imagination as an industry, a constant and changing spectacle, and an integral part of the Western world’s free market system.

Everyone has opinions on it. Everyone has used it and been impacted by it at some point. And nearly everyone has considered pursuing it as a career at one time or another.

Food for thought

• Advertising holds an irresistible fascination in the public imagination as a glamorous industry, an ever-changing spectacle, and a pillar of the Western world’s capitalist system.
• The reality of working in advertising is far less flashy than its public perception suggests. It’s a demanding job requiring creativity, strategy, and perseverance.
• Advertising seeks to captivate consumer attention and interest. The most effective ads blend information with intrigue.
• Omnipresent in American life, advertising finances much of our entertainment, news, technology, and transportation infrastructure.
• While parts of advertising remain controversial, the industry was largely self-policing in pioneering protections against deception.
• Advertising has played an underrecognized role in enabling mass communication, consumption, innovation and rising living standards.

Like those working in entertainment, media, or journalism, advertising professionals can seem to occupy a separate world to everyday people. Bestselling books in recent years have helped intensify this illusion. The young ad woman or man is chasing a million-dollar account, gets a wild idea, and through cunning is able to sell it to the stubborn old client. Boom! Success! Even if in the book this triumph is rejected at its peak, the author underscores the prevalent belief that advertising is a puzzling wonderland full of randomness and luck, where wealth awaits at the chime of a catchy jingle.

In reality, those who strategize, design and disseminate advertising are no more glamorous than your neighbor. To them, advertising is a job – sometimes exciting, often hectic, but ultimately a 9 to 5 occupation and not a movie role.

Why then does the work of ad men and women seem comparable to movie stars or musicians as dream jobs? Why should creating and distributing advertising appear more thrilling than retail work or manufacturing or insurance sales?

The reason is straightforward. It is advertising’s mission to captivate people, in the literal sense of “to allure and hold intent, especially by appealing qualities.” This definition of the verb “to fascinate” from Webster’s Dictionary accurately states what advertising seeks to do. The better the ad, the more it grabs attention and interest, whether through attractive or shocking means. Certainly every maker or sponsor of an ad campaign hopes it will prove irresistible.

Some ads accomplish this better than others. But the worst fate for any ad is to be dismissed and ignored. Since advertising voluntarily seeks the public eye, the industry can have no complaint if met with the typical human reactions to famous figures like envy, distrust, criticism and questioning of motives. Nor should the field feel surprised that everyone wants to join in.

With the breadth and persistence of modern advertising, awareness of it is inescapable for Americans. One is overwhelmed by sales messages from the minute your phone is turned on in the morning to the point of falling asleep while reading a blog post loaded with ads at night. Meanwhile, postal mailings, billboards, product placements, digital ads, sponsorships, and more vie for attention. Signs illuminate the roads long after dark. Advertising professionals are right: The world is “blanketed” with advertising.

Yet by and large, constant marketing does not bother most consumers. There is general acceptance that advertising underwrites much of our entertainment and has elevated living standards.

This does not mean all advertising is universally cherished. Certain tactics rightly draw criticism. But promotion people were the first to challenge unethical practices. As you will read, advertising plays an expansive role in enabling commerce, free speech, innovation, and economic opportunity.

The deeper one explores the processes and impact of advertising, the more its fascination and complexity are revealed. Advertising’s influence extends far beyond sales numbers, underwriting pivotal realms of American life and liberty.

Fascinating? The deeper one delves into advertising, the more engaging it becomes.