In 2010, 560 movies were released in theaters, most of which were accompanied by promotional advertising campaigns. In the age of the Internet, most of those campaigns incorporate digital advertising methods into their marketing strategy. Dull flash sites, irritating banner ads, and relentless trailers have all become standard issue when it comes to online movie advertising. Consequently, by the end of 2010 alone, habitual Internet users had been exposed to hundreds of the same dull, formulaic, standard digital movie promotion techniques. However, if Paramount and Nickelodeon’s animated blockbuster film, Rango, is to forecast the coming year, the uninspired digital movie ad campaigns of the past may be poised to undergo a metamorphosis in 2011.
advertising
Rango’s gamified marketing takes aim at teens
Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man sports manliness in the traditional sense
The content of advertisements reveals a great deal about a society. They reflect the culture’s attitude towards race, gender, and class, in addition to how individuals are expected to behave in the society. Advertisements are out to sell, and the notion of being relevant to the lives of the audience is paramount in influencing consumers. For this reason, advertisements can so effectively expose characteristics of a civilization’s culture. However, advertisements rarely depict ordinary lives. Rather, they show idealized, embellished models of the attitudes, expectations, and behaviors of the various groups. Characters in advertisements are not everyday people, but rather symbols of how that race, class, or gender is expected to be. This causes an often invisible disconnect between real life and the lives of those depicted in ads. As a result, the idealistic stories told through advertisements end up crafting a society’s culture in addition to merely displaying its attributes. (more…)
Internet advertising requires a little more creativity
Let’s face it, no one clicks internet advertisements. Every now and then, while surfing a site I love, I’ll click a banner advertisement just to help out their advertising rates. But the sympathy click is the full extent of my interaction with web advertisements.
Yet, tons of websites earn a profit based solely on advertisements; the same ads that us web savvy folk avoid like the plague and fill us with frustration. You know, those awful web page ads that flash catchy headlines, use your IP to incorporate your location, perhaps even involve a little game element (shoot three ducks to win an iPad!). Or even just banner ads for mainstream products, services, and outlets like Best Buy, that may or may not obnoxiously expand to cover the entire web site you were surfing. How could those possibly be fiscally lucrative?