To the right is an image of the show Mad Men. Mad Men is centered around an advertising agency called Sterling Cooper that is finding its way in the early 60s. This era is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Advertisement" because individuals working in the field were still trying to find their way between print ads, radio ads, and the introduction of television. In thinking about interactive advertisements, and the information provided by the Barbarian group, I can't help but think we're in a similar era. Advertising on the internet is becoming more and more popular, and different groups are trying to find the most creative and compelling ways to do so. On the other hand, I think Manovich in The Myth of Interactivity does a good job of laying out the increasing interactivity in media, and its evolution before the internet. So, while the new media is utilizing this form of interaction more, I think it's relevant to connect it back, and look at how interactivity has affected us before...
I can't read about these interactive advertisements, and the general advent of interactivity on the web, without thinking of R.L. Stine. Everyone remembers him, right? In elementary school I read two or three books every week. This meant I didn't have any friends, but I did become exposed to every genre of books. I read classics and Animorphs on the same day with abandon. I even got into Goosebumps (pictured on the right). What was interesting about these books, was some of them had alternate endings that the reader could choose. Because I was a nerd, I would read all of the endings, but the idea was that the reader had a choice in the matter, just like in the "Waking up Hannah" video. This connects to the Manovich article The Myth of Interactivity: interactivity has not been invented by the web, but rather has been broadened and become more normalized.
I think the Barbarian Group does a good job of articulating the pros of using interactive advertisement, and distinguishing between what they do and other forms of web advertising. (That's the Subservient chicken advertisement, pictured on the right). Still, I'm not sure I'm buying the effectiveness of interactive advertisement. I would hands down agree that it is more entertaining than other forms of advertisement out there on the web, but it's also more time consuming. Had I not been compelled to watch "Waking up Hannah" for class I would have never chosen to do so. Same goes for the Subservient Chicken. I agree that they're really interesting and unique from other advertisements, but the interactivity takes time, and I know that they're ultimately trying to sell me something, so the whole thing feels cheap.Maybe this is the wrong attitude to have towards interactive ads on the web, but I'm skeptical of their overall effectiveness. Thinking something is entertaining doesn't mean that I'm going to spend hours looking at it. In fact, I'd like to know exactly how long the audience is supposed to interact, on average. I think that could be extremely relevant to the effectiveness of a campaign.
Plus, these ads are only interactive to a point. I'm not interacting with a human (as Barbarian points out), but rather, I'm interacting with a limited media presence, meant to generate different results as I enter different inputs. This also makes it feel cheap, or maybe not cheap, but I'm not sure I'm willing to put in the effort to interact. That's just my skepticism though, obviously Barbarian is doing something right, and the ads are cool. I just wonder if a flash page is in some ways more effective? What do you think? Place your thoughts below...Images:
Mad Men: http://blog.ragan.com/prjunkie/mad_men.jpg
Subservient Chicken: http://img18.photobucket.com/albums/v53/ldma666/subservientchicken.jpg
Goosebumps: http://blogs.amctv.com/monsterfest/goosebumps.jpg
Waking up Hannah: http://www.culture-buzz.com/IMG/jpg/Waking_up_Hannah_image_1.jpg
Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your blog is really accessible and engaging. After a few months of this, I think there are certain blogs from our class that really have this thing down, and your ease of reading, humor, and use of pictures get your point across effectively. So, no suggestions from me there.
Having the benefit of our class discussion on Tuesday, I think there is a critical question that arises from this blitz of interactive web media, since it seemed that most of the students in our class were skeptical of the effectiveness of the ads:
Are we the target audience? I have a theory that our generation (born in 1980's) are tech savvy (i.e. "young") enough to know how to navigate through the internet's new pioneering tools, yet old enough to have lingering criticisms of the technology. In other words, we can post videos on YouTube, yet complain about how utterly useless most of the videos on that site YouTube are. Same with Facebook, Twitter, etc.
I think ads like "Waking Up Hannah" and the like are aimed toward people just a BIT younger than us; in that example, perhaps the audience is girls born post-1990 who haven't discovered Sex and the City yet. These younger folks don't consider the internet to be a new form of media, they've just always had it. To them, wasting time on the internet is the equivalent to us wasting time watching TV, which is to say, not that much of a time waste at all. You say that "the interactivity [of online ads] takes time." More time than watching "Friends" reruns for the billionth time? Younger people spend so, so much time online, that stupid internet ads have roughly the same effect that stupid TV ads have on us: we remember them. However, the internet gets the bonus of effect of, hopefully, going "viral," or linking us to their site. Plus, they don't have to pay the networks.
Sorry to say, but I think this sort of idiocy has only just begun. Sorry also to be so long-winded, but this is a highly interesting topic, right?
Rob, you're going to totally dwarf my post. You've covered so much! Oh well. Onward...
ReplyDeleteI like the comparison of Mad Men to today's interactive advertisements. To me, the ads of Mad Men are so quintessentially modern compared to the ultra-postmodern conceptions of advertising made by say, the Barbarian group. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds good, right? Ok. I'll attempt to deconstruct that. Ads today are often abstract, multi-modal, and ambigious. They are more adept at hiding the fact that they are desperately trying to sell you shit. All of the barbarian group ads try to integrate entertainment with straight-up capitalism. "I don't need Burger King, but this chicken is so fun!" Etc. I'm not sure if this "line blurring" is ultimately responsible. Let's call a spade a spade--ads are not made for you to have fun, they are made for Joe Corporate to make money. The ads in the 60's (bringing it back to Mad Men now) were clearly ads.
So...where I'm trying to go with this is...postmodernism and advertising...skewing perceptions...I really have no idea.
Let's be honest...this post is nonsense. I tried, but I just can't pull it together.