History of the past 100 years of advertising.

Whether your small business is based solely on the web, or if you have a brick and mortar store where you sell your goods and services it is extremely important to understand how technology has influenced successful marketing campaigns over the years. 

Ready for your history lesson?

Let’s start with radio. The first radio advertisements were simply announcements that benefited the owners of the stations. No money ever traded hands, however it didn’t take long until savvy business owners took advantage of this new medium. In 1922 Remik’s Music Store (based out of Seattle, WA) sponsored a program on KFC, a radio station that was partly owned by a Seattle based newspaper. Remik’s sponsored the radio show by promoting the program with large ads in the newspaper and invited people to buy songs that were just performed. Radio ads proved to be very effective compared to advertising in print alone, and even more so when owners combined both print and radio advertising. Soon, local DJs started to build reputations with their audience. Their listeners purchased the products or services that were mentioned by the on-air celebrity. Later, professionally produced spots included sound effects, background music, dialogue with numerous personalities, and jingles became an effective way of advertising to listeners. Studies showed that the quality of the commercials was just as important as the number of ads that they heard.

Television gives radio a run for it’s money. The first television advertisement was for a 20 second Bulova spot before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. It displayed an image of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States accompanied with a simple voice over that said “America runs on Bulova time.” (For anyone keeping score, the Phillies beat the Dodgers that day by a score of six to four). It wasn’t until 1990 until advertising on television became affordable to small businesses. Personal computers had advanced to the point where local broadcasters could use them for video production on local cable TV stations. Unlike radio, advertisers could represent their brand visually as well as with sound. Some ads, such as the Winston cigarettes commercials became so popular they ran for 20 years.

Television is still the dominant advertising medium today, Even though 50% of all TV homes will use a DVR by 2016, most viewers are still watching commercials. In fact, DVRs actually increased the rating for commercials by 44%. 

Internet now competes with radio, and television. Prodigy, a company owned by IBM and Sears, ran the first advertisement on the internet and promoted Sears products  in the early 1980s. Prodigy even ran advertisements for AOL, which one of Prodigy’s direct competitors. Global Network Navigator was the first commercial web publication offering clickable advertisements which we all know as banner ads. Internet advertising has grown to include many forms of advertising such as:

• Search engine result pages: Probably the most popular form as everyone is familiar with Google’s textually relevant ads

• Rich Media Ads: These are ads that have video and/or audio. They are typically using Adobe’s Flash technology, but ads written in HTML 5 are starting to appear as well.

• Social network advertising: If you use Twitter, then you’ve probably seen companies talking about sales, coupons, or just bringing their followers up to speed. The same is done on Facebook as well.

Internet advertising is getting more and more popular. Internet advertising revenues hit  record spending amounts in 2011. This is partly because affluent persons are actually using the internet more than television. Internet based advertising is only going to increase, especially when companies like Hulu are able to provide valuable free content.

What else is out there? There are literally thousands of different advertising ideas that you can use for your small business. You will need to base your decisions on your demographic, and what you are able to offer to your customer. Sometimes a special niche form of advertising might provide you with the results you are after. For example, a travel site might want to advertise on the mini-TVs in metropolitan taxis because that is the demographic they are trying to attract, or an smartphone case maker may want to advertise on a smartphone app because they can target customers that only have smartphones.

America has a love and hate relationship with advertising. It’s up to you to ensure that you stay loved.

For more information on how Tonangi Design & Media can create a website or produce a video for business visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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Stop wasting money, and advertise directly to your audience

Everyone remembers AOL CDs, and everyone had different uses for them. Only a small percentage of people actually signed up as customers. Some people used them for making shims for home carpentry projects. Of course this was a total waste of money. AOL didn't target their direct market. Most of these CDs ended up in the trash, but some of them ended up as works of art. In any case, AOL spent quite a bit of money. As a small business you can't afford to spend money marketing to customers that don't fit your demographic. When I receive a request for creating a commercial for a small business I always ask "What is your target demographic", and at least 50% of the time the answer is "well...everyone." This is actually never the case. A good advertising agency will help you define your correct demographic, and this is completely necessary when working with a less then ideal budget - which, right now is just about every small business in the United states.

Whether you are advertising on the internet or on television it is important to define your demographic. This will define how your advertisement will look. Your demographic will dictate the publications that Tonangi Media will choose to advertise your products and services on. It is never necessary to advertise to all people. Targeting your advertising will save you money, increase your conversion rate, and lower your customer acquisition cost. Defining your target demographic is one of the most important elements that a small business can work on even before you start your advertising campaign.

With television advertising, Tonangi Media has access to hundreds of networks, however we will choose only the networks that meet your specific target demographic requirements. The same will happen if you choose to advertise on the internet. For example if you are trying to sell a book targeted to business minded adults it would make no sense to advertise on children's stations like Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network, yet this is exactly what many advertising agencies do. Many agencies simply want to attract customers with the amount of spots that they can provide, but if these spots are not targeted directly to your potential customers then you are not 'getting a deal', but you are instead simply wasting your hard earned marketing and advertising dollars.

Don't make this mistake. Work with advertising agencies that can help you define your target demographic and will give you quotes based on reaching your potential customers. It's very easy to see hundreds of spots and get excited, but the details of when and where these spots play are extremely important.

For more information on how Tonangi Media can help you advertise on television or the internet please visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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Radio, Newspaper, TV & Internet, oh my...

When small businesses are ready to advertise, the biggest question that arises is what medium should they choose. Here are some of the mediums that small business owners typically consider:

Radio Advertising

Radio is no longer a cost-effective solution. In the not-so-distant past listeners of traditional radio mostly utilized the medium in the car or in the gym. Now many people are using their iPods, satellite radio, or their cell phones to help pass the time. The amount of hours the average American now listens to traditional radio has dropped significantly to under 7 hours a week. This is quite small when you compare the fact that Americans watch 35 hours a week of television, and go online over 32 hours a week. Radio stations had no other choice but drop their advertising rates considerably, which is why many small businesses still consider traditional radio advertising an effective medium - unfortunately this is not the case. The radio industry has tried to promote HD Radio, however it seems that has also failed. (Do any of you that are reading this blog post know what HD Radio is? Post a comment and let us know.) In the very near future, terrestrial radio will be aimed at the very poor and the very old. Is this the demographic you want to reach? We have to face the reality that traditional radio is dead. 

Newspaper Advertising

There is no doubt you must have read about the decline of newspapers in the United States (actually you probably saw a story about it on TV). Most Americans simply don't see a reason to buy a newspaper that is often out of date when you compare it to their online, and television counterparts. Americans don't plan on needing newspapers in the future either. In fact, just yesterday Editor & Publisher released an article that stated that 8 out of 10 Americans would oppose any plan to spend tax dollars to aid failing newspapers. 45% of those surveyed think the internet is "adequately covering for failing newspapers." Like radio, advertising on newspapers has become less and less effective as the audience continues to decline. Newspapers are dying.

Internet and Television Advertising

Now that we have discussed the depressing news, let's discuss other mediums that can make us happy again. If radio and newspapers are dead, what can we use for a cost effective advertising campaign? Well, I'm sure the subtitle of this section must have given the answer away. Television is still the most popular form of consuming media, and 74% of Americans have readily available access to the internet. Together these two advertising mediums cover virtually every single American in the United States. With quite a bit of overlap utilizing both mediums simultaneously can increase your branding efforts tremendously. According to a recent CNN International report "brands who choose multimedia campaigns to communicate their advertising messages are more memorable to consumers and are more likely to enhance perception of their brands." An ad on television alone was recalled an average of 20% of the time by viewers, however that number jumped to 33% when simultaneous TV & internet advertising efforts were introduced. The study also introduced eye-tracking technology which found that viewers responded well to video content on websites, taking between 66 to 80 per cent of their attention.

By using local cable television advertising and video on the web simultaneously, your small business can dominate your competitors that are still utilizing radio and newspapers to advertise their products and services. For more information on how Tonangi Media can help you advertise on television or the internet please visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

<< Back to www.tonangi.com