Advancements of Advertising

“The revenge of the horserider. Come and see. You will not believe your eyes. This show will happen on the 21^st of April, opening doors at 14:00.” This could be a small section of a newspaper in 1911, because it was the only way of advertising they knew. No digital screens, no screaming pictures of Maarten trying to convince you to buy Intermerch, no. Just a 27-word advertisement in your local newspaper telling you the upcoming events. This type of advertisement could not exist anymore at Intermate due to the stoppage of printing Intermanias, but who knows where you could expect to be reading this article in the future?

Advertising quickly changed when radio and eventually television arrived. The Netherlands allowed advertisements in 1963 to be presented on these channels. The start of real marketing arrived. The advertisements went from serious notes to more cheerful, funny pieces of art. Which is exactly what the PromoCie tries to create with its posters. Marketeers found their way into the heads of the customers. The events were visited more often and ticket pricing got more expensive, due to the rising costs of advertising. Customers loved the advertisements and even stayed during the break of their TV show to watch the upcoming discounts on the products, or have a laughter with a funny video of Andre van Duin trying to milk a cow for a Yogi-drink commercial. The sales went to through the roof!

How different it is right now, people hate commercials. As a child you would avoid commercials by quickly running to the toilet, grabbing some popcorn, and annoying your siblings all in one break. With the streaming services of, for example, Netflix, Disney+, and Prime, the commercials suddenly disappeared to avoid these breaks. Could you imagine having to watch 10 minutes of commercials during your favorite Netflix show every half an hour? Maybe the older people amongst us could deal with this, but the younger generation has not grown up with this. Even on Tiktok, which allows advertisements, you could just swipe away those weird InterT.E.A.M. and AC-Team announcements that you have seen multiple times. Which brings up the question, where is the future of advertising going?

Advertising is not something that will be gone, but it needs to adjust to the world we live in. Fast paced information, which draws your attention immediately and is over before you know it. Asking ChatGPT, this stupid machine thinks that AI will drive marketing, weird suggestion by an AI driven program. When I let my thoughts run loose, I think about a future in which location does not matter anymore. It does not matter where you are, everywhere are small, fast, pop-up adds that encourage you to join an event. Flying digital screens, Teletubby bellies, and ads while you autodrive your car. You will not be able to ignore, swipe away, or avoid it anymore. Ads will take over the wor…. No let’s stop there. Luckily we still have the PromoCie who, on the background, makes posters for fun and delivers them to you. Let’s cherish that for the upcoming years.

And you? What do you think will happen to advertisements?