In the new found digital age that we are all living in it seems that the only constant we can find is that of change, growth, and innovation, this is evident in all elements of our modern lives, things such as: food we eat, music we listen to, media we consume have all seen a drastic shift in the way that they exist, how we consume it, and how we are delivered it. With the above in mind, how exactly does this effect us as consumers?
One of the most overt ways that this is noticed is through our exposure of advertising and it has exploded in recent years. According to a study done by Media Dynamics, Inc. (reported in a SJ Insights article) since 1945 media usage has nearly doubled in terms of the amount of minutes per day, even if 1945 seems far removed it has still risen from an average of 433 minutes per day in 1985 to 590 in 2014.
This echoes the obvious trend in American culture of “turning off and tuning in” as a means of leisure in our everyday lives. In fact, in terms of advertising exposure Yankelovich, a marketing research company, (reporting in NY Times article) we are exposed to an estimated 5,000 ads per day compared to around 2,000 thirty years ago; the sure amount of these ads is staggering and if one does as much as open their eyes to full amount of advertising they are exposed to on a daily basis these numbers seem to become more realistic. That is exactly what we aimed to do when we were tasked with the job of trying to keep track of the number of ads that we were exposed to and observed in one day from waking up to going to sleep.
The way I attacked this experiment was by simply carrying a piece of paper and a pencil in my pocket and marking a tally mark every time I observed a piece of advertisement and to count tallies at the end of the day. As I fully expected the results of this were overwhelming; in the day, with all of my coming and going, I was able to count 354 ads that I observed (a lot of tallies to count). Obviously, this number is a huge difference to the estimated 5,000 ads (or the 10,000 that the AMA claims to be more realistic). However, it is almost an insurmountable task to truly count the exposures that we each receive everyday. It seemed that most noticeable to me was that of the amount of branding on almost every item, even now as I type this I see an Apple on my computer, a logo stitched on my shoes, and a label on my coffee; this owned media is pervasive in its force and breadth. Personally, the most interesting ad that I spotted was while I was streaming an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Netflix, the ad came in the form of product placement when I noticed that in nearly every scene of the gang drinking beer it is a Coors’ Light, it is never mentioned or referred to, but it is what they are always drinking.
Spending a day fully taking in the amount of ads we see was at best eye-opening and at worst exhausting, I became hyperaware of all of the different advertising around me; on my phone, tv, computer, and in my music, I have since come back to an equilibrium of awareness, but still it catches me by surprise sometimes. I definitely at times felt a sense of ad burnout; in an article on MediaPost it speaks about how an overload on ads can actually hurt the brand’s reputation, but the costs and benefits must be weighed because a lot of times to get the consumer the correct number of exposures for the ad the ad has to be overexposed. I see how the validity of this standpoint, but it does not keep me from feeling at time almost used or followed by a company that is continually sending ads my way. Overall, it is difficult to predict the exact future of advertisements, but we can sure expect to keep seeing them on increasingly diverse platforms at an accelerated rate.
I. Walker Carroll 