In Response to Sam

In Sam's post he discussed how digital advertising is becoming more common in our society and he wanted to know if I thought it would be how most people start advertising or not. I think that digital advertising is a pretty creative idea, if you don't like what you're seeing when you're advertisement is digitally posted; you can easily change it. These days mostly everyone is trying to switch over to digital everything, so the companies that are advertising are trying to come up with something that will match the digital world. I think they came up with a pretty creative creation. They can also add animations or scrolling text, which will definitely grab the attention of someone looking at the advertisement. My suggestion to companies would be to not go too overboard with animations because if a person has too much to look at in an advertisement; they won't get to see everything. Plain and simple with a catchy phrase usually does the job for advertisements. The one thing I don't like about digital advertisements is that if you're driving and looking at them on the highway they can be somewhat distracting. I know as a driver you shouldn't be looking around, but if you see something flashing in the corner of your eye; you're most likely going to look at what it is. Maybe they can somehow regulate the advertisements on the highway to be simple and not so flashy so it doesn't distract drivers. Do you think digital advertising is a good idea?

Electronic Means of Marketing

The world that we live in today is very different from what it was ten years ago. Everything is going electronic and a lot of companies are starting to look for ways to cut costs, which results in taking away their paper mail. A few companies noticed that when they took away their quirky postcards or letters with reduced fees they were starting to lose clients. A few clients even called the company that took away their humorous postcards to ask where they were. After thinking about how many clients they were disappointing with their lack of postcards and not sending letters offering reduced fees, these companies decided to bring back their direct mail. I think direct mail is good to a point. It goes a little too far when the stuff you're getting in the mail comes more than once, and you always end up throwing it away. Credit card offers would be a good example of this. I think most college students can relate to this because credit card offers are constantly coming in the mail, but the annoying part is if you fill out a form for them more often than not you're rejected because you don't have enough credit to actually get your own card.

Some companies are including bar codes in their advertisements which are found on magazines or letters you can get in the mail. The article said that some cellular phones are capable of scanning the bar codes, which takes you to the website that they're advertising. I think this way of marketing is pointless. I say this because not every cellular phone user has a blackberry or iPhone that is capable of scanning these bar codes to visit the website. It would make sense if they just said what they wanted to say on the advertisement page they are paying for rather than sending you to a website, most people aren't going to take the time to visit the website or they will forget about it.

I think right now companies are really trying to push electronic marketing and messages because they want to save money, but I also think they're struggling with giving up direct mail and phone calls altogether. People are so used to getting things in the mail and letting them sit around without "erasing" them, which is something you can usually do with an e-mail message. I think in five or ten years everything will be completely electronic when it comes to contacting people, but for now I think the companies will be split in half when it comes to sending electronic messages and direct mail or phone messages.

Do you think that in five or ten years everything will be done electronically?