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1-Page Summary of Frenemies
Overview
Today, advertising is everywhere. We see ads on our TV screens and in the streets trying to sell us things we don’t need. But times have changed, and marketers now use a scientific approach to selling their products. In fact, over the last few decades there has been a revolution in marketing that is only getting stronger because of technology and big data.
In the following passages, we’ll explore the differences between creativity and data analysis. We will also discuss how internet giants are able to collect information about our personal lives in order to better advertise to us. Finally, we will see how these changes have affected American politics.
In this article, you will learn about the following:
The importance of advertising in today’s world
How advertisers are using the internet to collect information about us
What Donald Trump knew that Hillary Clinton didn’t know about advertising and why it affected their campaigns
Big Idea #1: Today’s marketing professionals are jacks-of-all-trades and they understand the importance of the smartphone.
Pop-up ads are annoying, but they’re a necessary evil. They connect buyers and sellers, which is critical to the success of any business or economy.
In ancient times, advertisements consisted of writing on rocks and paintings on walls. They announced the services of nearby tradesmen. Nowadays, there are far more complex forms of advertising and marketing. It includes everything from direct mail to in-store promotions. Public relations firms get involved when a business is in crisis, like Volkswagen’s emission scandal that was revealed in 2015. Companies even rebrand themselves or redesign their corporate logos, like Time Warner Cable when it became Spectrum
Marketing is also about the advice that consulting companies like McKinsey give to CEOs. The Kardashian family, who are influential with millennials, are also considered part of the marketing industry because they help market products by featuring them on their social media accounts.
Advertising has been around for a long time. The main mediums used to be television and radio, as well as print media like newspapers and magazines. However, the way people communicate with one another has changed in recent years. Smartphones have become an integral part of our lives, so much so that six billion people use them worldwide. They’re incredibly powerful devices that can do things we never thought possible just a decade ago: they can track us wherever we go and interact with us in real time.
For example, Tencent is a Chinese corporation that provides its users with the ability to shop and communicate with others. Not only do 80% of 800 million Tencent users use their services for over an hour every day; they also participate in 500 million interactions daily by using 300 million credit cards at 300,000 online stores on the same platform.
Meanwhile, advertisers can monitor a user’s activities and target them. This enables advertisers to pick up on trends and preferences of users.
Big Idea #2: The ad industry was once very lucrative, but tightening budgets are making ad executives uneasy.
The popular TV show “Mad Men” tells the story of advertising companies and their executives in 1960s New York. Many people enjoy watching it, but did you know that the protagonist is actually an amalgamation of several famous ad men from that era? These ad men were masters at both creative content and client relationships, but things have changed since then.
Most of the twentieth century, advertising executives were relatively safe because they collected commissions from both sides.
