Week 13 Part A: Online Advertising-Analysis of the Marketplace

    The exercise for this week was to view ads and sponsored posts on a variety of social media platforms. For me this meant that I would have to turn off ad block on my web browser and actively try not to skip over these posts. Most of my ads and sponsored posts tended to be for about the same thing with little variation most likely because of the limited amount of data that I put out on my personal social media platforms; these consisted of alternative clothes/accessories for sale, electronic accessories, or related to marketing courses because of my recent purchases and searches for school. I chose to focus on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

    The posts that grabbed my attention on Facebook and Instagram were those that included videos or animations/gifs in the posts; they stood out among the normally static images of others posts and had me pause or go back after scrolling past to check to see what was being shown. Other than those posts, the next types of posts were for items that were clothing options that had unique features to them which was a pretty big direct result from the kind of online shopper that I am; seeing a post that featured a distressed striped sweater was very lack luster but seeing a sweater cut in a unique way with multiple metal features added on would have me stick around to check the item out more.

    The most annoying ads to me were the YouTube ads at the beginning of videos that were 2-5 minutes long, although they were skippable. The main reason these were unbearable for me was because if I was working on something on another tab/window or away from the computer I would actively have to go over to the ad and skip over it to continue onto the video. I think that these ads would be better off as still being short form like other ads that played; they should be able to peak their audiences interest quick with a hook and could still offer extra information by mentioning to click on their link at the end of their video.

    In my opinion, traditional advertising is becoming less and less effective as time goes on. Many consumers, particularly the younger crowd, today don't focus on buying newspapers or magazines and turn to commercial free streaming services rather than turning on their tv to watch through cable. For the advertising industry this has made them have to shift their focus on how to integrate their ads into digital spaces by buying advertising on platforms, to subtle advertisement in posts, to outright sponsoring content creators and other businesses to keep their ads in the spotlight. It is 100% necessary that they keep evolving with the growth of technology to not have their efforts fall flat because of things like advertising.