Digital Media Convergence- Advertising & New Media

| Digital Media Convergence

Advertising & New Media |

 

Setting the Scene - Digital Media Convergence 

 

In the present day, our 21^st Century context is often regarded as being characterised by extensive technological developments, with the impacts of such innovations resulting in the formation of new practices concerning the production, distribution and consumption of various media forms. Such comprehensive developments, within which digitisation and the advent of the Internet have served a prime role, primarily centre on a process of “adaptation, merging together and transitioning” widely known as convergence (Dwyer 2010: 2).

Traditional 50's family audience congregated around the TV set

The rise of digital culture, or what Jenkins (2006: 2) termed “convergence culture”, has hence precipitated a shift in the traditional producer/consumer paradigm characteristic of the pre-digital era, creating a new participatory culture. This demise of the one-directional flow of media content has enabled for the dissemination of information across “different media systems, economies and nations” (Sheehan and Morrison 2009), thus resulting in new opportunities for content producers, particularly in advertising.  As a consequence of this overall technological, industrial and social convergence in the new digital media environment, advertisers have explored new avenues in an attempt to adapt to the fracturing and fragmentation of audiences from the 1980’s onward (Spurgeon 2008: 38). However, it is essential to note that each of these new marketing endeavors have presented multiple challenges to advertisers.

Tough Times Ahead - How Advertisers Have Adapted to the New Digital Age

Initially, the growth of new digital media technologies/practices and convergence culture presented a range of challenges to the advertising industry, most particularly, the practice of time-shifting coupled with the rise of the personal video recorder (PVR) and the demise of scheduled programming. The rapid shift of content from traditional media forms (especially the TV) to the Internet resulted in the increased fragmentation of audiences associated these traditional media. Advertisers and media industries alike have thus undergone a multitude of changes to address this new “confluence culture” (Sheehan and Morrison 2009). 

According to Stafford (2005: 9) the rapid and extensive growth of new media technologies, particularly the Internet, is observable through advertising expenditure, with the participatory opportunities offered by the medium driving the Internet as a “crucial marketing and trading medium for many businesses”.  The consequential development and rise of interactive methods of advertising has since been widely adopted to enable more specific, targeted and personal engagement with increasingly distracted consumers (Lombard and Snyder-Duch 2001: 56). Prominent examples of new advertising trends include the sophistication of product placement, in the form of branded entertainment, and the emergence of the viral campaign through social media platforms.

The Rise of ‘Madison & Vine’ - Branded Entertainment

The convergence of both the advertising and entertainment industries has become a defining feature of the new confluence culture. Such co-adaption has largely assisted in the survival of both fields in the current climate of diminishing brand loyalty and increased consumer resistance and cynicism (Sheehan and Morrison 2009). The prime intention behind this evolution in integrated product placement involves the embedding of products/brands into an entertainment context in order to influence consumer brand judgements in a manner that is favourable to advertisers (Hudson and Hudson 2006: 492). This new marketing direction has involved the placement of brands in television programs, storylines of short films and even music videos. This trend has also overturned the traditional 90:10 distribution and production ratio (Spurgeon 2008: 24), with advertisers progressively allocating greater expenditure to the production process. A number of scholars (Sheehan and Morrison 2009) have termed such brand integration as the “renaissance of strategic creativity in brand communication.” 

Whilst the optimism surrounding this movement is evident in the success of BMW’s 2001 series of short films, which resulted in an unprecedented spike in sales for the corporation, there remain multiple instances in which overly ambitious attempts at branded entertainment have backfired. A recent example includes the controversy surrounding the integration of the Nokia 7610 mobile phone in a music video for pop-punk band Fall Out Boy in 2008. This case illustrates the risks for creative content producers and advertisers, with a version of the video, described as a “product placement extravaganza” (Topolsky: 2008) being released without any prior consultation. This lack of control that marketers have encountered with this branded entertainment model also coincides with the unpredictability of consumer attitudes and ethical concerns regarding the subliminality of these brand messages, with the “loss of creative freedom” a key concern amongst critics. (Hudson and Hudson 2006: 499). 

Coming Down with the ‘Viral Campaign’ - Viral Marketing & Social Media

Screenshot from Tourism Queensland's website

The rise of participatory, confluence culture and the breakdown of the once rigid dichotomy between producer and consumer has led to the emergence and rapid growth of online viral marketing, which is based on the capabilities of “word of mouse” or knowledge-sharing to disseminate product/brand information to a broad audience (Subramani and Rajagopalan 2003: 300). The rise in popularity of social networking platforms, particularly Facebook and YouTube, has assisted in the recent success of numerous viral marketing campaigns, with consumers becoming increasingly dependent on peer-reviews and recommendations on specific products or services. Therefore, one of the key benefits of viral marketing centres on the cost effectiveness of such campaigns, as this method “leverages the customers themselves to carry out most of the promotional effort” (Richardson and Domingos 2002: 1). However, since the extensive development of social media platforms has led to an intensification of consumer-to-consumer dialogue, it is essential that advertisers harness the tools to shape such conversations in a manner which is most beneficial to the brand’s image, which has proven difficult in some instances (Mangold and Faulds 2009: 358).

Like branded entertainment, the new convergent media environment has witnessed an abundance of campaigns in which this emergent viral marketing strategy has flourished. Tourism Queensland’s 2009 ‘Best Job In The World’ campaign is a prominent example of the potential of viral marketing, with the campaign reaching an estimated audience of 3 billion people, with budding employees from across the globe generating 35 000 applications (Stanaland 2012: 393). The sophistication of Tourism Queensland’s integrated media approach, through the employment of a website in addition to other social media outlets, is largely attributed to the campaign’s unprecedented success. 

Advertising & Convergence - Where to Next?

It hence becomes clear that the future of advertising in this new interactive, convergent, digital media climate is dependent upon the industry's capabilities to respond to the ever-evolving needs of an increasingly fragmented, distracted and powerful audience. Through capitalising on the interactive opportunities offered to content producers through convergent media forms, advertisers can then continue to develop more sophisticated methods of targeting more specified audiences via a range of mediums.

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References -

Dwyer, T. (2010) Media Convergence. Berkshire: McGraw Hill, 1-23.

Fall Out Boy - I Don't Care. (2009). Fall Out Boy - I Don't Care. (Online Video). 19 December 2009. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alh6iIvVN9o. Accessed 27 August 2012.

Hudson, S. and Hudson, D. (2006) ‘Branded Entertainment: A New Advertising Technique or Product Placement in Disguise?’ in Journal of Marketing Management 22 (5-6): 489-504.

Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2.

Lombard, M. and Snyder-Duch, J. (2001) ‘Interactive Advertising and Presence: A Framework’ in Journal of Interactive Advertising 1 (2): 56-65.

Mangold, W.G., and Faulds, D.J. (2009) ‘Social Media: The New Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix’ in Business Horizons 52: 357-365.

Richardson, M. and Domingos, P. (2002) ‘Mining Knowledge-Sharing Sites for Viral Marketing’, Seventh International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining.

Sheehan, K., and Morrison, D. (2009) ‘Beyond Convergence: Confluence Culture and the Role of the Advertising Agency in a Changing World’ in First Monday 14 (3).

Spurgeon, C. (2008) Advertising and New Media. London: Routledge, 38.

Stafford, M.R. (2005) Advertising, Promotion and New Media. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 9.

Stanaland, A. (2012) ‘The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World’ in Journal of Consumer Marketing 29 (5): 393-394.

Subramani, M.R., and Rajagopalan, B. (2003) ‘Knowledge –Sharing and Influence in Online Social Networks via Viral Marketing’ in Communications of the ACM 46 (12): 300-307. 

Topolsky, J. (2008) 'Screen Grabs: Fall Out Boy rails against product placement, enjoys the rewards of product placement', Engadget, http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/30/screen-grabs-fall-out-boy-rails-against-product-placement-enjo/, Accessed 27 August 2012.