How do you gain the attention of millions of people? That, is the question that advertisers and marketers face every single day.
Being an advertising major, I am very open to seeing ads. I enjoy watching new commercials and observing what different brands are doing to be creative and stay in touch with their target demographics. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a creative and clever campaign.
Take Coke:
While this is a more traditional advertisement, it is so clever because it is make an awkward situation – meeting people on the first day of college a fun one. Honestly, it upsets me that I wasn’t able to come to college on my first day and share a Coke with another student. To me, this grabs my attention because it is relatable and created by a brand I know and love. This advertisement also catches my attention because it is found on YouTube, which makes the advertisement highly sharable. The first time I viewed this ad was actually through someone’s Facebook page who shared it from YouTube. However, this advertisement stands out to me – not necessarily the average consumer.
In this digital age, it is even more difficult to grab people’s attention. I get annoyed when I see content that blocks me from what I want to see, especially on the web. I want to listen to a YouTube video when I want to. I don’t want to have to sit and watch a minute ad in order to view my content. I want to be able to go to a homepage and not have an annoying homepage takeover blocking what I need to do or get done. While banner ads are fine, I am not receptive to them because I mentally block them out. Why would I pay attention to an ad when I know where they are and how to avoid them?
One of my favorite ways that advertisers have gained my attention is through Instagram. I love being able to scroll through photos of my friends and celebrities that I follow to see one photo that captures their day or week. Advertisers have gotten creative by placing promoted ads in my feed that I often don’t think about. I am not the type of person that looks at an Instagram account name until I see the photo. With that, I also do not notice the promoted notification on the upper right hand side of the post. By having these Instagram ads in my feed, I am able to like the post and be interactive with a brand or product. I enjoy being able to see new products, and eventually when the shop button gets implemented it will be a great way to make purchasing products found on Instagram easier.
Target
In this example, you can see that this Target ad is promoting the clothing being worn by the model. To me, I can tell it is an advertisement because of the pose and clothing that is being worn. I enjoy this Instagram advertisement because I can look at the post and just scroll through it. This ad is also relevant to me because I enjoy Lilly Pulitzer and I ended up going to that event. While this post can be seen as intrusive by some people, I enjoy the simplicity and ability to just scroll through the remainder of my feed if I want to.
Snapchat
Advertisers also are able to gain my attention by using Snapchat stories. When I go through a Snapchat Live story, I see sponsored advertisements. Since this technology is new, I enjoy seeing the content that is relevant to me. Most of the ads are similar to my lifestyle and brands that I know of, use, and wear so I enjoy them sometimes. Snapchat also has been a good way to reach millennials and show trailer videos to which I personally enjoy because I don’t watch enough TV to view movie trailers.
The only issue with these Snapchat ads is that you can tell they are advertisements because it says “Sponsored” on the very bottom of the screen and the time circle also goes away during the duration of the ad. I personally think that these snapchat ads could be more effective if it was content that was clearly recorded with a phone and thus looked more authentic. I think this would help consumers feel like we are not being directly advertised to. This would also prevent people from clicking through the advertisements.
We Are Your Friends
Open Snapchat. Snap this picture. BAM — thanks for the follow @WAYFmovie. #WAYF pic.twitter.com/88BOtVcRNu
— WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS (@WAYFMovie) July 26, 2015
An example of a trailer that was promoted using Snapchat was the Zac Efron movie We Are Your Friends. I could not find the specific Snapchat trailer, but I did find this Tweet which is promoting people to add the movie on snapchat to get updates about the movie. I knew from social media (ie. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and bloggers) that Zac Efron was having a movie come out, but I had no background on the storyline because I am a busy college student. My first priority is not to look at movie trailers but rather to finish my homework and catch up on Twitter. But, one day when I was looking through my Snapchat stories I noticed the movie trailer. Not only was I able to watch the trailer, but the movie resonated with me weeks after the movie’s release date. While I have not yet seen the movie, I enjoy Zac Efron and I know I want to see the movie in the future.
Trying to spark conversation in this digital age is becoming harder and harder. It’s a new medium which has no limits. However, even though there are no limits, it can be challenging to make consumers notice your advertisement and create conversation. I personally think that digital advertisements is the new way to advertise to millennials because of the receptivity of my generation.