Introduction
The impact that digital media
convergence has had on advertising and new media has been, and continues to be,
profound. It has reshaped the advertising environment in many ways making the
job of a traditional advertising agency more challenging than ever. It has also
significantly changed new media and the way it is used.
Transition: Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital download copies of the same movie sold together. Source: SmartCine
Advertising’s Greatest Challenge
Sheehan and Morrison (2009) mention
that a report (Advertising Association, 2007) found that British advertising
executives deem digitisation to be the greatest challenge that their industry
has faced. They also point to a report that suggests many advertising agencies
are ignorant of the changing landscape that convergence is bringing and the
opportunities that it presents. In addition, Sheehan and Morrison (2009) make
it clear that they regard adaptation to what they term ‘confluence culture’ as
key for a traditional agency’s continued success.
The changing environment that
confronts advertising agencies consists of consumers that now think and act
differently as a result of digital media convergence. The change in people’s
behaviours renders traditional informational and transformational advertising
techniques far less effective. Those techniques could even be detrimental to a brand’s
image or that of the advertising industry (Sheehan and Morrison, 2009). The
behavioural characteristics of consumers that are becoming more common include
paying more attention to the recommendations of peers, and being less loyal to
brands.
Branded Content
“Creative and persuasive
techniques have received less favourable consideration…” (Spurgeon, 2008, p.24)
since they appeal to “…human emotions and wants…” (Spurgeon, 2008, p.24) Also,
“…direct comparison is often considered to be a poor advertising practice…”
(Spurgeon, 2008, p.24) As a result of advertising’s struggle to reach consumers
through old broadcast media, advertisers began to spend their money on other
marketing techniques and applying them to new media. It became apparent that
more subtle advertising techniques like branded content needed to be used.
Branded content on new media is
created with the aim of being attractive enough to consumers from the target
market for them to either look for it when they hear about it or consume it
when they are presented with it. The reason branded content is necessary is
because consumers are not going to go looking for adverts with new media and
its searching ability – they are looking for content.
Air New Zealand’s “The Kiwi Sceptics” Series
"The Kiwi Sceptics" is
an original example of branded content. This reality series of five short films
that Air New Zealand created in early 2012 is posted on Australian website
NineMSN as well as YouTube. The company has found five Australians who do not
want to go to New Zealand, and taken them there to prove to them and the
viewers that even they can have a great time there. The high production values
and voiceover work by prominent New Zealander Rhys Darby help make the series
watchable for the consumer, and the content does not feel like an
advertisement.
Niche Content
A big reason why niche marketing
is necessary with new media is because the user seeks out the content they want
which in most cases going to be related to their interests. The consumer is
going to be far more likely to act on an advert which draws on what they are
interested in than a generic advert that is designed for everyone and thus does
not feature anything that the consumer is interested in. Due to the large
volume of niche media on the internet, there are many niches that companies can
choose to apply a targeted message to for their target market or a subset of
them.
Search Media & Consumer Interactivity
Small and large advertisers
alike have been presented with mainly upsides in the new world of online
advertising. Spurgeon (2008) points out that modern advertising platforms like
search media provide more space for small advertisers and makes them more
discoverable.
Search media is an excellent
medium for advertising to a target market. Keywords from a consumer’s search
query are used by a search engine to select appropriate ads to show. Search
media, like most new media, is pull-based and major search engines like Google
are tools that are widely used for all kinds of research or just general
browsing. Unless a consumer is going to a site they frequent, (which also tend
to include search functionality – E.g. Gmail, Facebook, and YouTube) they will
often use a search engine. Of course, most sites with social interaction
capabilities are targeted by advertisers and most companies nowadays have
profiles on several social media websites.
YouTube: Ads above and to the right of the search results. Source: YouTube
New media makes it possible for
companies to engage consumers not only with their branded content, but also by
allowing them to participate much more fully than they can with old media. A
popular advertising technique used by several companies (like Doritos) that
clearly exhibits this, as Brabham (2008) notes, is the use of user-generated
advertising contests. Brabham (2008) mentions that the advertisers can end up
with a high quality advert that costs next to nothing compared to what it would
cost to hire professionals to make the ad and it can generate extra publicity.
Another example of advertising engaging
consumers with new media is hip-hop band Gorillaz undertaking “…a virtual
promotional world tour…” (Spurgeon, 2008, p.43) in the online game, Habbo Hotel.
Hybrids of New Media
Aside from the ability to easily
transfer content between different types of new media, many types of new media
have been mixed with others to form hybrid solutions as a result of digital
media convergence. Examples of hybrids include TVs with internet capabilities
for streaming videos or other content on-demand, any combination of Blu-ray,
DVD, and CD playback capabilities in a disc player, and computers with TV
tuners that enable viewing and recording of shows like a DVR.
A Blu-ray, DVD, and CD combo computer optical disc drive. Source: Geeky Gadgets
Consumers use new media differently to how they used old media. As new media is more dynamic and different forms of it can be integrated with each other, the consumer has more control than ever over the content that they consume. New media is more often pull-oriented (Sheehan and Morrison, 2009), meaning that the consumer selects the content that they want to consume, rather than having it pushed out to them without any of their input like with TV broadcasts. Consumers now seek out (or search for) what content they want. Some Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) now allow consumers to skip past ads in a recording of a broadcast without the consumer even needing to fast forward.
Conclusion
The effects of digital media
convergence on advertising and new media are wide and varied. The advertising industry no longer relies on traditional techniques, and new media involves 'pulling' rather than being 'pushed' content. It is clear that
the evolution of both is dictated to a degree by digital media convergence.
List of References
Text
- Air New Zealand (2012) The Kiwi Sceptics [online]. Available at: http://www.kiwisceptics.com/ [Accessed 27 August 2012].
- Brabham, D. (2008) Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies [online] 14(1): pp. 75-90. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856507084420 [Accessed 27 August 2012].
- Mumbrella (2012) Air NZ casts Aussies who don’t like New Zealand in reality series [online]. Available at: http://mumbrella.com.au/air-nz-casts-aussies-who-dont-like-new-zealand-in-reality-series-74203 [Accessed 27 August 2012].
- Sheehan, K. and Morrison, D. (2009) Beyond convergence: Confluence culture and the role of the advertising agency in a changing world. First Monday [online] 14(3). Available at: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2239/2121 [Accessed 25 August 2012].
- Spurgeon, C. (2008) Advertising and New Media. Oxon: Routledge pp. 24-45.
- (2012) [photograph] Held at: http://www.smartcine.com/2012/blu_ray/the_adventures_of_tin_tin_blu_ray_review.html [accessed 27 August 2012]
- Air New Zealand Presents: The Kiwi Sceptics. 'The Hipster', Episode 2 (2012) [video]. airnewzealand. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDtlZao_YGg&feature=player_embedded [Accessed 27 August 2012].
- YouTube (2012) music video - YouTube [online - screenshot]. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=music+video&oq=music+video&gs_l=youtube.3..0l10.466.1852.0.2628.11.9.0.2.2.1.197.703.6j2.8.0...0.0...1ac.jtCl8lJoI9w [Accessed 27 August 2012]
- (2010) [photograph] Held at: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/buffalo-outs-portable-external-usb-3-0-blu-ray-drive-2010-09-23/ [Accessed 27 August 2012].
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