Advertising is changing radically with traditional means and digital means vying for the attention of the consumer.
To summarize what traditional marketing means, it consists most typically of ads found in magazine, radio, television, and billboards. Digital marketing is all advertising that is promoted over the internet, the most popular form being social media.
The internet is great for reaching many kinds of people. It’s easy to track progress and engagement and ads can be designed to target a specific demographic. However, some of the pitfalls of digital marketing it that it is incredibly complicated and ever changing, it does not retain people’s attention and it can be irritating to consumers in its persistent repetitiveness. These are the reasons why advertisers still rely on traditional marketing.
Traditional marketing is great for reaching lots of people of varying types of demographics but progress is not easily tracked so there is no way to know if the ad successfully reached the consumer nor is there a way for advertisers to speak directly to their target demographic to get their opinions. The biggest issue with traditional marketing would be that it is expensive compared to digital marketing despite being more impactful to consumers.
Digital marketing is designed with greater freedom for the consumer to control their content, so they are twice as likely to ignore ads. People scroll through the internet quicker than they flip the channels on the television. If an ad on TV catches the consumer’s eye, they are more likely to remember it unlike digital marketing where the same ads are constantly repeating.
Digital marketing is typically accessed through people’s phones where people are constantly scrolling and absorbing content at such high speeds that many of the ads do not register in their minds. Television is not as fast-paced but similar. People flip channels to get to the content they want to watch but they often settle for a program when there is nothing else to watch. Television is also more likely to be left on when people are doing something else. The screen is larger on television than a phone and content is more immersive.
Television and social media when used together could be an ideal way to find a demographic. For example, a commercial for beer with stunning visuals could be shown on TV and can impress consumers, while social media provides the outlet for them to discuss what they saw. Based on the conversations about the commercial, tracking software and consumer profiles, advertisers know what demographic to target for their next commercial.
Traditional marketing is a wide net to catch small prey, and digital marketing is a tighter net tailored for specific fish. The main thing to remember is that digital marketing and traditional marketing rely on separate methods, with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Advertisers do not have to depend on one or the other, but it is important to know that the main issue is that these methods generate ads on platforms that consumers interact with in different ways.
