
--
John Cooney unravels the evolution of advertising --
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:32
--
Media, technology, the economy and human behaviour are just some of the mitigating factors that have shaped the course of the advertising and communications industries since their inception.
John Cooney, advertising industry heavyweight and Chairman of the Red & Yellow school, shares his perspective on how the advertising landscape has progressed over the past six decades.
From mad men to measured creativity
The advertising industry has evolved at a rapid clip over the past 60 years, sprinting to keep up with an acceleration in social and technology change in the second half of the 20th century. The industry has gone through no less than four fundamental shifts during that time - with many additional subtle changes and evolutions in between.
Lets use the post-World War II boom as the first marker for our discussion.
It was then that the consumer market was truly born, thanks to the combination of new technologies, a baby boom, the influence of the mass media, and a massive injection of money into the world economy. Think of the TV series Mad Men, and youll have some idea of those riotous times.
It was an era of cars with big fins and chrome finishes, cigarette smoke and whisky, and the birth of television. David Ogilvys 1963 book Confessions of an Advertising Man was the Bible for anyone in advertising in that time, and it still contains many words of wisdom for anyone working in the industry today. (Not least of them: The consumer isnt a moron. She is your wife.) Yet the world started to move in by the 1970s, when the focus moved from brand speak to conversation with consumers. Amidst the disillusionment as the Vietnam War and the Summer of Love ended, consumers started to look for more than branding in their products and services they bought.
They also wanted an emotional connection, brands that connected with the heart. And that hunger for warmth and authenticity is as strong as ever today, though the world has continued to move on. By the late 1990s, we started to see talk of the death of advertising.
Public relations was cutting advertising out of the picture as companies moved towards a softer sell, or least, so we were told. No longer would advertising and marketing be about awards and big ideas and windy bluster - it would be about radiating brand awareness as gently as the sun gives off the beams that tan a sunbather.
There was, of course, a lot of truth to that argument. Brand advertising did indeed give way to brand communication, with a more holistic focus on using PR, advertising, direct marketing, and other tools to reach the consumer with the right message. Maintaining brand awareness also started to get its due attention in advertising strategies.
Were now in the fourth, and potentially biggest, shift in the advertising industry landscape. Here, were seeing a shift from mass media to personalised media on a mass scale, thanks to the Web and social media.
Were also seeing new ways of modelling consumer behaviour come to the fore, informed by neuroscience and behavioural economics. Suddenly, there is a feedback loop between the consumer and the brand, one that gives advertisers analytical information they can use to keep improving the ways they talk to consumers.
Its a massive shift that demands brands have real dialogues with their customers rather than talking at them. It also means that professionals working in advertising and marketing need to be able to customise and personalise their messages to their customers.
The pace of evolution shows no sign of slowing down. Indeed, the rate of change has accelerated between each shift. If youre going to work in advertising, you need to be adaptable and innovative in the face of constant disruption.
Yet despite all the new tools we have at our disposal and the rich data we can access, some principals remain constant. Creativity has always been important in talking to the customer in a manner he or she can relate to, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
Communication has always been about saying the right things to the right people at the right time - its just that we know have data to inform our decisions about how we shape our messages for different market segments, more choice in the channels we can use, and a quicker way to get customer feedback on the things we say.
Related Articles
-- --
-- --
-- Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
22/05/2026
Germany's Magenta TV, which will have 44 exclusive FIFA World Cup match broa...
22/05/2026
DAZN, the world's leading sports entertainment platform, has acquired global broadcast rights to the International Federation of American Football's ( I...
22/05/2026
ATHLOS, the all-women's professional track and field league, has announced i...
22/05/2026
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) today announced that the 47th Annual Sports Emmy Awards and the 47th Annual News & Documentary Emmy A...
22/05/2026
Wooden Camera today announced the release of new accessories for the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive. The new lineup includes a redesigned Top Plate and Side Rai...
22/05/2026
YES Network and OTT Advisors have announced a sixth consecutive season of their streaming partnership, continuing their collaboration on the Gotham app. OTT Adv...
22/05/2026
NESN, New England's premier sports network, will again turn its camera to Fe...
22/05/2026
Dale Pro Audio is hosting an RF over Fiber Livestream Webinar on May 28 from 1-2:30 pm EST. With major sporting events and large-scale productions putting incre...
22/05/2026
Audio-Technica has announced key leadership appointments designed to further strengthen its sales organization and drive continued growth across the Americas. M...
22/05/2026
After nearly four decades shaping the global combat sports landscape, Scott Coker has announced a powerful return as he looks to build a new international mixed...
22/05/2026
Skyline Communications, the company behind the globally deployed DataMiner xOps platform, today announced the launch of xOps Vanguard Runway, a strategic accele...
22/05/2026
For the fully onsite production, 30 cameras - including a SkyCam and Megalodon - will capture the action in Texas
One of the world's biggest rodeo producti...
22/05/2026
Leading Argentina-based sports media company Torneos y Competencias S.A. has modernized its playout operations, implementing a fully redundant, multichannel env...
22/05/2026
As the 2026 Major League Pickleball season kicks off this weekend in Dallas, it ...
22/05/2026
Shure has become a minority investor in Edge Sound Research, a start-up company that is developing new experiential audio technologies that redefine how many au...
22/05/2026
In advance of this year's Sports Emmy Awards, SVG is taking a deep dive into...
22/05/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL) and Amazon Music announced that GRAMMY Award-winning superstar Jelly Roll will provide the official theme song of the 2026 Stan...
22/05/2026
David Pogue will keynote SVV Summer Camp and discuss Apple at 50: How the World...
22/05/2026
In its second year as rightsholder, FOX Sports goes bigger across the board for ...
22/05/2026
Heading into FOX Sports' second Indianapolis 500, Lead Director Mitch Riggin...
22/05/2026
At our 2026 Investor Day, we shared an inside look at the rebuild of our advertising business. This pivot to our own purpose-built platform is already driving s...
22/05/2026
Podcasting on Spotify continues to grow, and so do the ways listeners engage with it. At Investor Day 2026, we shared how we're building the next chapter of...
22/05/2026
Limited-time collections now available
Restoration experts CEDAR Audio have recently launched a new line of Icons plug-ins that make their powerful processo...
22/05/2026
Three new classics join Model Pass line-up
Boss' PX-1 Plugout Pedal offers an innovative approach to guitar pedals, providing users with a hardware stom...
22/05/2026
At its Meitingen site, SGL Carbon has implemented two key projects to further de...
22/05/2026
Statement regarding 2026 National NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award for the late...
22/05/2026
Latest data reveals steady distributor rankings, a seasonal shift toward digital...
22/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/05/2026
Amagi Media Labs Limited (NSE: AMAGI, BSE: 544679), a cloud-native SaaS platform providing AI-enabled solutions to global media and entertainment companies, tod...
22/05/2026
An nima Post Relies on Cintel to Revive Classic Mexican Films
Brie Clayton May 22, 2026
0 Comments
Film scanner and DaVinci Resolve Studio help manage...
22/05/2026
Boris FX Sapphire Adds Optical Beauty and Hypnotic Textures
Jessie Electa Petrov May 22, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release introduces advanced defocu...
22/05/2026
Deployment Preserves Trusted Workflows While Enabling a Path to UHD and SMPTE ST 2110
Leading Argentina-based sports media company Torneos y Competencias S.A....
22/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/05/2026
Back to All News
Ex-Husband, Current Husband, One Wild Rescue: Korean Action Co...
22/05/2026
Catch the latest in Irish music live from venues such as Whelan's, R is n Du...
21/05/2026
Game Creek Video Columbia and Celtic, NEP Supershooter 8 will house onsite produ...
21/05/2026
Freshly graduated, this upstart producer, director, and camera operator is already working as an AP on videoboard shows for the Philadelphia Phillies
In the li...
21/05/2026
Media Links has announced a channel partnership with Clearcast Asia, a broadcast...
21/05/2026
SiriusXM and NASCAR have announced a multi-year renewal of their broadcasting agreement. SiriusXM will continue to carry live broadcasts of every NASCAR Cup Ser...
21/05/2026
Audio-Technica held a demonstration event at its Technica House location in New ...
21/05/2026
Ateme has announced that RTL Deutschland has selected Ateme's software-based...
21/05/2026
LiveU has announced that BCC Live deployed the LU900Q intelligent production unit for the first time during the 2026 Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Texas North Americ...
21/05/2026
ATSC has announced that Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media and Senior VP of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, will receive the 2026 Mark Richer ...
21/05/2026
BBright has published a technical analysis of the Media eXchange Layer (MXL), de...