--
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
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
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...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
-- 
