August 05, 2003  Copyright Mediaware Infotech Pvt Ltd

The 1950s
A few decades ago, television viewers would be shown an audio-visual divider between content & commercial break - to make it easy for the viewer to identify an ad. In fact, ads were meant to be recognized as ads - with simple objectives like trying to persuade you to buy a bottle of shampoo or a packet of biscuits. They were sometimes interesting, sometimes funny and sometimes annoying. But almost always recognizable as ads.

There were clear demarcations of the areas advertisements occupied like ad space of newspapers or within a commercial break of a radio program. And flipping pages or channels provided escape from the ubiquitous ad. (Much like slamming the phone on a call from a 'direct marketer' !)

Around the 1950s ads started acquiring complex & subtle personalities. This was what Vance Packard recorded in his best-selling book "The Hidden Persuaders" as changes in advertising's personality by applying Freud's psychoanalysis - to morph into covert, subconscious methods of deluding the consumer.

Suddenly a wine glass displayed in a liquor ad suggested a part of the female anatomy - much different from the props then in use to sell a brand of whiskey ! Similarly a motorcycle front was no more presented as an aesthetic feature but rather suggestive of a particular feature of the male anatomy.

Enter the new subliminal advertisement. And exit the simple salesmanship preached by founders of the ad industry like David Ogilvy & John Caples.

'Subliminal persuasion' soon became the buzzword, replacing the older 'sales'. However, many motivation researchers who utilised the new advertisement methods were publicly denounced leading Vance Packard to predict its eventual demise by A.D. 2000 !

The 21st Century
Two and a half score years later, there is no sign of its demise! Instead, if anything the pre-subliminal ad era seems naive and even unreal - making it difficult to believe that products were sold for features & benefits rather than for enhancing the user's image !

Today, even Vance Packard will be amazed at the evolution of advertising ! A watch ad has nothing to do with watches. And ads for shoes rarely mention shoes. (Earlier a brand identified a product; today's brand is the product.) Today's advertising is obsessed with images & feelings - with no concrete claims about the product's features & benefits and why anyone should buy it.

Subliminal advertising techniques have today infiltrated every known area of marketing. Today's most sought-after consultants hail not from Arthur D Little or McKinsey & Company, but from brand consultancies . The result is brand psychoanalysis.

All-pervasive Advertising
Along with subliminal advertising techniques, comes its omnipresence. Ads are getting difficult to distinguish from the background environment. Till ultimately the environment will become a great continuous ad.

In the process, ads will have wandered away from pre-designated spaces and start sprouting up everywhere. It is clear that media searching for new ways to make money. And while subliminal advertising was introduced in the 1950s, it is the Internet and online media which is responsible for the ubiquitous ad.

Traditionally, media income came from selling subscriptions along with advertising space/time. But these two key income sources are drying up in the new world of online media. Web surfers have been made used to receiving free content, so they refuse to shell out money. Internet advertising banner ads are known more as an advertising option that never worked, leading to advertisements which are paid for on the basis of actual sales leads (which are easily monitored on the Internet).

Naturally, online media is constantly searching for new ways to make money. Result: ads are increasingly appearing anywhere & everywhere, destroying traditional boundaries between advertising & content. Making it impossible to keep out as we could once "slam" the door in the face of a door-to-door salesman.

Advertising embedded in Content
Advertising's march to progress has merged the distinction between advertising & content. Content comprises of entertainment & journalism. In fact, the infiltration of advertising into entertainment is a result of the merger between business & entertainment - to meet the increasing need for businesses to provide entertaining experiences. A recent example of CNBC Europe's deal with Dubai Govt to promote Dubai is a good example of embedded advertising - CNBC (for a fee) will produce & telecast short feature programs which 'showcase' Dubai more as a news feature than as an ad.

More disturbing than the infiltration of advertising into entertainment is the fusion of advertising & news. This is changing the way news is covered. Today, news organisations who attempt to preserve editorial independence are more or less non existent. And here (once again) it is online media which has "shown the way". Business news outlets like Dow Jones, Reuters & Bloomberg have indirect ties to their own electronic stock-trading networks, making them clear candidates for biased reporting.

Society with Critics
While the demand for truthful information & criticism may still remain in small pockets, the professions of criticism & journalism will certainly be included in the endangered species list.

And finally two questions persist : ultimately will we be able to trust our source of information? Or will we become a society without critics?