Study Hall

We're back at it with Tim Wu's great book on advertising. This month's entry covers the history of   advertising from the 20s up through the mid 80s. 

After almost losing the whole thing in the early 30s, the industry comes roaring back and enters the golden age of huge, unified audiences who paid attention to a few, clearly defined channels. (While across the pond, an entirely different kind of attention merchant worked their evil will and blackened the name of propaganda forever.)

From there, we move through the turbulence and attentional revolt of the 60s, when Tim Leary, Marshall McLuhan and Herbert Marcuse tried to turn everyone's attention to building an anxiety-free utopia. But TV and advertising deftly picked up on and co-opted the hippies and hit the 80s without breaking their stride.

By '85, the rise of computers and tech like cable and the VCR shatter the attention of the West, giving people more control over what they consume and giving rise to a very recognizable crisis: The chase to find your audience as they run wild across the land, taking their attention with them.

First part of my review of Tim Wu's great book on attention, advertising and culture in the industrial age.

Take 5!

 

To print and complete the form: Invest a little time and make your campaign a lot more successful!

The End of Advertising, Andrew Essex's 2017 book asks a lot of tough questions about the future, purpose and value of advertising. 

Essex's main point is that the content-consumption freedom we all got from the digital revolution means advertising needs to act more like content (be interesting, useful, amazing). The thing, not the thing that interrupts the thing, in his words.

Well...I don't agree. I think given the choice between advertising masquerading as content and actual content, people are going to go with the real thing almost every time.

Which doesn't mean it's all over for us (and here I agree with Essex): Just the opposite. 

There's never been a better, more exciting time to be doing this thing we call advertising--as long as you understand how to do it right.

Ad Age: Agency of the Futurehere. (Requires registration/whitelist...several annoying pop up ads, hilariously.)

The Neilsen Study here. (See figure A for the tl;dr version...but-in the spirit of Study Hall-you really should read the entire thing!)