For most people, it is virtually impossible to go through
the day without seeing advertisements. From the time
we wake up and flip on the TV or check our email,
we are surrounded by advertisements. They are in
magazines, on buses, on billboards, online, and on
buildings, to name just a few of the places we see them throughout the day. According to a recent study,
the average person is exposed to between 400 and 600 advertisements each day. Th is means that by the
time we are 60, we will have been exposed to 40 to 50 million advertisements!
In the past, advertisements were usually designed to reach people in their homes through traditional
approaches, like TV commercials and newspaper and magazine ads. However, people’s viewing habits
have changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. These days, people are less likely to give one
form of media their full attention. For example, even if someone is watching TV, they are also often
using the Internet at the same time. Advertisers need the consumer’s attention in order to promote
their products. But because getting this attention is harder than it used to be, advertisers have been
forced to find new ways of reaching the consumer.
One unconventional place advertisements are popping up is in doctors’ offices. In some doctors’
offices, pharmaceutical companies advertise products on everything from boxes of tissues to the paper
covering the exam table. Doctors get free products, and the advertisers get the consumer’s attention.
Similarly, advertisements are becoming more common in schools. “Free” products such as book covers
and educational posters are offered by companies so that the company can advertise on these materials.
In the U.S., a company called Channel One broadcasts a ten-minute news program followed by two
minutes of commercials each day in 350,000 schools. Because the schools show these news programs,
the companies give them thousands of dollars worth of much needed audiovisual equipment.
Advertisers have found that one of the best ways to get consumer attention is to place ads in unusual
places. So, ads are popping up in all kinds of unexpected places like pizza boxes, grocery carts, air
sickness bags on airplanes, and even on pieces of food like bananas and apples. A television network
recently imprinted its logo on 35 million eggs. They called the approach “egg-vertisements.”
One of the strangest developments in advertising has been people selling advertising space on
themselves! Th is mini-trend began in 2005 when a man offered his face for advertising to the highest
bidder on eBay. A pharmaceutical company won the spot, paying the man $37,375 to place a
temporary sticker on his forehead to advertise one of their products. He may have been the first to
off er such an unusual exchange, but he was not the last.
Perhaps the sneakiest form of advertising is called buzz marketing. Th is involves a company hiring
people to create excitement about a product. In exchange for free products or money, these people