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Running Head: FUTURE TRENDS
Future Trends in Advertising
Irene Myers Lavant
MKT/447
ADVERTISING AND CREATIVE STRATEGY
March 26th, 2012
WILLIAM RIECKEN

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Advertisements bombard consumers throughout the entire day of every day.
Whether it is a billboard, television commercial, magazine ad, or pop-up banner on the
Internet, advertisements touch the lives of consumers and influence the buying
behaviors. Advertisers set a mood with their messages that feed into the yearnings of
the consumer. If decadence feeds into the yearnings of the consumer, the
advertisement depicts decadence. If fun feeds into the yearnings of the consumer, the
advertisement depicts fun. If a sense of urgency presents itself on a subject, the
advertisement pushes a sense of urgency. In essence, the needs and wants of the
consumers who influence the message and the delivery of that message. Therefore,
advertisements influence consumers and vice versa.
Humor and Fun-based Advertising
One of the latest trends in advertising involves using humor and fun. The trends
in advertising today take solemn subject material and mixing it with humor and fun-
based advertising. Many advertising campaigns were a reflection of the times people
lived in. For example, many companies used “war advertising” techniques during the
time of World Wars I and II. Coca-Cola ads showed scenes of confident, happy people,
including soldiers, enjoying a drink of Coca-Cola and encouraged the home team to buy
war bonds (Golden Age Radio, n.d.). Coca-Cola successfully used the bandwagon
technique, by depicting its product as the winning choice, using symbols of happiness
and victory. “Bandwagon is one of the most common techniques in both wartime and
peacetime and plays an important part in modern advertising. Bandwagon is an appeal

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to the subject to follow the crowd, to join in because others are doing so as well.
Bandwagon propaganda is, essentially, trying to convince the subject that one side is
the winning side, because more people have joined it” (Dorje, 2001). Coca-Cola’s
wartime ads are also an example of assertion. The wartime ads used positive, energetic
images to make a statement to consumers about the atmosphere of that era, although
not necessarily a true depiction of reality.
Currently, the technique of assertion shows in ads that use humor and fun to
counter the signs of the times. The country faces issues of a poor economy, political
division, higher crime, higher unemployment rates, and a war overseas. Using humor
appeals to consumers because consumers yearn to take the mood as a realistic part of
their lives. According to author Carl Dorje (2001), marketers believe that consumers,
“should simply agree to the statement without searching for additional information or
reasoning. Assertions, although usually simple to spot, are often dangerous forms of
propaganda because they often include falsehoods or lies" (Assertion). Therefore, the
recent trends in advertising sell consumers products or services with the promise of an
improved life, although this is not necessarily a fact.
In addition, humor helps to make consumers pay attention to a product otherwise
boring or mainly ignored. One example of using humor for gaining attention involves a
recent advertising campaign by Farmer’s Insurance. In the Farmer’s Insurance
advertisement, the agents attend various classes that teach them how to be better
insurance agents. The ads involve the agents, in hilarious situations, experiencing the
many bloopers that cause consumers to need a good insurance policy. Consumers
watching the commercial tend to pay attention without considering that the hilarious

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situation is devastating in real life. However, when the consumer decides to purchase
insurance, Farmer’s Insurance is a name that comes to mind because of the company’s
attention-grabbing commercials and print ads. Other insurance companies using this
tactic include Geico, State Farm, and Aflac.
Social Media-based Advertising
The boom in the use of social networks makes advertisers eager to use these
networks for speaking with consumers. Marketers are using marketing and advertising
schemes in digital and interactive formats made for use on the Internet. The result is
advertisements in the form of pop-up banners, online surveys, and third party
advertisements on social media web pages. Many social media web pages serve the
purpose of giving information to the consumers about a product, communicating with
consumers to gain feedback, and offering customer service.
The bandwagon technique’s use is also prevalent in social media’s appeal. Many
consumers, and companies alike, feel that if they do not embrace social media, the
opportunity to connect with others passes. Those involved in bandwagon schemes feel
the need to follow what others are doing simply because others are doing it. By
following the pull of the social networks, businesses find a way to communicate with
wide open, willing, and available target audiences within the networks. In addition,
businesses know that their competition uses the social networks to speak to consumers.
Therefore, those businesses that shied away from using social networks find
themselves moving in that direction so that they compete for consumer’s attention and

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loyalty.
Examples of social media use include advertising on websites like Facebook,
Twitter, and Pinterest. YouTube and Vevo, both online video databases with social
networking formats, require consumers to watch an advertisement before he or she can
watch the video. These examples are only a fraction of the social media available on the
Internet. Marketers form advertisements that appear while consumers enjoy the
interactive websites. These web-ads cause consumers to find and frequent the social
network pages belonging to many of the participating businesses.
Testimonials in Advertising
Testimonials became a good form of propaganda because these endorsements
connect the consumer to the experiences of someone who used a certain product or
service. Therefore, the experience transfers and becomes connected to the consumer
who hears the testimony. Many times, these advertisements include a famous celebrity
or a respected authority who verifies the attributes of the product or service. An example
of testimonials is the new Activia yogurt advertisements that tell consumers that eating
Activia gives benefits to the digestive system. The advertisement features a female
celebrity and ordinary women, all who ate Activia for a week, giving testimonies about
how wonderful they feel. Another testimonial advertisement is for the Proactive Skin
Care System. The people in the advertisement show before and after photos of their
skin while telling consumers how Proactive cleared up their skin problems effectively.
These two examples of advertising concern the consumer suffering with digestive
issues or skin problems. Febreze even features a testimonial-type advertisement in

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which blind-folded subjects encounter messy situations but where they also smell
Febreze freshness. The reaction to the smell of the Febreze, despite the messy area,
serves as a testimony of how powerfully Febreze works to neutralize odors. By having
random, blind-folded people serve as the testimony givers, Febreze’s effectiveness
seems to gain credibility with consumers. These testimonies speak to those consumers
wanting a fresh environment.
Advertising in 10 Years
In 10 years, consumer influence guides advertising much like today. Because
people find themselves with less time, future marketers need to meet consumers’ sense
of urgency and short attention span. Advertisements need to be attention-getting,
interactive, and more important, quick. Integration of all the available advertising
methods used today can prove to be the answer for the future. In the future of
advertising, small businesses will market themselves on global scales like never before.
The Internet has truly made the world flat. Whereas businesses could only dream to do
interstate and intercontinental business, the Internet opened up the world to small
business owners.
Using online marketing tools, many small business owners may choose to do
this for themselves. The reason for this is saving money, and because of lacking trust.
According to writer John Winsor (2012), “Advertising is all about relationships, and at
the heart of the client/agency relationship is trust. That trust has been eroded by a lack
of transparency and, often, resistance to change” (The Model Is Broken). The marketing
agencies that survive this shift in attitudes are those that adapt before losing valuable

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relationships. Agencies need to prove to business that their business strategy, creative
direction, and planning goes far beyond drop and drag or copy and paste formats.
In the future, companies will continue to use celebrity endorsements because
they prove to be effective. Because celebrity credibility and reputation is important to the
celebrity, these people will only support and appear for authentic, quality brands.
Advertisers will also invest heavily in the images in ads. Consumers find themselves
attracted to the visually appealing images. The advertisement message and the image
are blended to become part of the reader’s experience (Suster, 2012).
The flipside of the coin is that in the future, consumers may want less product
ads. Therefore, personalization of ads is a concept that gives consumers
advertisements based on their own personal data. Many sites, like Amazon and
Facebook, already generate ads based on consumer interests and behaviors. Catering
to consumers in this way means profiling users. With concerns about invasions of
privacy by Amazon and Facebook, the concept of a private data profile is something
that could give consumers the option to plug in information to the companies of his or
her choice.
Effects of Trends on Marketing Mix and Advertising Strategy
The integrated marketing mix needs to change to meet advertising of the future.
As products become more technologically advanced, so must the advertising and
marketing mix. The placement (or positioning) of the product is the concern of
marketers because as elements surrounding the product become more technologically

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advanced, the advertising campaign needs to be more advanced as well. Advertising
products in the future warrant more technologically advanced methods, such as the use
of digital communications through social media. In addition, advertisers must take the
company message to smart phones, hand-held devices, tablets, and other digital
devices. The message also needs to meet technology like satellite radio, online radio,
and even cars with speech capabilities. The use of a greater technology holds the
potential to affect price and distribution of the product. The use of greater technology
means that the organization may spend more. The result is that the organization passes
higher prices down to the consumer. A digitally delivered message is more efficient,
however.
The effect on advertising strategy lies in that marketers must form campaigns
that meet the needs of future consumers, but that also go far beyond with the next 10
years in mind. The strategy needs to include sensibilities about consumers’ lack focus
on advertisements, lack of time, and as always, wants or needs. A faster paced life for
the consumer means that the advertiser needs a face paced advertising strategy. Part
of that strategy means forming advertisements with the ability to capture people’s
attention, which explains the prevalence of quirky, fun advertisements in today’s media.
The biggest element of a change in advertising strategy involves a change in
organizational thinking and advertising approaches.
Conclusion
Advertising methods follow trends that guide the message of the advertisement and the

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delivery of that message. These trends include changes in consumer opinions and
tastes, the introduction of new technologies, the advancement of globalized views, and
the increased use of social media. The explosion of social media websites is
responsible for an exodus of consumers who are moving further away from traditional
media to the Internet. This means that where the people go, so must businesses.
Marketers followed suit. By integrating traditional advertising methods with all the digital
methods of current days, marketers help businesses to build brand awareness without
consumer awareness of the changes. Many businesses have already integrated
successfully. Many upgrade as the technology grows and adapts, while other
businesses begin to catch up.

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References
Golden Age Radio. (n.d.). Golden Age Advertising. Retrieved on March 24, 2012 from
http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/LookAround/advertspot_cocacola5.htm
Dorje, C. (2001). Propaganda Techniques. Retrieved on March 25, 2012 from
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm
Winsor, J. (2012). The Future of Advertising. Retrieved March 26, 2012 from
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2010/id20100712_542186.htm
Suster, M. (2012). The Future of Advertising Will Be Integrated. Retrieved on March 24,
2012 from http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/the-future-of-advertising-will-be-integrated/