Advertising in times of information overload

Today, we are confronted with vast amounts of information every day. How does advertising manage to attract attention?The flood of information has changed the entire field of communication. According to various studies, people now receive 13,000 messages every day and only two percent of them are even consciously perceived. On the one hand, more and more emphasis is being placed on not missing any important information, while on the other, impressions are consciously filtered and excluded in order to escape the information overkill. Digital television, for example, has enabled telecommunications providers to offer time-shifted television, where advertising can be skipped - a challenge that those responsible in the marketing and communications departments of companies have to face. "If you don't advertise, you die" as Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke claims. This is a simple fact, but the question arises as to how to advertise: I have been working for several years now to find out what possibilities there are in the advertising and media world to make brands tangible for consumers despite the flood of information and messages. Digitalization and media convergence are challenging advertisers and their agencies to come up with integrated and intelligent solutions.TV - live or time-shifted and parallel useHow media is used in Switzerland is fundamentally age-dependent. Generation Y and the digital natives are clearly "mobile first". The older generation likes to pull out the tried-and-tested newsprint or consume TV content, especially on public broadcasters, to keep up to date, but for some years now we have also been talking about digital natives, who are no longer young people but have grown up to become professionals and family people. What's more, the older generation has also gone digital. 66% of the Swiss have a digital TV and around 50% use a mobile device, primarily a smartphone, in addition to their TV. The content on the mobile device is less often directly related to the TV content (figures from the MACH and Google studies).TV is undoubtedly still widely used, whether live or time-shifted, whether by young or old. The younger target group is turning strongly to streaming services. For advertising and media use where a broad target group is to be reached (e.g. 20-49 year olds), a combination of TV and online video is recommended.Targeted TV environment planningLive programs such as the live shows of "The Voice of Switzerland" and live sports programs are often watched live, i.e. not time-shifted, which speaks in favor of TV environment planning with the targeted use of the corresponding live environments. In addition, successful series such as "Tatort" or dating shows such as "Bauer single sucht" are often watched live, but also commented on live on social media. The advantage of environment planning is the connection and proximity to the program, which can have a positive effect on the image of the brand, provided that the relevant and appropriate environments are planned. The disadvantage is a reduced reach - contacts are optimized here - and comments on social media cannot be guaranteed.Moment MarketingRecently, various providers (TVTY, Synchscreen from Goldbach, Smartstream etc.) have made moment marketing possible, where the TV spot list is read in and online advertising material can be broadcast to parallel users a few seconds after the TV spot, e.g. on a smartphone. The purpose of this measure is not that the same TV spot is used identically for online. The online advertising medium should be further-reaching and integrated, e.g. with a call-to-action or tell a story that complements the TV commercial. The advantages of moment marketing are the possibility of creative and recognizable implementations, customer dialogue can be promoted, the TV campaign can be extended, the influence of TV on online can be measured, etc. The disadvantage is that the cost-benefit ratio is not yet given, as there are no really meaningful cases. This may be due to the fact that it cannot be truly proven whether the user is actually sitting in front of the TV when they receive the online advertising material. This fact poses a challenge for creation.ConclusionAs consumers develop their own individual approach to escape the sensory overload, media providers develop their own approaches to reach them in less disruptive environments or in their involvement phase, using various options to counteract media convergence, parallel and time-shifted TV use and to make the brand and its products tangible for consumers.Author: *Martina Garcia is a media consultant at Mediaschneider AG and has written a Master's thesis at HSLU on the subject of "Successful content marketing in B2B".Company: https://www.mediaschneider.com/











