Are We Tailored or too Tight?

Oh how the advertising world has changed! Long gone are the days of John Wanamaker spending his hard earned money on advertising only to quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is lost, I just can’t figure out what half.” We are living in a much faster-paced and tailored world that changes the ad game dramatically.

With all of the changes in today’s society, the thought of using only mass marketing techniques is hard to imagine. As consumers, we beg for individuality, authenticity and want brands to reach us on a personal level. This has proven to be a daunting task for marketing and advertising experts.

With the switch from “Ad-Men” to “Math-Men,” businesses are spending their dollars more wisely and consumers are receiving ads targeted toward their own personal wants and needs. This fluid relationship between the buyers and sellers allows for true value for both parties.

This relationship can be more powerful than you think. Consumers are being put into a bubble of knowledge of things they are interested in at this moment. How are we expected to learn about anything new? Recipes, news, activities - all of these things are filtered out for us in hopes of giving us what we “want". This trend is not only affecting consumers but businesses as well. Search Engine Watch notes how this tailored marketing is affect businesses at an SEO level. Ideally ads need to be like a good pair of pants, comfortably tailored but not to tight just incase we want to expand.

I challenge you to reach outside of your comfort zone – try something new and different and not necessarily what is being fed to us by advertisements found on Facebook pages, Google searches or others. There is an infinite amount of information and many different perspectives that can help us to expand our horizons.  Many of us are far too complicated for that!