Evolve or become extinct
Posted March 8th, 2010
The LA Times is getting some flack over a cover-wrap ad for Disney’s Alice in Wonderland made to look like a fake front cover. Confused readers and even reporters from CNN questioned the use of advertising where news traditionally appears, some claiming it’s deceiving. This is the third time the paper has drawn criticism for selling space in on their front page. Read the full article here.
But is this a misleading marketing tactic or a strategic move on the publication’s part to save themselves in a struggling industry?
Arguably, advertisers have had to think outside the box to grab the consumer’s attention in a fast-paced multi-media landscape. Nowadays, traditional ad space is often over looked and newspapers are shutting down one by one. An estimated $100,000 buy is hard to turn down when you’re laying people off left and right. With rapidly developing technology, all media is changing the way they reach their audience. Print and broadcast mediums are incorporating interactive vehicles to get their messages out and are putting nearly 100% of their content on the Internet. Rather than look at social media outlets as competition, they have embraced them and learned to use them to target people where they already are and drive more traffic to their websites.
In a bad economy and an on-demand world, media execs and ad agencies have had to change the way they do business. Shortened attention spans have forced them to adapt to a “less-is-more” mentality or be tuned out and technological advances have set a course for an evolution of mammoth proportions. If they don’t succumm to these inevitabilities, they’ll die out quickly.
So what do you think? Is it wrong of the newspapers to change where ads appear? Do you find it annoying? Do you just ignore it? Do you think newspapers will become obsolete?
