Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Twitter

Today I read an article in Advertising Age about the increase in sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The average person's spending increased from $343 to $365 on Black Friday and from $180 to $195 on Cyber Monday. This big jump occurred with the help companies' social media pages such as Twitter and Facebook. 


Amazon was the most talked-about retailer for Black Friday and Cyber Monday because it constantly streamed Twitter and Facebook updates throughout the week of Thanksgiving, so by the time the shopping days came, consumers were ready to shop with Amazon. According to FortiusOne, there were some 30,000 tweets that mentioned Amazon. 


It's really interesting to me to see how much social media is being incorporated into the daily lives of consumers as well as advertisers. I think that what we talked about in class today is very relevant to this situation given above because social media is now truly becoming a traditional form of advertising media. Social media is too instant and convenient to people's fingertips for it to not become a traditional form of media. With the exponential progress it is making, it will be interesting to see how social media affects Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales in 2011.

Account Planning

After our class discussion about account planning, I have decided that this is another field that I would love to go into if I ever choose to go into advertising. I love that account planning is centered around extensively researching the target market and getting to know it on a very deep level. I know that if I really wanted to go into this field I could because account planning doesn't require that you have a background in advertising. Since I plan to go into journalism, I think this works out perfectly. Journalism and account planning appear to have many intersections, especially when it comes to research. You also have to be very people-oriented for both and have to know who you are talking to. For both you also have to convince people why whatever message you're trying to get across is important and relevant. If I have any free hours next year I might consider taking an account planning class just to wet my palette on what it would be like to work in the field. 

Alternate Media

Though I don't plan to go into advertising, I think that if I did I would like to work in the area of developing alternate media. I think that this is a really interesting field to go into right now, especially since people are turning away from traditional media more and more every day. I think the more alternate media develops over time, the more effective it will be. I think this because consumers become amused by advertising when they're not expecting to be advertised to. With all of the changes going on in the industry, advertisers have to adapt to the environment and create an alternate realm where messages can reach consumers. Consumers are no longer watching television during prime-time, listening to the radio as much as the used to, or reading newspapers. Everything is online, people are on the go, and they're not going to want to stop and take out precious time from their day to look at ads. Therefore, it needs to be in their natural environment: on the walk/drive to work, outside the store; it could be even a product that serves a functional purpose as well as an advertisement (like the cup above that's advertising for plastic surgery).

An Apple App for Ads?

I just noticed that there is such a thing as a Bestads iPhone app. It gives you immediate access to the Weekly Top 6 TV, web, film, print, outdoor, radio and interactive advertisements from bestadsontv.com. 

I find the invention of this app interesting because it shows just how much the public is able to filter the content that it gets from advertising. Not only can you choose to view advertising on a nontraditional medium; now you can choose which ads you want to view. You can only watch what is deemed as the "best ads of the week." If more ads like this pop up, I wonder how it will affect the advertising industry as a whole. Will it help it or harm it? 

In my opinion, it could go either way.