As society’s attention span gets smaller and smaller, sociologists predict that corporate advertisements will begin to target fewer people at a time.
“One generic ad just doesn’t cut it anymore,” says Mark Etting, Marketing Director of Marketing, Inc. “What with today’s veritable sea of promotional material designed to attract the majority, consumers are becoming very difficult for us to reach. Most people tend to ignore anything that doesn’t somehow speak to them directly.”
Luckily, these struggling corporations have more access to people’s private information than ever before! Thanks to social media, individual browsing histories, and the fact that no one reads the Terms and Conditions, it’s become easy to collect the private details of millions of first-world citizens.
“I’ll see an ad for Domino’s Pizza, followed immediately by one from Pizza Nova!” exclaims avid consumer Cathy Tallist. “I guess I’ll just buy from whoever knows me the best, ya know?” The natural tactic for the advertiser, therefore, would be to appeal directly to Cathy, based on what could be gleaned from her personal information and search history.
Examples of such aggressive, painfully specific marketing tactics can already be seen on television and online. With just a bit of extra Javascripting, the ad space given to a product on any webpage can become an unprecedentedly direct method of convincing scrollers-by to opt for said product. Although some criticize the use of hyper-targeted advertising, citing its potential for ridicule, it may be only a matter of time before print media begins to include it as well.
