Routledge Library Editions: Advertising
1 total work
Advertising in the 21st Century (RLE Advertising)
by D. S. Cowan and Robert Jones
Advertising in the 21st Century discusses a wide range of advertising problems and focuses particular attention on the period up to 1987, a period which will see the beginnings of big changes in all areas of advertising. The future of the newspaper as an advertising medium will be in jeopardy. New commercial television channels will be available, and other broadcast media will take new forms which will make them competitive with newspapers. Opportunities for new forms of outdoor advertising, such as television on trains, will arise, and the emergence of electrostatic copying systems at a local or domestic level will gradually render national newspapers obsolete.
Over the next fifty years the upward spiral of 'keeping up with the Jones's' will increase in intensity and in these circumstances advertising expenditure will rise in order to create this psychological obsolescence. The development of computers towards eventually producing 'total environment simulations' based on people's psychological characteristics is predicted towards the middle of the next century and some current steps toward it are outlined. The authors discuss the inevitable move towards Europeanisation in advertising while their central theme is the whole movement towards oligopoly in business which must, it maintains, be the prime influence on the way in which advertising is organised. The concept of 'creativity' (often considered the life blood of advertising) is questioned, particularly in its relevance to advertising effectiveness.
Both the organisation and personality of advertising agencies are discussed in some depth. For example, the future role of the account executive is put into perspective. So too is the often 'hit-and-miss' business of selecting an advertising agency, which, it is claimed, is often decided on factors quite irrelevant to an agency's probable performance.
The authors predict that the future will be tough and competitive for the advertising man. International companies will control the consumer industries and they will demand international-class advertising. Within fifty years there will be less than twenty agency groups in the UK and only a few specialist agencies will survive as truly independent entities.
While this book takes the 'advertising agency' as its focal point, it nevertheless ensures an objective view of the total advertising picture by taking a look at it through the eyes of the manufacturer, the retailer, the media proprietor and, most refreshingly, the consumer.
First published in 1968.