The writer is a junior at Skidmore College and recently completed an internship at Spotlight Newspapers.
From a young age, we are exposed to numerous types of advertisements, whether they are from the radio, television or a publication or the Internet, to name a few. Considering the widespread presence of advertisements, it is understandable how much they influence our decisions, even when we seemingly aren’t aware of it.
Overall, advertisements are beneficial to both businesses and consumers. However, with ever-evolving technology, we find new ways to bypass them. By doing this, we damage an important part of all businesses and consumers unknowingly isolate themselves.
It’s not a recent occurrence that people are finding ways to bypass commercials and other advertisements. Since recording television shows has become more common, consequently so has skipping the commercials. Now with digital cable, which often has a digital recording feature built in with most packages, and other television services similar to it, such as TiVo, recording programs is simpler, resulting in easier ways to skip over commercials.
Of course, we don’t record shows for the commercials, so when we use digital recording, we miss out on what would be advertised since we’re more interested in getting back to our show, causing companies to waste time and money. Admit it—I know I skip the ads when I feel impatient.
With TV advertising, once a best option for companies wishing to reach consumers, becoming less effective, where are advertisers to turn? The Internet seems like a good choice since it’s global, a great population uses it and all websites are always looking for funding.
On paper, it sounds like a fine idea, but the Internet has its own tools that users implement to rid websites they visit of ads, which are sometimes minding their own business in the corner. The most noteworthy of these tools is Adblock, which has been downloaded over 120 million times. As the name suggests, it prevents any ads outside of video ads, the ones seen on Youtube before a video being an example, from being seen by users on any website they visit.
Although we think we’re doing ourselves a favor by clearing these ads from websites, we are actually blocking ourselves from information that could be useful. Just as we learn about new products from television ads, Internet ads serve the same purpose, despite their notorious reputation of being “pop-ups” or leading to scam websites that causes identity theft or computer viruses.
The truth is, on reputable websites such as Youtube or Hulu, the ads on the side or the ones that show up before the video are paid for and created by businesses, just the ones seen in The Spotlight. Using Adblock is the equivalent to receiving the Spotlight with blank areas where the advertisements of the local, dependable businesses would be located.
In both cases, those advertisements enable supply of the content the user wants.
Take time to think of any valuable advertisements you’ve seen over the years. Everyone has seen ads that have influenced some decisions in their lives, one way or another. Just because we have the ability to prevent ourselves from seeing these ads does not mean we should do so.
Businesses are at a disadvantage with all this technology since with a portion of their target market blocks them out. This has forced advertisers to use new tactics to reach the consumer. The most notable tactic is attempting to appear on the first page of results from search engines, like Google, when their specific product or service is searched. This tactic is limited to larger companies, however, and requires more time and analysis to create useful ad placement.
As consumers, we are isolating ourselves by avoiding ads, never learning of new products that could interest us. So please, even just for a moment, watch the commercials or take a look at the ads on your favorite websites. You may find something that appeals to you after all.
