Blurred Lines

No, this is not a post about Robin Thicke’s rapey song. But it is about the blurred lines in advertising. As a creative advertising student in this age, making ad campaigns has been difficult and complex. With the boom of new technology and social media, ads aren’t just print in magazine or a commercial spot on TV anymore.

So what is advertising? Advertising is now a mix of traditional media, social media and digital media. Before the Internet and new technology, advertising consisted of print ads, radio spots, billboards and at most, television commercials. There was a time when a cowboy was revolutionary to sell cigarettes and minimalism was embraced by Vokswagen to sell cars. Creatives in an agency could easily translate a print ad into a radio spot or a billboard. It was relatively simple. But with any industry, as humans become more sophisticated, so should advertising.

Nowadays, advertising transcends print ads. It is a Vine, a Captcha you can scan with your smartphone, a QR code on paper that brings you to a digital campaign online, it is an app that connects with the Nike shoes you wear, it is a staring contest with Samsung’s smartphone in the middle of an airport terminal. It can be a slew of things, which is why advertising has gotten even more difficult.

But at the same time, this is why advertising has gotten even more high in demand. Digital advertising and marketing agencies are popping up left and right. Communication roles have never been more important. Social media is still a relatively new creature and companies don’t know what to do with it. They rely on advertisers to master this new landscape and market to the world wide web. And with the boom of new technology of smartphones, wearable technology, and tablets, businesses rely on advertisers to come up with the most innovative campaigns. In addition, these landscapes are constantly evolving. If you’re in communications or advertising, you have to be even more adaptable and versatile.

As cliche as it may sound, the possibilities are endless for creative advertisers and communicators. As a creative advertising student, it pushes my creative limits. This ambiguous era in advertising is a perfect time for experimentation and failure. These blurred lines between advertising, social media and technology make it difficult, but at the same time, exciting. You know you want it.

Irisa Ona
Latest posts by Irisa Ona (see all)

One thought on “Blurred Lines

  1. First of all! GOOD JOB sending me to this post by luring me in with Robin Thicke. Thanks for teaching me about advertising, I thought I knew the jist of advertising, but your points that you brought up regarding technology were great.

    It is crazy to think how much we need to be aware about when we enter the workforce to market us. We need to know all the communication practices basics and then all the technology aspects!

Comments are closed.