Page 30 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Advert s ng and Persuas on |

Marketing Segmentation
Lifestyle ads were designed to appeal to consumption subgroups, and since
then the consuming public has been increasingly differentiated into smaller
groups of people that share similar demographics, such as age, gender, race,
education, and income. Market researchers look for other consumption indica-
tors as well, and “psychographics” add values, beliefs, opinions, and behavioral
practices to the mix. Carving up what was once a huge, ill-defined mass public
into smaller groups has allowed the advertising industry to target consumers
with messages specifically designed to more clearly defined tastes. Selling prod-
ucts by associating them with the values and sensibilities of various subgroups
is referred to as “marketing stratification” and remains dominant within the in-
dustry. Agencies and their clients are willing to pay higher ad rates for mes-
sages they can be confident will reach the people most likely to be persuaded by
the targeted message. With each new marketing campaign, a once-broad public
continues to be refined into specific market segments.
Such marketing practices work hand-in-hand with media and have influenced
the economics and program design of not only broadcast and cable media, but
radio, magazines, and Internet content as well. With its multiple channels, cable
television originated as a “narrowcasting” medium, in which programming di-
rected at specific audiences dovetailed with the advertising created to appeal to
those same tastes and sensibilities. In this way viewers were defined as consum-
ers and targeted as markets for specific products. As numbers of viewers are sold
to advertisers through rating, and with higher rates for audiences “primed” with
compatible programming, television, radio, and other media are increasingly
defined as marketing mediums as well as entertainment or information sources.
These marketing practices and the merger of media content with advertising
campaigns paved the way for the insertion of advertising into programs them-
selves, and product placement became a dominant commercial practice during
the last two decades of the twentieth century.

Commercializing the Media

The deregulation of broadcasting, beginning in the early 1980s, lifted re-
strictions on the amount of advertising that could be aired on television. This
resulted in the further commercialization of programming and the develop-
ment of program-length commercials, which characterize many shows that
feature products from beginning to end. Infomercials—long-form advertise-
ments that mimic the formats of other shows, especially news and information
programming—became popular on late-night television and cable services
alike. Public interest groups are critical of these developments and have ap-
pealed to the Federal Communications Commission for regulations that would
force these shows to be identified as commercially designed programs. Media
watch groups have also criticized new hybrids of commercial media such as
advertisements produced in public relations firms disguised as information
segments that now frequently air on local news programs.