There Is No Escape!

      Everyday, advertisements overwhelm us. Whether a webpage popup intrudes or a billboard steals your attention from the road,  there's no escape from Madison Ave. In many cases, people won't realize that they too are a walking advertisement. So if you want to avoid advertisements reaching you, you may be out of luck. The constant cycle of this lather, rinse, repeat method gives little wonder to why children are drawn to McDonalds just for the toys.

      I sure do love having all of those catchy jingles from TV or radio commercials stuck in my head, but after a day full of it becomes too much! Companies have begun to target their advertisements to all 5 of our senses.  When I walk down to the Portland Saturday Market, I cant help but notice overall ambiance of the place. There is live music, dozens of vendors, and the irresistible smell of food being cooked throughout the day. As I was about to cross Naito Parkway to visit my favorite gyro spot, Angelina's Greek Cuizina (Highly recommended) the sweet smell of warm candied almonds wafted toward me. Directly to my left there was a stand and there was a sign hanging on the stand that said "You can smell us!" They knew that one of their largest advertisements was a byproduct of their candied nuts.

The picture shown to the left is taken from Google Streetview showing where I was standing! Now the location of the stands have changed a little from where they are now so don't think I am giving you false info!

Advertisers invade on your mind before you are ever aware its happening. That melody that keeps running through my mind all night has been carefully crafted to just that. trigger your memory to remember the melody and in turn, remembering the company that made it!
 
      The flashy billboards of time square give an easy example of how intrusive the advertising game has become.

      Just like this image, the advertisements all around us invade into our lives weather we like it or not. This gets pretty damn annoying when you're always having some new and revolutionary product shoved down your throat that you wouldn't even want in the first place.
     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuReA-AGa8

      Billy Mays was the king of  direct response advertisements. You know, the guy with the loud voice selling Oxy Clean. He made thousands of people in the country want to buy a product that he pitched in less than two minutes and that is pretty impressive. If you want to see just how hard it is, try to convince someone to buy something that fast. But I will save you the time, it doesn't work that well. Infomercials classify as these direct response ads because they are meant to have you, almost impulsively, pick up the phone and order whatever you might see on the screen before you. They serve the exact same purpose as junk email, phone solicitors, webpage advertisements, and even the leaflets in the morning papers. using direct response ads is typically the cheapest way a company can advertise their product without having to really specify who it will reach.
      There is no limit to where or how advertisers will be able to reach you, they always try to be one step ahead so there will be a never ending amount of products that they can sell.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

-Mark Twain

Timing is everything!

      As the year enters fall, leaves change on the trees, the days become shorter, and the holiday season begins. Just like the trees, the advertisements around us go through seasonal changes! With halloween right around the corner and thanks giving following closely behind it, advertisers have the chance to sell us a product for every occasion. This is called seasonality. An example of seasonality is like having a cycle, similar to the seasons, in your products sales. Nobody would want to sell christmas trees in july nor sell halloween costumes at easter, it doesn't make sense!

   
      When I was a kid I would spend hours looking through the halloween catalogues trying to find the costume that I would be able to wear trick or treating! My mom would always ask me if I had found the perfect costume and I would always say the same thing, "I want to be a ninja!" Without the catalogues, I would have never found the type of costume I would want to wear. Putting halloween ads in the mail weeks before the actual day can help get people buying products over the course of the month.
   

       Many companies will overlap their holidays so people can shop through the year! If there is anything that drives us all crazy, holiday shopping is high up on the list. The crazy lines, the never ending music... Why not beat the rush and start buying things now? If nobody sold products in this overlapping fashion, it would be a far bigger hassle the closer we came to the holiday.

      Americans are no strangers to buying products for the holidays. For example, this year halloween sales alone are expected to reach 6.9 billion dollars. A whopping 2.9 billion of this will be spent on costumes for adults, and the rest will be used for everything else! Many farmers also rely on these seasonal sales for their income.
   
      A farmer who sells pumpkins counts on selling their crops in time for halloween. Hundreds of thousands of pumpkins are sold every year to be used in seasonal festivities, such as Jack O' Lanterns!

 The picture on the left is my girlfriend and I's attempt at making Jack O' Lanterns! The one on the left is mine and the one on the right is hers.