Game Changer: How Social Media Is Altering The Advertising Landscape

It goes without saying that marketers today have a ton of advertising options available to them, and far more than ever before in history:  print (newspapers, magazines, newsletters, etc.); radio (terrestrial and satellite, TV (cable, network, and online); online (websites, blogs, search engines, and e-mail); product placement (TV, films, and video games); and outdoor (billboards, transportation centers, and a myriad of out-of-home options).

And for those brands fortunate enough to have the dollars to spend on multi-faceted advertising campaigns, this never-ending list of choices makes it difficult to allocate dollars to any one medium with predictable results. In the end, most advertisers throw money at a combination (or all) of these channels  to generate the widest possible coverage with their primary target audience. It's not a bad strategy, although it can be extraordinarily expensive. In addition, it's one which has been followed for years, dating back to the "Mad Men" era of mass marketing, and long before the advent of online, satellite radio, and some of the newer, more technology-centric alternatives.

So where does social media fit into the advertising picture? Certainly, it presents yet another confounding series of choices to make when developing an ad campaign:  promoted tweets? Display ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace? A compelling viral video posted on YouTube, and then doubles as an online video ad? Some or all of these? In the end, social media has dramatically altered the landscape of advertising, but the key question remains:  for better or for worse?

MDG Advertising, an award-winning agency headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, has attempted to get to the bottom of this by mapping out the many changes in advertising between its two primary timeframes:  the mass marketing era, and the new media era (read: now).

The findings are compelling. First, in the mass marketing period, the primary objective of an ad was to deliver a message to a targeted consumer in a one-way communication. However, in the new media age, the brand has to engage the customer in a conversation, and that requires two-way communication:  message disseminated to the consumer, and then listening to and responding to that consumer's feedback. Second, there is tremendous demand for and interest in online video ads, and that interest carries over to the mobile sector.

Check out MDG Advertising's infographic below to review all of the agency's findings on how social media platforms continue to alter the landscape of advertising. Click here to view a larger version of this image: