And so the semester comes to an end, not with uproarious applause, but with my feet kinda chilly cause I was doing the laundry, it’s 10:30 p.m. on Thursday after having 2 classes, 3 hours of transit time, and I just ate way too many pierogies.
If there’s one thing that has been drilled into my head again and again in this class, it is that people hate hate hate hate hate ads. Now sure I know I’m a bit of an outlier because I so viciously detest them; with multiple adblockers that let me customize which elements I block, instinctual muting and looking away when an ad that I can’t block plays, and a visceral disgust at billboards and bus ads, I’m certainly not the target audience for most ads.
But… shouldn’t I be the target audience for SOME ads?
Twice this semester I have written about my thoughts on how to remove the dirty word from advertising, and I think that as the semester closes I have my conclusion. It’s really simple in a kind of “we been knowing” sort of way, and yet it’s a tried and true method that nonetheless gets relentlessly killed in all manner of advertising.
It’s simple, the way you make someone care about an ad is by caring about the person you’re advertising to. No, god no, don’t write some cringe-ass relatable content that just shows how much of a faceless corporation you are; you have to be genuine. You have to back up your words. Inbound marketing isn’t just about micro-targeting someone to convince them that you are a brand they can trust, but by simply never running into the problem of being found out as long as you actually are a brand they can trust.
The age old classic rule: don’t be a jerk.
So what does this mean ultimately for moving beyond this semester?
Well, honestly, not much. I never intend on pursuing a career in advertising (even taking a class with such a visceral hatred of ads was, frankly, a risky maneuver). It means that as I market my book and sell it to publishers, or on social media, or etc etc, I won’t actually be doing much different from what I was doing before. I was trying to sell to queer people who want a personal, charming story. That certainly hasn’t changed. But it’s the method by which I will go about it that is different.
No matter how many times I’ve read and re-read and edited edited edited this book, a new reader will always point out something I’ve missed. A story built up so much in your head that you know every aspect of it by heart can’t possibly have something out of place.
Well, it’s the same with marketing. Building up a hatred of all things advertisement in my head has prevented me from actually using the techniques in life. Yeah, sure, selling the book will make me money. But ideally the people who are buying the book– and this is especially true for art– SHOULD be actually getting something more out of it, right? Finding a book to read and loving it is a good thing! That’s what advertising should be. Not trying to convince you you have a need, but to show you something that aligns with a need (or desire) that you already have.
So am I going to uninstall my adblocker?
lol
No.
But am I going to stop cringing if I have to make a mood board to advertise to an audience that I am unfamiliar with? Yeah, obviously. Cringing in the first place was frankly kinda lame.
Yeah and there’s another big thing for me coming out of this class: Good lord am I in a bubble online. What do you mean Facebook has an entire order of magnitude over other websites in terms of active users? What do you mean people universally like watching videos so much that videos objectively do better across all social media sites? What do you mean people actually click marketing emails they receive? Can’t imagine doing that!
My first time through college I didn’t understand when people talked about how the technical skills you receive are one of the least important things you’ll get from the experience. Well now I’m rubbin’ up on 30 years old and I do get it now. I learned how to make a content calendar. But more importantly, I learned how to condense the breadth of my complex characters and ideas into easily digestible thoughts.
And so I leave this blog series with an interesting fact:
Common conjecture is that the brain stops developing at 25 when your frontal lobe is “done”. Turns out that’s incorrect. The study that “proved” that actually just ran out of money when the test subjects turned 25. They have no more data beyond 25, but the frontal lobe showed no sign of stopping.
Yeah, we keep learning and growing our whole entire lives.
Cheers.
– Vivian