Final Ad Assignment Ever !

Advertising – What do I think?

For this last assignment I wrote out several different possibilities of topics in my red notebook, as per my habits. Potential topics were things like does advertising carry a value? What does the economic crisis really mean to the world of advertising and so on.

I began the assignment with an opening paragraph. Upon the second paragraph I realized that I was not happy with the topic and I didn’t like what I wrote. Delete. Next topic the same thing happened. Third try, this assignment came to life. I truthfully cannot settle on a topic, nor have I found one that I like enough to write approximately 500 words about.

This same thing happened when I was writing my final short story for the Advanced Creative Writing class. I wrote about four pages of fiction based loosely on a true story. At the forth page I realized that I didn’t like where the story had gone. Once again, I hit delete.

For the sake of this particular assignment I can easily described to you how important I feel advertising really is. Without advertising how on earth can a company expect to attract business and customers?

Word of mouth is a powerful tool. Customers come into my place of employment, Canadian Footwear, all the time claiming that “A friend told me to come in and here I am.”

Word of mouth also does great work for the music scene. One of my hobbies that has been dormant for the last two years while I concentrated on school, is finding/discovering almost-unknown bands. Myspace is good, Uptown has reviews but the most trusted source I have for finding these bands are people. Talking with people about music is the best way that I find new music. That and watching Going Coastal on Much Music.

I’m going to stay on the music bandwagon and discuss the importance of radio advertising when your band is playing a show. For this argument I’m going to use an example that I experienced. The band was Just, they hail from Calgary and the only radio airplay they got was on Freq 107. Not a huge band by any means but they loyal listeners of Freq were familiar and loved their music, myself included.

Freq presented Just the first time that they played here. Playing the West End Cultural Centre, the venue was packed. Tickets almost sold out. The advertising the band had was the spots on Freq and their Myspace event updates.

The next time that Just came to Winnipeg a few years later the results were sadly different. Freq saw a slight format change with the new music director who took the station on a more Metal route. Just, not fitting into the Metal scene was not presented by Freq. The only advertising that they had was the Myspace event updates and the occasional mention by a DJ.

A total of maybe 50 people made it out to that show.

I still believe that radio spots are the best way to get word out about a show. I understand that times are changing along with technology. IPods are literally taking over and people are running to iTunes instead of HMV for the latest album releases. Radio has lost some of its presence but not all. I’m not the only person who would run back to radio at an alarming rate if Freq 107 came to be again.

In conclusion what I take away from being an Ad major is an appreciation and recognition of the world of advertising