Modern Marketing
Advertising has become synonymous with social media and the rise of technology. According to a recent study by Forbes, Americans consume approximately 4,000 to 10,000 ads every single day. On every social media platform, ads are ubiquitous as either sponsored posts from our favorite influencers, promoted posts, or video ads before our favorite media content. As the prevalence of advertisements continues to grow, it can be helpful to consider how the art of marketing has evolved from the days of yore. When trying to determine which out of the 10,000 ads were most successful we may be drawn to choose traditional methods of advertising such as the highly produced television
commercials or the everso catching radio jingles. In modern society, however, these ads are largely ignored and consumers such as ourselves often automatically tune out of these commercials. As a result, brands are increasingly innovating and finding new ways to capture our attention.
Instead of becoming a nuisance on the side of our content, brands are attempting to become the content themselves. Unexpectedly, one of the best examples of this form of marketing is the fast-food chain Wendy’s. The brand has utilized the craziness of Twitter using “roasts” and inflammatory replies to become viral. As such, many Twitter users follow the brand to see its next viral tweet. Wendy’s Twitter account has nearly 4 million followers, which is more than double of its equivalent fast-food chains. In 2018, Wendy’s also took the extraordinary effort to release music. “We Beefin?” is the sole published album on the Wendy’s Apple Music and Spotify account. At the time, it became viral instantly garnering 5 million views on Spotify and an equivalent amount on Apple Music. Instead of being background content on a given site or platform, the brand has created marketing content that users actively look for and watch. Wendy’s has been able to show how successful the model of creating viral advertisement material can be to a brand’s following.
Another modern marketing strategy used by brands today is building hype for products through elaborate stunts and content which become viral. The most recent example of such marketing is the release of Donda, a music album by Hip-Hop/Rap artist Kanye West. In order to market his album, West partnered with Apple Music to host a listening party on July 22, 2021 for the album which is relatively common. This listening event shattered Apple Music’s live streaming record with over 3.3 million viewers. The expectation was that the album would be released that night, however, as fans waited the album never came. Donda remained to trend on Twitter for most of the night and the following day. Following the missed release, the anticipation continued to build and Apple Music announced yet another listening event on August 6, 2021. During this event, West broke his previously set Apple Music streaming record with 5.4 million live viewers and using the event to quite literally float into the sky of the stadium instantly becoming viral. The album failed to release again and Apple Music announced another listening event for August 26. This event broke the previous two records with nearly 6 million live viewers. That weekend Donda would release and instantly become the number one album. In this phenomenon, West has created a paradigm shift for brands. Instead of releasing products on their release dates, they purposely miss them to build hype and garner news attention.
Increasingly, marketing is moving away from traditional television and radio ads. Even the fifteen-second youtube ads are becoming obsolete as brands attempt to create outrageous content which consumers are drawn to. Instead of essentially forcing consumers to view the ad, brands create content which consumers are drawn to. This shift could spell danger for social media giants whose revenue is largely sourced from paid advertisements, however, now brands have the potential to garner more attention by simply using their brand accounts on these platforms for free without any promotions.
