Over recent years, the scope of advertising has expanded dramatically, becoming more pervasive through aspects such as social media and event sponsorships. The digital age has brought advertising away from the page and physical space onto screens often inches from our faces.
Social media platforms such as Instagram, Youtube and Reddit have advertising baked into their core, with Youtube and Instagram videos often having a sponsored message being read out by the creator or featuring goods provided by a sponsor.
“There’s advertisements everywhere I go; I search up one thing on Google and all of a sudden ads for that thing start popping up everywhere,” Lambert senior Vikrant Pansari said.
Online personalization has allowed companies to algorithmically target potential customers, showing them items they showed interest in the past.
Other methods of advertising have also grown increasingly popular in the 21st century, such as instances where companies become title sponsors for entire events. Examples of this include the energy drink company Red Bull hosting a multitude of outdoor sports events and online casino company Stake being the title sponsor for a Formula One team.
The issue with the digital age is that in many cases, advertising is reaching an unintended audience. It’s not uncommon to see sponsorships for products and services typically aimed at adults such as online gambling websites, even on platforms that typically cater their content to those underage.
Even with warnings that such products might be intended for those 18 and older, the normalization of what has typically been seen as taboo has certainly impacted those who are younger.
“It’s probably making people gain bad spending habits and fall into more marketing ploys; I don’t think twice when I see an ad pop up, but a little kid… they’d probably click on the ad and beg their parents to buy it for them,” Pansari said.
The issue with managing content on the internet is how easily moderation can be branded as censorship- the question of deciding what is considered ‘indecent’ or ‘inappropriate’ has been and will continue to be a hotly debated topic. On top of that, deciding who will be responsible for upholding rules, whether that be the government or a company, is often debated in conjunction.
“Regulation, however, is making sure that whatever is out in the internet is appropriate,” Pansari said. “It’s important that the line shouldn’t be crossed from regulation to censorship.”
Corporations in the digital era have been more pervasive in people’s daily lives than ever before. Even products that are relatively ‘normal’ are constantly being shoved into people’s faces, regardless of if they want it or not. The days of internet and media consumption free from corporate interests are over and most likely not for the better.
