Approach - Avoidance: deep traces of attitudes towards media devices and their contents

Why is it that interactive TV is not really a success whereas second screen applications seem to be doing OK? This question has puzzled me for a while and the answer is not an easy one, I think. In this post I will try to shed some light on an answer that only accounts for a very small proportion of the total findings. It just deals with cool and unconscious processes, things that get extra credit in my own view on things. This partial answer has to do with very deep behavioral processes: approach and avoidance. 

Old school marketing revival on the way: Package and product quality

After the advertising clutter paradox in the nineties and nillies, the advent of mobile phone and tablet technology has been heralded as the holy grail of modern advertising. These new technologies indeed guarantee new and improved communications between brands and customers. They also make sure that at the conscious level, there should be a great deal of integrity put into the marketing efforts with these new channels. As a customer, we should therefore welcome these applications, I believe. These modern technologies also have their impact on more traditional advertising. As I suggest below, this is true for traditional above-the-line advertising as well as for the most basic of all marketing communication tools: the product and its packaging.

The magic of free publicity

While giving a class in marketing communications this afternoon, I showed my students a screenshot of the homepage of Andrea Petkovic, a female tennis player, to explain some point being made in the course. At that moment, something peculiar about the site struck me. Just like her colleagues, Andrea of course endorses a number of brands (her sponsors). I do not know about how lucrative these deals are, but I guess she will be rather glad with the pay check. She does, however, provide free publicity to a number of other brands: facebook, twitter, and youtube. What is even more surprising is the size and placement of the publicity: these free endorsements are about as prominent as the paid endorsements and they have the more prominent left position on the screen.

Google+ A new religion has been born

Since today there is of course a big buzz going on about the public accessibility (without invitations) of Google+. Next to that, there's a large number of "new stuff" that is all pretty cool. Still, G+ is mocked because of its ghost-town appearances.

Pure blasphemy, in my opinion. In my view, a new religion has been born.

The reason for thinking so is rather graphic and deals with marketing communications. Google has played it very clever and they sure know their marketing Bible. G+'s immanent succes should not be attributed to the product itself but to how they used their other product, the sky-high favorite search engine named Google. Have a look at it today and you'll see this ...