Personal Exposure To Digital Marketing: An Analysis

According to research, Americans are exposed to an average of 6,000 to 10,000 advertising messages a day, up from a mere 500 in the 1970s. At the end of your day, take a moment to recall the advertisements you have encountered over the course of the day and make a list.

Analyze your list and summarize your findings with the following questions in mind:

  • What specific characteristics made the ads you listed stand out?

  • Consider the environment and context of where you saw these ads.

Rhoback Activewear

An apparel brand that focuses on Activewear.

  • First touch here was a pre-roll ad on one of my daily podcast listens, followed by retargeting ads on Meta platforms, and ending with a Native Ad Placement in the form of a show sponsorship on Youtube.

  • These ads stood out because of the way that the ads are caked into the content that I'm watching and listening to. The brand that is sponsored by Rhoback does their advertising in a native environment and goes off-script with the ad reads so that it fits into the show/podcast seamlessly.

  • Being an activewear clothing brand, it would make sense that these ads stand out to me after or during exercise. Again, doing a great job of identifying some of the pain points with activewear clothing brands makes it very attractive at the time of listening.

Alpha Brain

Daily Nootropic Supplement for memory and focus.

  • First touch here was a mid-roll ad during one of the podcasts I listen to semi frequently followed closely and extremely often by retargeting ads on both Meta platforms.

  • All three times I saw the ad, it was a voice over directly from Joe Rogan's podcast of him talking about the product and the positive effects that he's experienced from taking Alpha Brain (nootropic.) The visuals of the ad matched the "keywords" that he would talk about. For example, when he'd talking about training harder, it'd cut to someone in the gym.

  • It's interesting because I have been seeing these ads for weeks, typically from home while I'm working or scrolling on my phone. I go to the gym everyday in the middle of the day and after coming back from the gym I came across the ad again. The pain points he pointed out in the ad matched with what I had been feeling during my time at the gym. Being someone who does take nootropics daily, his recommendation finally got to me and I actually made a purchase.

Design Pickle

On-demand creative team for businesses.

  • First touch was a Google Search Ad while conducting market research, followed by retargeting ads on Facebook.

  • I didn't pay too much attention to the ad on Google as much as I did when I was retargeted via Facebook. On Facebook, the company did an incredible job of relating the copy and creative to the pain points I was actually reading about while conducting research.

  • It's interesting because even though I was done working, their ability to get me back "into the work mindset" after the fact by retargeting to me on Facebook was sort of eye opening. It's actually crazy how relative the ad copy and creatives were compared to what I was researching and reading about.

T Mobile

An American wireless network operator.

  • T Mobile sponsored the 2023 All Star Game, partly in conjunction with the All Star festivities being held at T Mobile Stadium in Seattle, WA. With that being said, T Mobile was all over cable TV, and again followed closely by ads on Facebook in particular.

  • I think the main reason it stood out is because just about everything throughout the home run derby was sponsored by T-Mobile. From the actual stadium that the home run derby was hosted in to the baseballs they were using. During the Home Run Derby while scrolling my phone, I was targeted with T Mobile Ads that had relevant content surrounding the MLB All Star Game.

  • The main reason I was able to recall these ads is because they were shoved down my throat for the entirety of the two hour event. When I took a break from watching and looked at Social Media, I was again targeted by T Mobile. They were everywhere during the Home Run Derby & All Star Game, which is most definitely by design so they could maximize the exposure they were receiving.

Final Thoughts

I thought the number 6,000 - 10,000 advertising messages per day on average seemed crazy. After going through this exercise and taking the time to pay more attention to all of the advertisements that I came across, I realized how prevalent they truly are on a daily basis. Everywhere I go and everything I do, it seems that there’s a name attached to it in the form of an advertisement. Whether it’s walking my dog up to the local baseball fields, conducting research for work, listening to my daily podcasts, watching Netflix at the end of the night, or (unsurprisingly) watching a highly anticipated televised event such as the Home Run Derby, advertisements are everywhere.

With that being said, there’s definitely a difference in quality of advertisements when it comes to placement and a common theme amongst the ads that stood out to me. It seems that the advertisements I paid more attention to were more relative to what I was currently doing and the tasks that I was performing at that point in time.