One of these things is different from the other
The Nichification of Media and Audience
The golden age of advertising—usually considered the post-war years until the 1970s—was a period of unprecedented creative output. Every advertisement was a miniature narrative that consisted of recognizable mascots, memorable taglines, and catchy jingles. Over those decades, advertising, like the media it was embedded in, was woven into the cultural fabric of the times it appeared. It was as indispensable a component of mass communication promoting mass consumption, enabled by mass production, which created a mass culture as the factories that made the products it featured.
A public cultural hegemony was played out in mass media, advertising, and the products and services offered through them. Advertising and media created the culture they reflected through a mass media symbiosis—or so they did for a while.
Whether it was “M.A.S.H.,” “All in the Family,” or “Dukes of Hazzard,” ads were run in programming based on the possible composition of that program’s audience being a higher concentration of an advertiser’s target audience. For example, if there were more women 25-54 who watched “All in the Family” as a percentage of the overall audience for the show than there was for “Dukes of Hazzard,” the media planner might instruct TV buyers to buy “All in the Family” instead of “Dukes of Hazzard.”
But if you weren’t part of the target audience, you were still part of the program’s audience. The programming informed the decision of where to place the ad, but the ad didn’t exist only when the targeted segment was present. You still see the ad on “All in the Family” as a member of the audience, even if you are not a woman aged 25 to 54. Target or not, you saw the ad, and the target or not, you watched the show, listened to the song on the radio, or read Time or People.
By the 1970s, mass culture started to fracture. The changing modes of identity initially drove this. The emphasis on self-esteem and individuality, the recognition of underrepresented and diverse population cohorts, and a mistrust of government due to events like the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and Vietnam converged to foment segmented, identity-driven cohorts. The media landscape became a reflection of these modalities. Until then, print media had magazines addressing more particular audiences, essentially special interests like science and mechanics, hunting and fishing, cooking, and cars. Some, like Ebony and Jet, which have been around since the 40s and 50s, spoke to Black American audiences about important issues. However, the early 70s saw an explosion of media representing more unique audiences or talking to people whose needs and interests were not addressed by available mass media. Rolling Stone, first published in 1967, covered music and the culture it represented at a time when both were still looked at askance by mainstream media. The Advocate, focusing on LGBT issues and the LGBT community, became a national news magazine in 1974. Ms. Magazine debuted in 1972. Programming specifically for children to teach children was being produced. An increased presence of direct broadcast satellites in the 70s coincided with the changing social landscape, opening the way for broadcast that could address increasingly differentiated audiences with content to match.
Cable in the 1980s, made possible by direct broadcast satellites, birthed entire networks dedicated to specific audiences' specific tastes. MTV, ESPN, CNN... more diverse content carrying more distinctive advertising for more unique audiences.
Media segmentation led to advertising segmentation. Messaging started evolving from trying to appeal to the most people to appealing to certain kinds of people. Catchy tunes and memorable characters that audiences have in common as part of a cultural referential totality gave way to advertising that tried to speak to individuals and their sense of self. In the 1970s, some 80% of all ads had jingles. By 1998, only 12% did. By 2011, that figure was 2.6%. Popular brand ad campaigns were Nike’s “Just Do It,” Diet Pepsi’s “Choice of a New Generation,” and Maxell’s “Blown Away Guy.” All featuring concepts and images emphasizing the audience’s uniqueness. None of them have jingles.
When media is fragmented, advertising is segmented. Not that companies investing lots of money in marketing and advertising didn’t already conceptualize their target audiences in segments. Still, media that addressed more discrete groups of people meant advertising could be delivered to more specific audiences. Products could diversify, and instead of shouting to the people from the mountaintop about them, messages could be whispered discretely in a more intimate media setting. We went from products and brands trying to persuade and connect with “people” to trying to persuade and connect with “persons.”
Advertising has always played upon the aspirational, showing people what they could be if they wanted, all they had to do was buy Brand X. But when it was a vector for mass culture, communication, media, and production, it presented that aspiration as being embodied by something the audience wanted: a car, a beverage, a diaper. When advertising became a tool for fomenting and reflecting segmentation, it sought to appeal to how the audience saw itself. Advertising went from playing on WHAT we wanted to be to expressing WHO we think we are.
It's important to remember that the relationship between society and technology is symbiotic. Technological advancements opened new possibilities for advertisers to reach more segmented audiences, but the changing values and norms of society dictated how these technologies were harnessed. The rise of individualism and the growing emphasis on personal identity in the late 20th century shaped the kinds of messages that advertisers believed would resonate with consumers. It wasn't just that advertisers could target more narrowly; they needed to, as consumers increasingly expected brands to speak directly to their unique lifestyles and values.
Though decades of collecting data about audiences led to the refinement of what kinds of products were developed or content produced, advertisers' ability to mitigate media buying risk through targeting was still primarily based on understanding the audience compositions of specific media channels and their vehicles. Audience data remained largely untethered to the means of advertising distribution. Opportunities for segmentation were growing, and ad creative was moving towards individuating target audiences. However, a way to activate advertising at the individual level and a framework for conceptualizing it were lacking.
Then the 90s came, giving the media and advertising world what it had only seen in dreams: the concept of one-to-one marketing and the dawn of the consumer internet.
