From issues dating back to August 2008 through the edition you are currently reading, avid Bear Facts readers will have seen about 160 ads featured throughout the years. This averages to 48 ads per year and around 5 per issue. Even Bear Facts is trying to advertise local businesses to get your attention. Companies pay good money to have their businesses advertised through all different kinds of media.

In 2010, it was estimated that companies spent over $300 billion on advertising in the United States and each 30 second Super Bowl commercial costs around $3 million alone.

To reach people, advertisers have gotten much more creative. They are now digitally inserting their products into TV shows, videos, movies, and songs, making them part of the entertainment instead of a break from the entertainment according to Caitlin Johnson, reporter for CBS News in “Cutting Through Advertising Clutter.”

Since people are spending more time away from home, marketers are spending more money bringing TV to you in shopping malls and in grocery stores. Even major gas station chains have installed TVs at every pump. They are also spending on advertising in busses, on train cars, and on trucks. Mobile advertising generates 2.5 times more attention than a static billboard and about 91 percent of target audiences notices both graphics and text on the trucks and automobiles, according to http://adhitch.com, a website focusing on the power of mobile advertising.

David Sell, senior and future marketing major, agrees that advertising is valuable in sales but questions its limits.

“Advertising often seems overused or used distastefully creating a generally negative feeling toward the companies that over-do it. When people go to entertainment venues to escape the annoyances and stresses of daily life, they’re instead being attacked by ads everywhere they look,” Sell said.

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, said the only place people can escape advertising is in their sleep. People do not always notice how prevalent and influential advertising has become in the lives of consumers.

Darren Rothermel teaches the marketing classes available at LZHS. During these semester-long classes, he discusses advertising and its impact on society.

“By high school, teenagers have a PhD in marketing. Its appearance everywhere causes many people to become annoyed with its presence,” Rothermel said. “Billboards are ugly; TV commercials interrupt shows and they prevent continuous music from playing on the radio. Even to watch videos online from Hulu and You Tube, there are advertisements during ‘commercial breaks.’”

Some technology has cut out the commercials all together. One of the popular features of TiVo and On-Demand is the ability to fast forward through commercials. Sirius satellite radio provides the same relief with the absence of commercials.

These new trends mean companies are losing outlets to capitalize on advertising. In a desperate attempt to continue to grab the consumers’ attention, advertisers are creating what is known as ad clutter. 

Companies like TiVo are trying to sell ad spaces on its screens.

 “(They want) to offer interactive alternatives to the zapped-through television spots,” wrote Stephanie Clifford, journalist for the New York Times. “The ads are called interactive because they ask the viewer to do something — enter in a new channel number, press a button on the remote — to get more information.”

However annoying this may sound, many companies are trying to keep up with the trends in our 24/7 society.

Johnson interviewed Jay Walker-Smith, President of the Marketing Firm Yankelovich asking his perspective on fast paced advertising and insertion of extra TV ads.

“[We live in] a non-stop blitz of advertising messages. Everywhere we turn we’re saturated with advertising messages trying to get our attention. It seems like the goal of most marketers and advertisers nowadays is to cover every blank space with some kind of brand logo or a promotion or an advertisement,” Walker-Smith said.  

Walker-Smith says we’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5,000 a day today.

Advertising is everywhere. “In your face” marketing strategies have drawn the consumers’ attention, but will their attention keep for more than the 30 second commercial?

The number of ads seen daily will only increase as the media outlets and American lifestyles change. Companies will continue to pay through the roof for consumer attention, even if consumers do not pay attention and fast forward through the commercials.