Advertising

National advertising began in the 1850s, when railroads began carrying newspapers and national consumer goods across the country. Advertising further expanded in the 1880s, when industries embraced new production techniques that allowed for the creation of large quantities of standardized products. In response to such profound manufacturing changes, national advertising of branded goods emerged. In the prosperous 1920s, consumer spending was fueled by the increased availability of consumer credit on such goods as automobiles and household appliances. Americans were engaging in more leisure-time activities such as moviegoing, and advertising served to promoted such products and services. This was coupled with the rise of mass media, including circulation magazines and radio broadcasting. Media's ability to reach mass audiences [Page 124]led to a one-size-fits-all approach to national advertising media messages, catering to white consumers. Since then, advertising messages have transformed with the ability of new media technologies to reach targeted audiences, shifting demographics within the United States, and protests by various minority groups, particularly during the civil rights era.

Since the 1920s, American advertising has grown as new media technologies spur the delivery of commercial messages in ever-changing ways. One of the most striking developments in advertising methods has been the shift in how advertisers reach audiences. Now, rather than attempting to market items to undifferentiated mass consumers, advertisers attempt to segment and target particular groups for specific products and brands. At present, segmentation has become the norm in advertising.

Market segmentation is the strategy of dividing potential consumers into identifiable segments and then directing media messages through targeted media to reach those audiences. This is a consumer-driven approach in which corporations subdivide the total heterogeneous potential market for a product into smaller segments, each with its own homogeneous characteristics. Segments are broken down in numerous ways by place of residence, socioeconomic status, sex, age, education, ethnicity, and race. Segmentation is important for advertisers because they can design ads geared to market segments and place them in media reaching those segments.

The focus on segmentation has been the result of two trends: new media technologies that allow for highly targeted marketing messages, and the shift in U.S. demographics and the recognition that some groups of consumers have significant buying power.