Online Advertising in the U.S. Outpaces Print for the First Time

A company can be the best in the business and can be producing the highest-quality items at the lowest prices, but those facts don't matter much if no one hears about the company. So, in many ways, the reach of a company's advertising efforts can be a far more important factor in the business' success than the business itself. In the past, a company's outreach efforts involved advertisements posted in the local newspaper. Eventually, that developed into short commercials on the radio, then on television. Now, in the digital age, advertisers have to make use of the internet if they want to get noticed. In fact, according to Wendy Lee's L.A. Times article, over half of all advertisements in the U.S. this year were online.

Since companies are looking to target more consumers from the younger demographics, and since it's well-known that younger consumers tend to spend far more time on mobile devices than older consumers, those companies have pivoted their marketing strategy to focus on platforms like Google and Facebook. This pivot was so significant that in 2018, advertisers will spend a total of more than $100 billion on online advertisements, a 16% increase from last year's expenditures. Studies have found that the online advertisements are more successful in targeting consumers, provides the advertisers with more information about the targeted consumer, and even costs less overall.

The advertisements tend to focus mainly on social media and internet searches. For example, if you like a Facebook page related to cooking, you might tend to see more ads on your Facebook feed related to cookware. Or, if you search on Google for a specific product, the next time you use the internet, advertisements will be more likely to show you products similar to the one you searched for, or related products from the same company. Online advertising has the benefit that it can target specific demographics of consumers and can record how many people are actually affected by the ads (determined by the ratio of ad clicks to purchases).

It makes sense that companies are making the shift to online advertising. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have millions of users who log on every day, and a targeted ad can draw in many more potential customers than a generic advertisement in the local paper or a catchy commercial on TV. Especially as streaming services become more popular (thereby decreasing the percentage of the population who actively watch cable television), TV commercials become less effective and more annoying to the common viewer. Online ads are still seen as annoying, but if done in the right way, they can catch a consumer's attention without distracting a consumer from the posts and online content they are actually there to see.

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Over Half of American Households Rely Solely on Cell Phone Communication

New technology is the way of the future. While some consumers choose to stick with old-fashioned versions of modernized innovations, the vast majority opt instead to implement the advancements as soon as they become available. One such technological innovation is the mobile telephone. Where people once had to use a payphone to make contact while outside of their home and office, remote communication has become a staple in pretty much every American's life. To that end, according to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, over half of the households in America have completely phased out landline telephones.

Landlines were once a valuable necessity in the home, and to this day still have a few benefits. However, they also have significant drawbacks, especially as technology becomes more interconnected in this day and age. In 2006, a survey was conducted that concluded that only about 16% of American households didn't have a landline connection. Since the advent of smartphones and other such devices, that statistic has climbed to 54% in the most recent survey. That number has continued to climb each year. In fact, some European countries have over 80% of households relying solely on wireless phone connectivity, so it is very likely that one day, it could reach 100% in most areas of the world.

Millennials especially have been the ones to push the cord-cutting trend. It's an economic choice. Basically, if they already have a cell phone line that they pay for each month, why would they make a second payment each month to have a phone line that isn't even accessible on the go? The logic isn't completely perfect, as landlines are very beneficial in emergency situations or during power outages. However, if it comes to hundreds of dollars per year in extra cost, many consumers opt to save money, even with the minimal cost to their peace of mind.

New renters or homeowners are choosing to cut costs wherever they can, whether by using video streaming platforms instead of cable or by cutting out the landline phone option. Landlines are more often targeted by telemarketers, and consumers (especially those of the younger demographics) tend to send messages more than speak on the phone anyway, so a landline becomes pretty much useless except in an emergency. 10 years ago, not having a landline was risky. Today, it still has a bit of inherent risk, but with the way technology has been advancing, the risk decreases exponentially each year. It is likely that landlines may one day be gone from homes completely, only present in places of business or governmental institutions.

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Consumers Aren't as Enthusiastic About Self-Driving Cars as the Industry Would Hope

To the automobile industry, self-driving cars are the next big thing. On its own, the principle seems amazing. A consumer can sit down in a car, input a destination, and just relax until the journey is complete. There's no more need to stress out at the amount of traffic or worry about getting into an accident. Many of the self-driving cars even make it possible for the passengers to take a nap on long trips. While car producers and ride-sharing services believe that self-driving cars will be the most popular thing since sliced bread, according to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, consumers aren't as excited about the new technology.

 A recent study performed by Kelly Blue Book involved questions posed to a group of interviewees representative of the general American population, based on this year's census figures. The numbers gathered by the survey were surprising to the self-driving car industry, to say the least. Approximately 80% of participants in the survey don't want to give complete control to the car. They want to always have the ability to turn off the self-driving feature and drive manually. One of the biggest attractions of a self-driving car is that the passengers no longer have to go through the stress and tediousness that driving entails. However, the survey found that 62% of participants not only are willing to drive but actually enjoy the action of driving.

When asked about fully self-driving vehicles, which companies like Google and Uber have been working on developing, one-third of people said they would be completely unwilling to buy such a car. The lack of steering wheel and gas/brake pedals is unsettling for many drivers. Additionally, 62% of people responded that they would not want to live in a world where every vehicle was autonomous. Of the people surveyed, the youngest group (12- to 15-year-olds) were the most interested in a world full of autonomous cars, but even among them, 33% still were still doubtful.

Part of the reason that the people surveyed were against the concept of self-driving cars was that they don't know enough about the concept. Many worry about the science-fiction behind self-driving cars. So many movies have been made depicting smart vehicles as the first step along the path to global domination of machines over man. Even with all of the articles and advertisement about the benefits and drawbacks of self-driving vehicles, 25% knew nothing, 35% knew little, and 28% knew some about the topic. If automobile producers want to raise interest, they should focus on educating people about the facts of self-driving cars.

The most encouraging fact discovered by the survey is that the most participants showed interest in "Level 4" classification of self-driving cars. Under Kelly Blue Book's system, "Level 4" is a type of vehicle that has the ability to drive on its own, but can easily be taken over by a driver if they need to. Whenever the concept of a completely computer-controlled car was mentioned, however, participants reacted negatively. People tend to be nervous about new concepts, especially when it comes to new types of technology. A self-driving car is seen by the more hesitant consumers as a potentially dangerous new technology that may provide more risk than benefit. To address that significant portion of the market, the producers of the self-driving vehicles may need to focus on giving them more first-hand experience. Simply offering test drives could be enough to push wary buyers more onto the pro-autonomy end of the spectrum.

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