The AdNews NGen Blog: How consumer are you?

You’re only new to media once. The introduction can bit a little like drowning in information (especially with all that big data floating around!), but since I’ve been enjoying myself let’s just call it binge-learning.

Little did I expect that becoming an industry insider also meant losing a part of my identity as an everyday consumer and the innocence that comes with it. So how do you know when you’ve made that transition, and what does it entail?

My realisation came a few weeks ago while out for dinner with a group of friends. They were bemoaning the changes of a particular website they used to frequent. “It’s so annoying, they make you sign in to all these things just so you can use it.”

I explained that these changes were implemented to increase the accountability of figures by the website owners to advertisers – tracking your activity and taking bits of your personal information for audience profiling and, therefore, better targeted ads.

They were silent and wide-eyed. Because to them, it wasn’t obvious. It was simply a website redesign gone ugly. So what else didn’t they question that adland takes for granted? My friends are regular consumers, who assume the neutrality of search engines such as Google.

Similarly, they think customising every field of your Facebook profile is a harmless way of expressing who you are, rather than seeing it as a way of making it easier for brands trying to forge a connection with them.

As I tried to find my non-media centre of gravity, instead of asking why they didn’t take notice of such things, the bigger question was – why should they? After all, I definitely don’t speculate their chosen industries as much as I do mine. That’s when I caught myself realising I was becoming more like one of us, and less like the ‘typical’ consumers who make up our target audiences. An everyday person with better things to worry about than ads.

No wonder we’re known for having our heads up our own asses. Our industry rewards intricately integrated campaigns – not those whose separate channels can effectively communicate the whole idea to an audience that will only ever see parts of campaigns and never in their entirety.

After all, when was the last time you saw an ad that you didn’t get? Exactly.

So it was a double-edged sword, both unsettling and reaffirming, when I realised I was now growing into my role and looking at the world through a media-filtered lens. Further to Adshel’s “How agency are you?” study, perhaps our industry bubble is as psychological as it is geographic. Understanding the consumer – it’s funny how our careers can exhaust the very skill crucial to succeeding in it.

The constant challenge throughout our careers will be one of keeping grounded, and maintaining the ability to channel our inner ‘ordinary’ consumer – which in many ways we all still are. Albeit a little more critical and harder to please.

Noeline Bautista
Strategy and Insight Analyst
MEC