> I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but I get a lot more value out of targeted social media ads than I ever did billboards or TV commercials. They actually...show me niche things that are relevant to my interests, that I didn't know about. It's much closer to the underlying real value of advertising than the Coca-Cola billboard model is.
You are describing two different advertising strategies that have differing goals. The billboard/tv commercial is a blanket type that serves to foster a default in viewers minds when they consider a particular want/need. Meanwhile, the targeted stuff tries to identify a need you might be likely to have and present something highly specific that could trigger or refine that interest.
Facebook then wasn't what facebook is today. The social media of the early internet was largely a digital expansion of otherwise healthy social norms. Then the internet blew up. Now it's more akin to the drug dealers DARE warned us about. Still waiting on _those_ free drugs, tbh.
>I say all this as a parent of an almost 6 year old boy, doing everything I can to shield him from the wacky parenting style that seems to be the norm and provide him places of community and activities away from screens. He won’t have a phone until he drives, or maybe just a basic flip phone if we think we need a communication line to reach him when he’s a bit older.
This is possibly a bit extreme, imo. In a world that is ever increasingly digital, responsible exposure is without a doubt necessary; However, it seems that one could also inadvertently foster naiveté and ignorance of our digital reality, which has its own potential pitfalls. The "right" answer is probably somewhere in the middle. As usual.
You are describing two different advertising strategies that have differing goals. The billboard/tv commercial is a blanket type that serves to foster a default in viewers minds when they consider a particular want/need. Meanwhile, the targeted stuff tries to identify a need you might be likely to have and present something highly specific that could trigger or refine that interest.