Advertising in Canada: TV Versus Social Media

When it comes to video advertising, is the traditional medium of television dead? This is a hard question to answer, especially because millions of dollars each year are still spent on TV advertising. But has the World Wide Web, through web 2.0, surpassed the power and reach of television?

Easily, the answer is yes. According to research, in 2010, more Canadians surf the internet than watch TV – a phenomenon that has happened for the first time in the nation’s history. But does this claim necessary mean that TV advertising is dead? No.

Traditional and social media target different markets at different contexts. To cite examples: television still remains strong in terms of current affairs in a sense that people need people they trust, like the news anchors they’ve gotten used to, to tell them the news to believe it. The internet is the best place to get weather updates from, and people rely on it because it is the closest one can get to a weather station, and no other media can achieve that.

Also, one must not fail to indicate that the products and services advertised online still significantly differ in context from the ones advertised in traditional media like television. A typical TV commercial Toronto screens during primetime would be something that is about food, or a kind of detergent or shampoo, while social media like video sharing sites would advertise marketing solutions, or why this program is better than that program. Television targets the household in a general sense, while the internet targets specific markets, depending on what site you are on.

This would mean that Toronto or Vancouver commercials, or any commercial from elsewhere in the world can still be as effective as they were before the rapid surge of mankind into the Age of Information.

The internet has more information in one day than the whole of human history until 2004. The main difference between the two media could be a matter of access: when you surf the internet, you decide which information to take in, while when you watch TV, you can change the channels all you want but it’ll be the same Vancouver commercials that you see and consequently remember.