Another nail in the coffin for mass ads

There is much talk about the necessity of reform within the advertising industry to meet the demands of increasing competition (MW December 6, 2001).

In fact, smart advertisers are already gearing up to apply values-based profiling in their above-the-line activity.

The mass messaging of yesteryear will, for many advertisers, become extinct.

The reason is that it is now possible to accurately identify the psychological reader/listener/viewer profile for publications, programmes or advertising sites – or to group them into discrete psychological segments.

Values-based profiling is used to inform, and subtly vary, advertising depending on the audience’s social values so that, for instance, an audience of “self-explorers” receives different ads from one which is predominantly made up of price-oriented “survivors”.

The link between psychology and brand advertising is an obvious one. Planners now realise that brand advertising need no longer equal mass advertising.

Stephen Barr

Managing director

The Values Company

London W1W