Cell Phone Advertisements

Advertising plays a major role in helping communication technology develop. It helps people become more familiarized with communication technologies. Communication technologies rely on advertising to inform consumers about the product; how to use it and why they should want one. These consumers who are being targeted are called configured users. To teach the configured user, advertising helps to focus on what type of consumer people might be. A consumer could be either very unfamiliar with the technology, familiar with the technology, or very familiar to it. Advertising is used to advance a communication technology's popularity. Advertising really shows the evolution a communication technology goes through. Take these two cell phone commercials. The first commercial is an advertisement for when cell phones first came out. At this time, most people are uncertain about the product. Only a select few people owned one. This group is called innovators. They are the people who take the first risks and try new technologies before everyone else. This early commercial tries to emphasize the importance of cell phones and how they can be helpful in cars or anytime you are alone in hopes the majority will adopt the technology. Advertisements in this phase are trying to explain to the consumers what the communication technology is so consumers become comfortable and familiar with the product. In the second commercial, the majority has adopted the communication technology, and the advertisement is targeting the laggards. This group only accepts a technology once it has become traditional. For this group, advertisers no longer have to worry about explaining what the technology is, but instead they are trying to popularize and glamorize cell phones. When a technology starts to become popular, new additions and improvements are made to it. These new additions still need to be advertised in order to keep the technology advancing. Without the help of advertisers, communication technologies may never become popular and therefore die out.