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Visual Media Review
In a world of mass media people use new technologies to get their product/service out to the market. One such newer idea of distribution to the mass market is through television audience. To more fine-tune it, shop-at-home television. The idea is simple; you buy a huge surplus of product, so that you get large discounts. Then cut out the middleman and sell direct. These organizations use the television to reach the most people. Cable television is in 67% of America’s homes now. That is quite a large portion of the market.
In doing this you have many benefits without much downfall. You pay one person to sell many products over cable television bandwidth. This way you have managed to cut out a lot of the shipping, and storage facilities along the way. This gives you a much larger profit margin to work with. You pass the deals onto the customer over your vast area of 24 hour a day coverage. That in it self is a good reason to choose this product distribution method. Also this corner of the market in America works very efficiently with out those other costs. Another benefit is the companies have total control of how you view the product. The salesman coaxing you into buying the product. These people relating to you and your needs. All these things teamed together make this quiet a formidable choice for the company to reach the mass audience.
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Now the next thing to look at is how they use this to reach you. The many ways that the company can get you to purchase their product. These strategies are very important, because they are the underlying details it the pitch that makes it work even more efficiently. Of all these different methods I have picked parasocial interaction, cumulative effect theory, and collaboration.
The event I watched was USA Gold on HSN (Home Shopping Network). It included many pieces of jewelry. Watching this the first thing I felt was how they tried to make you feel apart of the fun. They try to include you by saying, “imagine this on your neck.” and “take a look at this”. Like you are the only people looking at it? This is known as parasocial interaction. The sale people talk to you to get you feeling a sense of trust between you and them. They have a clean-cut trustworthy look. They said “trust me” four times in one hour. Callers are also put on the air to give you a comforting feeling that the average person is a part of the sales event. Even more making you feel apart through indirect association to the US audience.
The next is the cumulative effect. In watching this channel for an hour and a half, I was told to keep holding tight for a certain waterfall setup for you table. This ad was displayed eight times in an hour. Eight times in an hour I was subjected to this tabletop waterfall. Each of these showings is sub-consiously set into your mind. You see in eight times you already have a whole displaying of it to the masses. If each showing was 30
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seconds that adds up to four minutes of display time. This is even before it was shown in a real showing. The thing that really packs the punch is that it was one of three products shown in each commercial. Three of the products already received four minutes of airtime before their intended showing.
The next and last strategy is collaboration. This company (Home Shopping Network) said they have a direct deal with the owner (who was on the set with the host), and he was cutting them such a huge savings because HSN has bought ? of all his gold inventory, and he was celebrating his eighth year working with them. The reason of these tremendous saving was a result. Since they (HSN) bought such a large mass of his (USA Gold) inventory, they worked together to come up with a special saving exclusive to HSN. In the past I also have seen products by producers who only sell through HSN, which is another form of collaboration.
All these thing work together to reach a whole system of sales, and distribution that is very fast, and efficient at reaching the mass audience. No other set up works as efficient, and fast. Just look at the counter at the bottom of the screen.
Bibliography
USA GOLD. Starring, “Kathy”, co-starring, Micheal Anthony
Home Shopping Network, Ch. 48, Oct 01, 2000 ., 90 min.
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