What impact does multimedia have on business?

Answer 1

The primary impact multimedia has had on the business world, I would say, comes in the form of advertising. Not only has multimedia allowed for more exposure and more capacity in terms of advertising, it has revolutionized the advertisement objective according to consumer tastes. This is more a reflection on how consumers have changed, especially in regards to what sort of advertising extorts an economical reaction: simply put, sensationalism sells.

In the American news media, the stories that the public really wants to see, and thus what is reported, is not always (I would even go so far as to say "seldom") what is truly important and informative. Americans like to be scared using fear tactics and then told what products they can buy to make them feel safer. It's somewhat brilliant marketing strategy for a weight-loss product to advertise right after a news segment that talks about how obesity is a growing national epidemic, or anti-depressants and sleep-aid medication after reports of deranged homicides and suicides. Anyway, enough on my rant about the news media, back to your question.

This affinity for sensationalism extends to the advertising multimedia as well: consumers prefer advertisments to be exciting, colorful, fun and/or shocking instead of flat out informative, and the vast advances in multimedia technologies allows not only for more methods of communicating these advertisements (not simply on billboards or newspapers as in the past), but also more spectacularization within the ads themselves (special effects in TV commercials, entire websites "experiences"). Sadly, for the result is usually unfavorable to true economic efficiency, consumers love sensational ads, and multimedia permits businesses to emphasize sensationalism in advertising over economic efficiencies such as cost cutting or quality improvement.