Free 101

Third party marketing is free content displayed through an array of mediums that is paid for by a third party (advertisers) and is made available for second party (consumers). Now the first party (media provider) and the second party are now in a free media dialogue with one another. Costs of media are distributed and/or hidden among parties in ways to make the primary goods seem free.

The free social networking giant, Facebook, gives users a variety of applications and content to use such as games, news, displaying photos, and video and text communication for free, but the free media is backed by advertisers paying the big bucks to display their brands in front of Facebook’s 700 million users. Technically, the users don’t have to spend any money on Facebook or the brands displayed, but they are spending time on the website which means they are seeing the brands, building their reputation, and could possibly spend money on the brands.

We think we get to watch NBC and the rest of the networks for free because they are “free to air” urging companies to market more of their products and we aren’t directly paying those networks. We are indirectly paying through high subscription prices and with our time spent seeing all the commercials. When we spend so many hours watching advertisements we are becoming aware of the brands we see and building advertiser reputation and we might purchase something later from one of the brands. You put free in quotes because nothing is free, we are always spending something to see content provided by those networks.

You would think audiences would get the better deal for the third party marketing because they get an infinite amount of media for free, but they are really paying for it without know they are. The advertisers are getting a great deal out of third party marketing because the large audience they are able to reach through the vast amount of media mediums, but they are also spending millions of dollars on CPM rates. Ultimately the networks and the media providers are getting the best deal because it is relatively cheap to distribute the media content and they are making tons of money through advertisements.