The rest is history. Closed captioning, usually achieved by captioning software, was implemented in 1973 and is the process of displaying text as it is spoken. The displayed text can be enabled and disabled depending on the preference of the viewer. Open captions are displayed permanently on the screen. In most countries, closed captioning is a requirement by law, primarily for the deaf or hard-of-hearing. However, it is widely used today, even by those without disabilities and has been shown to improve vocabulary and increase literacy in some countries.

The industries that most benefit from captioning are the marketing and advertising industries where they have capitalised on captions as early as print advertising began. Today, the internet revolution has spurred a great shift in the face of the industry as advanced advertising is born. Intended to persuade or influence people in purchasing products, ideas, or services, advanced advertising aims to make a more accurate and measurable way to discover consumer behavior by demographic, viewing patterns and location of the viewer while accumulating data for times of viewing and usage patterns.

In the simplest terms, an example of advanced advertising is what we see on our mobile phones everyday; the pattern of advertising on an ad enabled free application used on a mobile phone is dependent on where you live, the applications you usually use and the majority of applications you have downloaded. This is also evident while shopping online wherein while browsing on a shopping portal you will see recommended items based on what you have already clicked.

To explain this further, you have probably noticed when viewing videos on Youtube, ad caption banners displayed on the bottom part of the video are targeted to the country where you live. As with closed captions it can be turned off. While ads displayed on the right hand side on a Facebook account is also targeted by demographic. The ads displayed here are relevant to your location and your user behavior. For instance, if you have a Youtube account, the first thing you see when you login are recommended videos based on the ones you have already watched while if you like playing games on Facebook, the majority of ads displayed will be for other games you have yet to play.

It is a simple yet effective technique where in advertisers get to save on cost as not all advertisements will be displayed to people who have absolutely no interest in their product while displaying the relevant ones allows a higher probability rate of being clicked on and eventually to come full circle and buy the product.

Now, captions play as significant role here as a traditional plain text ad displayed on websites because of the limit in space. While displaying pictures are also allowed, it should also help boost sales if a good caption with an informative description of the product is included. Since there is usually a limit on how many characters a caption can display, make sure that a caption gets the key points across succinctly.

Now one might think how advanced advertising works on traditional television and print advertising. It's early days for advanced advertising on television but there are ways advertisers can target their adverts. One possibility is targeting adverts at specific geographic locations - something that may be of interest to businesses serving a local market. As television becomes more advanced and the amount of data held by television providers increases it is not difficult to envisage a future where adverts could be targeted to individual households.

In many ways, captioning can have a great impact on almost anything where it is a necessity. Millions of users around the world nowadays will be a bit surprised if they are not utilised as it has become something of a norm. Yet, captions cannot do it all. To fully tap into the evident potential advanced advertising, reliable captioning software is a good investment. Together with memorable captions consumers will surely remember, it is a powerful force that can help achieve the success that is desired in this highly competitive environment.