Archive for July, 2008
Viral Marketing
by admin on July 30th, 2008
Viral marketing refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes. It is a social media marketing method and is used widely these days. It can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly. Often the goal of viral marketing campaigns is to generate media coverage via “offbeat” stories worth many times more than the campaigning company’s advertising budget.
Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign, relative low-cost (compared to direct mail), good targeting, and the high and rapid response rate. The main strength of viral marketing is its ability to obtain a large number of interested people at a low cost.
Types of Viral Marketing
Pass-along. This is the most common type of viral marketing. Web sites that ask their users to tell-a-friend about their products and services is an example of pass-along messaging
Incentivised viral: A reward is offered for either passing a message along or providing someone else’s address. This can dramatically increase referrals.
Online marketing is growing faster than other types of media. However it has some limitations also abd biggest is the inability of shoppers to touch, smell, taste or try-on tangible goods before making an online purchase.
Taken from http://ashwinpatwa.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/online-marketing/
Thought Evoking Image
by admin on July 24th, 2008
This image is a representation of how media reaches to its recepients. It helped me think about the methods advertisers use.
Jennifer & Kevin McCoy
by admin on July 23rd, 2008
The McCoy’s have developed a database of work using ideas of genre, stereotypes, relationships and representational techniques. They focus their work through the repetition and genre of human thinking, and the effect that technology plays in that process.
Like Sodeoka or vice-versa, they seek inspiration and analyse a broad scope of media to produce some sort of narrative in their work. The narrative is then presented through installations, net art or live events.1
What attracts me to the McCoys is not necessarily the aesthetics of their work, but the ideas behind the work. The approach they take not only involves facts to base the project on but achieves it in a way that creates thought among the audience. The ideas or methods may not be subtle in some cases but are still communicated effectively. Old concepts and new technologies are combined together to create an art piece with some sort of status or value that people can appreciate.2
A piece that I could relate with my own project, called Airworld, investigates the world of advertising and the possibilities new technology is creating for marketing opportunities, amongst other things. The finished project mocked branding aesthetics and jargon.3 This is the type of approach I would like to take towards my finished product.
4
1.http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/8357/1/McCoy_Jennifer_Kevin.pdf last visited 2008-07-23
2.http://www.walkerart.org/archive/E/A97375E696EE81416164.htm last visited 2008-07-23
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_&_Kevin_McCoy last visited 2008-07-23
4.http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccoyspace/248983167/in/set-72157594311709487/ last visited 2008-07-23
5. http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html
6. http://www.briansholis.com/WRITING/CONTENT/MCCOYS/index.html
7. http://www.airworld.net/
8. http://www.mccoyspace.com/
Yoshi Sodeoka
by admin on July 23rd, 2008
Sodeoka’s design process appeals to me because of his experimental style. He takes a variety of elements and mashes them together to create something rather unique. The work flow consists of figuring out the concept and meaning of the project and then assigning an appropriate look.
His experience ranges in many forms from motion graphics and installations to music performances. Inspiration comes from “the relationship between media culture, technology and humanity, and how they affect each other and so on…[he uses] a lot of old television and film footage and collage it with some noise tracks that [he] I make[s].”1
I like his attitude towards towards life, “I like going with the flow…”1 which I believe influences his work. His casual perspective is something that I aspire to yet gaining respect with the projects created. This is something I intend to take into my idea of branding and its consequences.
2
1. http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2003/10/yoshi_sodeoka.html last visited 2008-07-23
2. http://www.c505.com/ last visited 2008-07-23
My Vision_Times Square
by admin on July 23rd, 2008
When I think of invasive advertising I always remember my first experience in New York City. Coming from a small city in New Zealand, I had never experienced something quite like Times Square. It made me feel naive in a sense, yet looking back now I’m glad that I wasn’t exposed to this invasive environment while growing up. It makes me think about the importance that society puts on brands, and whether this form of viral marketing is the cause?
Theorists
by admin on July 22nd, 2008
The development of my research will be based on the following theorists.
Leda Cosmides:
Cosmides’ research is based around evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology contains many disciplines. It combines “cognitive science, human evolution, hunter gatherer studies, neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, in an attempt to understand and map the human mind and brain.”[1]
Looking at the way humans were designed, the hunter gatherer, gives us an understanding of society without the pressures of branding and global corporations. Understanding human psychology as a hunter gatherer, I believe, is an important start to understanding the effects branding has on us as individuals today.
Douglas Rushkoff:
Rushkoff is someone that I want to pay particular attention to throughout my research.
Rushkoff “focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He sees ‘media’ as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and ‘literacy’ as the ability to participate consciously in it.”[2]
He understands how media affects people in society, and the implications of corporate brands branding individuals. Marketers are taking advantage of popular culture, and using these trends to influence people through advertising.
Henry Jenkins
Jenkins is currently the director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He is an advocate of gaming culture but I’m more interested in his ideas in media and cultural change.
My take on Jenkins is that he looks towards the future of branding. “He is one of the leaders of the Convergence Culture Consortium, which consults with leading players in the branded entertainment sector in hopes of helping them adjust to shifts in the media environment”[3] Jenkins is trying to improve the way branding affects our society by creating awareness with branding companies and also to “teachers and parents [to] better prepare young people for full participation in contemporary culture.”[4]
This will help me understand the intended change for the future in branding and its consequences.
[1] http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/cosmides/research/research.php last visited:2008-07-22
[2] http://rushkoff.com/bio/ last visited: 2008-07-22
[3] http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html last visited: 2008-07-22
[4] http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html last visited: 2008-07-22
Introduction to the word BRAND
by admin on July 15th, 2008
A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality.
Information taken from Wikipedia
The Truth in Advertising
by admin on July 15th, 2008
I found this video very humorous yet interesting.
If this is the attitude behind all advertisements and companies, it creates questions about what the brands/corporations actually stand for.