All I have for now

Advertising is part of our lives, used constantly and commonly by everyone. It can be very useful and entertaining to inform, express, promote and communicate ideas, but it can also be very harmful at some point. The excessive manipulation, discrimination and stereotyping that the process of advertising creates in society should decrease, but beyond that, what has to change is society itself. People have to become advertising literate, learn how to interpret different messages sent by advertising, and don’t let those messages influence them to the point of shaping their lives solely according to patterns created by it. The techniques that advertisers apply are perfect to persuade the audience directly or indirectly, and the audience is the one who has to learn how to live with advertising, not from advertising. This language has grown so much in the past years, and it is going to continue developing new and fresh techniques to influence audience. As well, audience’s awareness has to keep growing too, and in that way the language of advertising will not be harmful to them.

I hope that throughout these seven entries about the techniques and influence of advertising I have given some interesting information that could help you to learn something new or entertain yourself. There are many other aspects of advertising that have not been covered, but at least this is a start. I hope to be writing more and maybe about advertising as well.

The Old and Actual Techniques

People need to be very careful with advertising. Advertising finds and knows every possible way in which they can get into people’s minds. Advertisers target their audience according to a person´s actions, age, gender, income, occupation, and household size. This reflects how they study the audience very much and know their weaknesses or strengths. For example, advertisers have been using a lot more ambient media, which are ads that become part of the environment of the targeted audience, and they are using it for a reason. Now a days the consumer tends to be wary of the ‘hard sell’ and constant exposure to advertising, so it often allows the message to slip beneath the ‘consumer radar’. Here it is seen how advertisers try to catch the audience or trap them when they least expect it using new tricks that people don’t know yet.

Advertisers have also realized that repetition of the message isn’t as influential as it used to be. Some years before, they would repeat a message several times to pass it along consumers, and in that way make them become familiar with the brand or product every time they would hear that message, but as already said, now audience has a greater power of decision whether to pay attention or not. For that reason, advertisers have concluded that instead of repetition of a message, people are more interested in something that would make them think a little bit more. Among these strategies is the use of figures of speech, also known as rhetorical figures (rhyme, hyperbole, puns, metaphor). The purpose of placing a rhetorical figure in a headline is to increase the probability that the consumer will pause on the ad, however briefly, and process its message to a deeper level. This technique of using rhetorical figures can be very useful in advertising because it makes people want to read ads even if it is just for fun, and in that way, at least advertisers can get people´s attention.

Another way of getting to people is through social advertising, an indirect form of advertising used to influence consumers´ decisions. Social advertising is when companies start helping a cause, usually environmental or of great interest to the society. Social awareness has grown tremendously in societies, and businesses want to be interested in what society is. The major reasons why companies get interested in this kind of advertising are: they want to build or strengthen good reputations of them and their products, make a strong, good impact on the public when they help social causes and maybe the third reason could be in some cases that they also want to help others. The point here is that traditional techniques are not working anymore.

One bad trick that was used in the old days, and still happens today is manipulating the truth. Even though, contrary to what happened a century ago, legislation has made it possible for audience to be protected against direct lies in advertising, it still deceives the public in many other ways. Sometimes advertisers change the real qualities or effects of a product just to sell it faster, but this trick doesn’t have a lasting effect. It is frequently used in special offers or short period products because the company wants to sell the product fast and get the money. Pete Barry, an advertising design professor at Syracuse University, says “If I had to pinpoint one reoccurring theme throughout the majority of the greatest advertising over the last fifty years it would have to be this: A truth”. People who know about advertising, know that a lie may work at first, but then the company, product, and agency can lose credibility forever.

Symbols and Fallacies in Advertising

Another technique that advertising uses to appeal to the emotional side of people is the use of symbols. “The symbols form a universal language which knows no frontiers, yet at the same time carries different associations or emotions depending on the viewer”. Symbols also unite and gather people together. In different cultures, symbols may be perceived differently, and sometimes that makes people identify with their community. Advertisers take advantage of this situation to get to masses. They use symbols that have emotional meaning to a group of people and in that way appeal to them. An example of this technique is when some advertisers use a country´s flag to appeal to the patriotic feeling of the audience or they say something like “our product is made entirely in America and we only hire American workers”. So in that way they motivate people to feel like patriots when buying that specific product. This use of symbols to defend an argument is an informal fallacy, which advertisers commonly use as another one of its tricks.

There are several fallacies used by advertising to try to influence the audience. Among them is the “appeal to emotions” fallacy. This one manipulates people’s emotions in order to get their attention away from an important issue. When someone’s appeal to you to accept their claim is accepted merely because it appeals to your feelings like anger, fear, grief, or love they are committing the appeal to emotions fallacy. Another fallacy, the bandwagon fallacy, creates the impression that everybody is doing it and so should you. If someone suggests that a claim is correct simply because it’s what most everyone is coming to believe, then they are committing the bandwagon fallacy. Another very common fallacy that they use is the appeal to false authority. Arguers appeal to false authority when they use famous persons (often movie stars and celebrities) to testify on issues about which these persons have no knowledge or expertise. Those commercials are very common; celebrities using a product and saying it really works, and because they say it, some people believe it.

Children see, children do

Advertising sends messages that have to be carefully interpreted and discerned by the receiver, but as children sometimes don’t know how to discern the message, this way of communicating can become very dangerous for them. Children are very vulnerable to change and shaping their habits according to what they see, and now a days, they are mostly seeing advertisings that can shape them in a negative way. Actually, children are exposed to a lot of dangerous media. Advertising of new toys is making them consumers since they are little, and getting them used to manipulation. Worst of all, children are learning to be discriminative and stereotyping from advertising. Commercials make them believe that they have to get the latest toy of the moment to be able to fit in, and that if someone does not have the new toy or fashion, then they don’t fit in.

Using his own experience as a father of a two year old child, journalist Constantine Von Hoffman explains and criticizes the influence that advertising has in children since they first open their eyes to the world. Decorating a baby´s room with commercial exposed themes like Disney or Warner Bros. is, according to Hoffman, probably the first unrealized media exposure that children experience. He also marks television as the downfall of parents and the main source of commercial exposure to children. The fact that sometimes working parents need a break from constant co-babysitting or just half hour to cook or clean makes it inevitable for them to let children watch some television.

Advertisers can´t deny that they are becoming every day more interested in children advertising. They are making researches about the impact of ads on children because they are seeing them as potential customers and an effective way of increasing advertising power. There are some researches that point that advertising among young people is negatively influenced by their specific age, for example, the older the child, the lower the ad effectiveness. This exemplifies the interest of companies to target younger children, to have a more effective advertising influence. Even though they are aware of the fact that children do change their behavior with specific advertising, they are willing to do what it takes to get their attention and make them buy specific products.

Images Creating Concepts

There are a lot of techniques and ideas that advertising uses to get to people’s minds. One of the most popular and effective in these days is through images. “The visual is typically seen as the quintessence of advertising culture, and the term ‘image-based culture’ has come to mean visual dominance in culture”. Images are very important to actual society. An example of this is watching movies from forty years back, when special effects were simpler and movies were a lot slower. People used to have so much fun watching them. Now, the more visual effects and the faster the scenes go, the better the movie is. Image strategies relate images, social issues and in some cases symbols to the brand, and appeal psychologically to the consumers. The psychological appeal of advertising is showing in these days the great effects that it has created. Women with anorexia and bulimia, people with very low self esteem, and a culture obsessed with looks.

Advertising has created a culture of appearance. It has made people believe that everyone has to be perfect. Women, since they are very young, have the idea and goal in their heads that they need to have the perfect body shape and proportion to be beautiful. They have to obtain the softest skin, and when they start to grow older they have to definitely do something about age marks. It’s not known if beauty products were made because people wanted them, or if people want them just because the products are made. I found out that Chinese women have increased their status and independence, and are inspired by western brands, music and images. This is a good example of how advertising and the use of images can have such an impact in a culture, to the extreme of even changing traditional beliefs and values. The same influence and manipulation has been applied with teens, but children take the worse part. In the next blog entry I will discuss how advertising influences children.

Advertising Does Work

It is very common to hear people saying that advertising does not affect them in any way; that only uneducated people could be influenced by it, not them; but this is not true. Some people might be deceived by the fact that advertising works in a lot of ways, some obvious, but others tricky. That’s why they could think that it hasn’t influence them. A good example of how almost everyone gets influenced by advertising is that people are getting medicines from advertisings more than from doctors´ prescriptions. So advertising does work, and it is not a bad thing. In fact, every person has advertised something at least once in their lives; when someone introduces itself to another person, defends a thought or idea, and other daily situations. It is clear, then, that advertising is in fact part of everyone’s lives, and for that reason it is important that people start understanding and paying attention to its benefits and controversies.

Not only is advertising part of everyone’s lives, but a very important part in it. People don’t realize how influential it is in current society. It supplies cultural patterns that have become the ones which shape and guide the lives of people. Like always, people are very used to shape their lives according to social patterns, given in most cases by advertising. For example, if someone doesn’t wear the kind of clothing or style, or use the technology considered to be the best by society, in many cases that person is rejected. Society listens and obeys to media and advertising orders. When people least expect it, they are already trapped in an advertising game, get influenced by it and end up buying what it tells them to buy. For this to stop happening, people need to become familiar with the term advertising literacy, which is described as “The skills of analyzing and evaluating persuasive messages across a variety of contexts and media”. Potentially dangerous messages are still going to be delivered by advertising, but as long as the audience is advertising literate, meaning they know how to react and protect against them, rarely any harm will be made.

The Language of Advertising

Advertising is one of the many forms of human communication. It works almost the same as any other; the sender transmits information to be understood by the receiver, but it can also be more complicated than that, because besides transmitting a message, it also tries to persuade the receiver in a specific way with any information sent. To do that, it has had to develop its own language that as any other, presents rules, slang, and different interpretations. Advertising has a special, interesting but also dangerous language that can influence every person in one way or another. It´s a language that requires everyone to be their own interpreter of the message, and when the receiver doesn’t know how to discern it, the language of advertising can become very dangerous.

Throughout seven entries in this blog I will present and discuss the various, different techniques that advertising uses to communicate with the audience. Techniques used directly in ads, like images, symbols and cultural meanings will be explained, as well as indirect forms of advertising to influence the public’s decisions, as social advertising. I will also explore different ways or options that advertisers are taking to seek people’s attention, which every day seems to be decreasing with traditional advertising.

In the same way, throughout the seven different blog entries I will present how people are being influenced in many aspects by all the advertising techniques. It is also going to be analyzed more deeply how children are being the most negatively affected by harmful advertising, and that if there is no interest in this issue future generations will grow up having even more serious problems with consumerism, stereotyping and low self esteem. So, to be able to react positively against some dangerous content, it is important to first analyze and understand the way in which advertising works to make an impact and influence the audience.

Viral Marketing

When I thought of viral marketing I thought it was viruses coming through the internet in forms of advertising, I wasn’t sure of what it was. After researching about it I realized I was wrong. Viral marketing seems to be increasingly popular and in some cases very effective for branding or selling. Viral marketing is one of the new forms of advertising that have come to exist because of the internet. As people have such a freedom of access using the internet, it has been possible to create many ways in which advertising can get to them. I am going to talk about its concept, some examples and other information that I found.

So, what really is viral marketing? After analyzing the relation between the two words, and also reading about it, I found out that viral marketing is marketing or advertising that can be easily spread like a virus. The name may sound a little bit offensive, but that´s the term that defines what this marketing does. Even though it seems relatively new, viral marketing has been around for many years. In 1994 media critic, Douglas Rushkoff, was the first to write about it in his book Media Virus. Viral marketing is also referred to as “word of mouth” or “creating a buzz”.

To understand viral marketing better, I am going to explain the most common and known example of it, Hotmail.com. Everyone seems to put it as the classic example of viral marketing. What happens is that they first give away fee e-mail addresses and other services. They attach a tag at the bottom of every free message sent. The tag reads "Get your private, free email at "http://hotmail.com". In this way, people spread this advertising among their networks and contacts maybe without even noticing. In that way there is always someone else new getting the free service and at the same time spreading the message to more and more people.

What I also found out is that viral marketing does not work so easy. In fact, not many viral marketing campaigns are successful. In order for them to be successful they have to be really good and contain some basic elements in their strategy. Some of the elements are: Give away free products or services, provides effortless transfer, scales easily from small to large, utilizes existing communication networks, and takes advantage of others´ resources. Another important aspect that makes a viral marketing campaign good is making people feel something about it. I found out that is all about emotions. You have to create a really good story or something that would not seem as an advertisement.

Not every viral marketing campaign works as the Hotmail.com does, but some other examples of viral marketing are Dove Evolution campaign in YouTube, Smirnoff viral, HP FingerSkilz, and others. Viral marketing is not very known or recognized by users. When we see a video or a type of advertising that comes in this way maybe we don’t know how to call it. In a world were traditional advertising does not work as effective any more, viral marketing seems to create a good response.

Rift Fournier

I got here to Lindenwood on August of 2008. When I came, I didn’t know what to expect. I was very afraid because I was not in my country with my family or friends. Some people said that college here was a lot harder than it is in Ecuador, so I was really afraid about going into advertising here. My advisor picked my classes the first semester as I didn’t have too much knowledge about that. So I had this one class called History of Television. At first I thought, it is going to be so boring and hard! I was scared.

It was my first class from all, so I when early, and then, found Rift. I don’t know how to explain the peace and comfort that he caused in me after getting to know him not only as a teacher but as a person. I thought teachers were supposed to be so strict and demanding, but not him. Rift Fournier (find him in twitter here) is one of the best teachers I´ve had in my life. I loved going to his classes and not only learning a lot in a very entertaining way, but also sharing and having fun. He made the class so personal and created this friendly environment. I remember that he didn’t just say hello every morning, he would ask me how I was and how was I feeling. When he noticed that I was a little bit sad, he would ask me what happened and try to do something to make me feel better.

One very important thing, among everything I learned from him, is that to be good at what you do, you have to love it and be passionate about it. He talked about that in class a lot also. Rift got a lot of important achievements and never worked because of the money, but because he had fun doing his job and enjoyed it one hundred percent. Another important lesson that his life may teach to some young students making a career is the importance of knowing people. Even without internet, networking was so important. It helps you to make contacts and relations with people who could later help you find a job. But most important than that, he is an example of how making and keeping friends is also very important. After all, we are all going to be working at the same time, maybe in the same business.
Rift is a very special man, who has so much knowledge to offer, but still he is very humble and friendly. He is a man that says things just how they are, without feeling embarrassment of anything. We should learn a lot from him, I think that my first semester wouldn’t have been as good if I hadn’t take History of Television with Rift Fournier.

Rift wrote an episode for Charly´s Angels

What´s the real message here?

This is one of the assignments that I have enjoyed the most during the whole semester. When I started researching about these keywords, I spent like two hours just watching Gary Vaynerchuk´s videos and understanding Brazen Careerist web site. It was very interesting to find out about the two. At first I didn’t know what Brazen Careerist was, I wasn’t sure if it was the name of a person or what. After looking trough some stuff, I could realize what it was. I also found how could Gary Vaynerchuk connect in a certain way with Brazen Careerist, and I will explain all of these some more.

The first thing I run on to was Vaynerchuk´s web site. I saw a video he had posted about Dominos issue, of which I didn’t know anything about. To understand what he was talking about, I first researched what this Dominos issue was about. After that, I could understand and appreciate Gary Vaynerchuk´s video a lot. He was talking about how important and effective social media has become. He says that people think that in so many ways social media can have a downside and hurt people´s or companies´ reputations, but he also states that this same issue is what makes social media so awesome. It is true that some people can use it to do bad things, but as well, greater things can also be done to put the bad things aside. Truth always wins, he says. Vaynerchuk wants companies and people to understand that they can´t control their messages anymore because they are now owned by the people, everyone has a voice and can say what they think, want or dream. What the game is about is how companies respond or address things. There is where they can be authentic and make a difference.

Then I started researching about Brazen Careerist. I found out that it is a web site that helps companies to find candidates for jobs. But it is not one of those common web sites where you put your resume and that’s it. This one offers interaction between employers and employees through new media like creating profiles, blogs and interesting conversations. In this way, companies can find new, smart, and creative talent. This new way of looking for jobs and finding employees is going to get bigger. People now a days have to realize that they have to adapt their professional life to new technology and media. It is not enough to send resumes and hire people because of their grades or achievements anymore. Instead, now it is about interaction and adapting to what is new. Knowing how people think, what they want, and what they have to say is vital and will make businesses become bigger.

I wanted to relate these two words, Gary Vaynerchuk and Brazen Careerist, and I did. After watching other videos about Vaynerchuk, I realized that he had a lot to say about the necessity of adapting to new technology, and also, he encouraged people to go and do only what they enjoy doing. He says it´s not enough to do something just to get money, but that you should do what you love to do and be very happy. I see in his thoughts a lot of Gen Y. They want to do what makes them happy and nothing else. So, Brazen Careerist is a web site that encourages and offers the same; ways to express your feelings and say what you love and want of your life and career. In other words, I think that the message here is that social media is about sharing thoughts, ideas, feelings and more; and that is what now a days is being valued the most.

Social Media

It is very important to know the exact meaning of these two words to understand what social media is. First we have that social is the relation between people and how they behave in their environment, and on the other hand we know media as the storage and transmission tools used to store and deliver information. So what is the first idea that comes to your mind when you put these two words together? Before I started to research, I thought that social media was related to mass communication and advertising, in fact it is true but the real meaning is this one: social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. A short meaning should be the way that people create and share information all around the world.

It also says that social media is the union between sociology, a branch of social science that analyzes the human social structure, and technology, that is all the material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils. It says that because sociology is referring to human creativity, how they create all this information and in which way they can express it (blogs, internet forums, micro-blogging, social networking, discussion groups, social network aggregation, and events), and technology because it is the tool that people use to share the information they create. I think that this fusion is quite interesting because it teaches us how the technology is in constant evolution, and how the people are more and more connected thanks to it.

Well, enough about important meanings and significant terms, I’m now going to talk about the importance of social media. It is very important because it transforms the readers into publishers, now they have the chance to put across them and say whatever they want, they can talk about a lot of good topics that could be controversial, conservative, political, formal, or funny. Another good reason that makes this kind of media so popular is that it allows people to meet and connect in the internet so they can form personal relationships and also develop businesses. I think that social media is very useful and fun because it opens your mind to new cultures and ideas that you never knew before, and most important, it invites you to share your own information content with the world, using mainly the internet.

Social media is not only the present, but also the future. I have no doubt that it is going to continue growing and developing in ways that we don’t expect or know. People like it so much because in this modern world, appearances, traditions and prejudices are somewhat left behind. The majority of people now want to show who they really are, and so they have this new way of expressing themselves and getting to know so much more people around the world. Social media is a creation that reflects our need to communicate in different ways and that need, as everything does, is going to continue growing with time. I think that we have to take advantage of this term and start becoming involved in sharing useful information with people; in that way, we could help each other and maybe become a better world.

Twitter and Facebook Post Huge Growth Numbers in March

Internet is a good way to meet people, isn´t it? Well this is one of many goals that this two huge companies have. They focus on creating people´s profile and exposing them on the internet, so in the article I read, I found it quite interesting that the author is trying to express with real numbers and concrete facts, that people are addicted to this social networking websites.

Believe it or not, Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a regular student from Harvard University. His main purpose was to develop a simple website that could make students be able to know each other and share information. Now everyone that has an email can create a profile and enter to this website in which you can chat with almost the entire world!

On the other hand we have that one of the biggest issues that this website has, is the privacy.
When you make your own profile you are exposing a lot of personal information that everyone can use for whatever they want, actually in some countries the people use this information to commit crimes such as kidnapping and stealing. So you need to be aware of this at the time you put your personal information there.

Another problem is that many of the users are children; they are the ones that spend all the day on the computer uploading photos, videos and making wall posts to their friends. In some schools this is a predicament because some kids are writing offensive comments to the people, or they upload some inappropriate photos that create a bad reputation to the schools, so, many of these schools are prohibiting the use of these websites on their computers labs.

Twitter is the third most used social network, Facebook is the first one followed by Myspace. I prefer Facebook but it doesn´t matter which one you use, the point here is that this millionaire companies are opening doors to a massive commercialization of people´s information. Some people don´t know this, but these websites sell the information to the companies for advertising, and that´s another good point here, these websites are a good way to advertise because millions of people are able to watch it, and can watch your product. This news article reveals the huge importance that social networking on the internet has in everyone´s lives. But, as it is commonly said, everything to its extreme is bad. We have to be more careful with the dependence we are creating to these sites.

Podcasting

I had absolutely no idea of what podcasting was. When I started to research about it, at first I did not understand very much. As I kept on searching, I was able to get the concept better. I finally found out that podcasting is online audio content. This audio content is delivered via an RSS feed, and the podcasts can be played in ipods or mp3 players. Also, people can listen to them through their computers. This word, podcasting, comes from joining Apple´s ipod and broadcasting. What I understand is that podcasting is like radio programming, only that now you can decide when, where and what to listen to.

This was originated in 2004, but it has grown a lot in the past years. There is a variety of programming that people can be entertained with. Podcasts not only entertain the audience but also inform it. Podcasting is used for education, news, public services, health, politics, music, and a lot of other fields. I found two different websites dedicated to podcasting. On them, you can search for one you would be interested in. You only have to put a keyword or something more specific, and you will find a great variety of podcasts on that subject. One of the sites is called Podcast Alley and the other one is Podfeed. Something that I found very common in Podcasting, is storytelling for children. I remember that when I was little I had the Lion King story in a tape and it also came with the book. I am glad that thanks to Podcasting, it can become easier for children to still enjoy the magic of listening to stories and feeling the moments.

I also found that Podcasting is to radio, what blogs are to newspapers. I mean this in a good way. A lot of people have had the opportunity to begin a successful career as journalists by having a blog. In that same way, Podcasting can be done by anyone who has the right software and a microphone. This programming can reach a worldwide audience, giving the person who made it, an opportunity to be heard and recognized. Some of them can even become great radio personalities. But the interesting thing is that now, a lot of podcasts come from recognized media companies that want to expand and maintain their audiences.

Podcasts have not only grown a lot since their creation, but are going to keep on growing even more. As every other media, radio is now finding a way to adapt to what the audience wants. Of course, it has differences and maybe for some people Podcasting might have a lot of disadvantages. In these days people download or storage everything in their cell phones. They don’t even need radio as much because even in their cars they can listen to their own music in the ipod. I think that if radio wants to not only be safe but also keep growing, it has to adapt to the advances of technology, like a lot of them are doing. In that way, everything we will get from Podcasting is going to be good consequences.

Wanted Job

I am interested in advertising, but when I saw one internship in public relations, it caught my attention immediately. The internship is offered by WBBM-TV, Chicago. The T.V station is owned by CBS. I found it interesting because it offers the opportunity to work with the public affairs and communications directors. It offers the chance to help them directly to shape internal and external images of the station, with station-sponsored events, screening public service announcements, preparing promotional materials and hosting station tours. This internship does not seem like one of those where you only pass coffee or organize papers. It has a lot of interesting aspects and tasks that could help me in various ways. I would get some experience communications, public relations, and even advertising.

Being a student at Lindenwood, offers me some great opportunities to prepare not only for this internship, but also for my future career. I could start by trying to collaborate with the Student Activities, that would be a good place to apply advertising and communications concepts and techniques. I could also get involved with the theater or with the newspaper. The classes I have taken have been very good, I feel that I have learned a lot from them. So another thing I could do is keep studying and taking good classes that can prepare me for my career. I think that if I could take an internship in Chicago, I would definately like it to be that one.

Marketing to Generation Y

It seems to be that Generation Y is giving headaches to everyone. Businesses are afraid of going down if they don’t get to Gen Y market fast. But the problem is that it is not so easy to get to them anymore. They are not like the past generations, they don’t respond to the same marketing and advertising strategies. In fact, Generation Y is not responding to any of the usual marketing strategies, and companies are trying to come up with new ideas. That is why they are desperately trying to understand this new market that, due to its great size, is and will be responsible during a few years, of a business success or failure.

Marketers have come to understand certain facts about Generation Y, and they are helping companies to create new marketing ideas. Among the things that they know are: Generation Yers don’t watch television as much, they don’t like reading at all, and they enjoy community life a lot. These are the three most important facts about Gen Y that companies have to understand to begin creating new strategies to reach this market. As Gen Yers have been greatly exposed to new and fast technology, one of the main things they look for is fast service. They also want cheap prices, good quality and most important, they want to have an experience.

One very important characteristic of Generation Y is that they pay a lot of attention to real things. They don’t like being lied to or being manipulated. If a company tries to lie or manipulate them, the company could never be taken serious again, because Gen Yers want to be taken serious and respected. As mentioned before, Generation Y enjoys community life, especially enjoy time with friends a lot. Thanks to social network places, this generation is a lot more in contact with friends, and they spend a lot of time together. Companies should give importance to this fact because they should try to get to Gen Y by marketing to specific groups. As I read on one article, mass marketing doesn’t work anymore for this generation, companies have to separate and determine specific groups and try to get to them individually.

Meeting and reaching the Gen Y market in concerts, sporting events or social networking sites is a good example of how marketers can divide them into smaller groups and try to reach them separately. That strategy has worked for a lot of current successful companies. To conclude I would have to say that definitely Gen Y is not an easy market. They value authenticity and want always a good experience from the product they get. What companies have to do is stop trying to understand this market with information that is out there and start asking them what they want. This generation appreciates truthfulness and would certainly like to know that everyone wants to know what they want. Companies have to not only analyze them, but understand and appreciate Generation Y´s view towards life. Maybe if they understand how Generation Y thinks it´s going to be easy to reach to them.

Music and Movie Pirating

Is there such a thing as buying music? That was my reaction when I was around twelve years old and I found out that downloading music from Ares was illegal. I didn’t even know that you had to buy music in the internet. I supposed that it was there for us to take. I refer to the music first because it was the one which came first. Downloading free music from the Internet has been a common issue since it started. At first, artists and record labels suffered a lot, but I think that now they have adapted and surrendered to it. Movie piracy on the other hand, is something relatively new. I don’t know if it is that I am already used to music piracy, but pirating movies seems a lot worst for me. When I googled this two terms, the first results were all related to them as being a crime, like trying to scare the person who looks for piracy since the beginning.

Music piracy began a long time ago, about 1999. The MP3 format was created to compress the songs and in that way be able to pass them along easier. Before music was pirated, artists made a lot of money from selling their records, and not only them, but all those involved in the business of making the records. Nowadays, artists make the most money from concerts and tours. That’s why movie piracy seems worse, because movies or actors don’t make concerts! They don’t have any other way of income. Movie piracy is being achieved with the help of this new format called MPEG. This file format is used for compressing and playing video. Movie piracy was more common outside the web (people selling it on streets), but now that the online power has grown, it is very common to find all movies on the internet too.It is obvious that most information that appears on the web is against pirating, but there is also some information saying it is good (music piracy good, movie piracy good).

I think that piracy is just something that has to happen and it can´t be avoided. As in everything in media, there are always going to be gate jumpers to the actual gate keepers, and we are going to have to deal with that. What we have to do is try to look at some positive side of this. For example, it is true that pirating takes a lot of money from the movie and music industry, but it is also true that that money is going to a different type of industry (as pirates have to buy equipment and pay for online services). I think that people from movie and music business have to be smart with all this. They should find ways of becoming their own pirates and make profit from that. For example, movie makers could create an own website where they can play movies for free and with the best quality, but they can take advantage of that by charging for advertisings. In that way a lot of people would go to that website and they would still make more money. As for music, they should try selling cds at a lower price. Maybe they will not get much per cd, but they will certainly sell a lot more and maybe gain more money.

Here are two videos about piracy:

No Wonder our Perception of Beauty is Distorted

Since I was a little kid, my mom always said that I trusted everyone too much. My older brother and cousins used to tell me all kinds of bad things like “the world is going to end this Friday,” and I would believe it. For that reason my mom always said “you cannot believe in what you see, hear, touch, smell or taste; you can only believe in what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste at the same time.” It has been a little difficult for me, because I tend to trust everything too much, but I have come to understand that phrase. Photo retouching is a very good example to realize that not even when you see something with your own eyes, is always the truth. When I typed “photo retouching” in the Google search box, I got a lot of results, most of them were websites of different people who make a living out of retouching photos. I guess that if there is so many people doing it, it’s because photo retouching is all over, and it is debated whether it´s good or bad.

When I brainstormed about photo retouching, I immediately thought about it in entertainment, magazines and models´ pictures, but then, after researching, I realized that it goes beyond that. Photo retouching is also used in news, documentaries and other informational sources. Sometimes, they want the news to seem a lot more interesting than what they really are. A good example of this is when Martha Stewart was released from prison. She appeared on the cover of Newsweek and her face was placed on a thinner woman's body to suggest that she had lost weight while being in jail. There have been other cases of altered information to make it more interesting (National Geographic case or O.J Simpson case). Definitely photo retouching is very harmful when used in real and very important information, because the audience is deceived by it, and information is not being truthful or fair. Now, let’s see what happens with photo retouching in entertainment.

A very big issue in our society these days is the importance that both men and women give to external beauty. Mostly in women, it has developed a lot of low self esteem, insecurity and even depression. It is impressive to see how many girls struggle their entire lives to achieve perfection, something that is not even achievable. People ask themselves why is this happening, and it´s true that great part has to do with skinny models and artists that impose what is beautiful or ugly. But I think that photo retouching has a major part in this too. Sometimes models do have a good face or body, but it can never be perfect. What photo retouching does is making those imperfections disappear, so that now, those nice bodies look totally perfect. Girls try every possible way to be like them, but they don’t realize that almost in every case, it is a lie, and even though people know that photo retouching exists, they don’t realize it is everywhere.

I was amazed by the videos that I found about photo retouching, especially the ones made by Dove, to support their campaign about promoting real beauty in girls. I think that this campaign is really good and it has to be supported, because that is what we need. Someone who can let the audience realize the magnitude and power of photo retouching. I am including two excellent videos that depict the real effect of manipulating photos.

How Altruism and Advertising Could Change the World

I have to admit that when I saw the article´s title, immediately bad thoughts ran through my mind. Just reading the words “advertising” and “change the world” made me think something negative, but on the other hand, the word altruism made me even more interested in reading the article. What is making advertising and altruism to come together? After reading the first two sentences I was surprised. This article was really a lot more interesting and important than what I expected, and I really enjoyed reading it because it made me feel that not everything is only bad news. This article is about the new and great idea that has been developed by two very successful business people.

Marketing veteran Cindy Gallop and software developer Wendell Davis, are joining together to help the world be a better place. The idea that they have is to create a web site named IfWeRantheWorld.com, in which people can really help any cause they want to. As the article says, “Rather than raising awareness, the site is set up to convert intent into action, to get things done. As a side effect, it could reinvent advertising as a transparent interaction between corporations and individuals”. They think that even though there are a lot of “good doer networks”, they don’t work because people find them very boring, but this one, instead, is going to be an excellent one.

When people open the homepage, a Google like search box will appear, with the phrase “If I ran the world I would…”. Then after you search for something, comes a lot of information on what can you do for that cause, actual little tasks, and you can pass them to a friend, find people, complete your little task and put it on your created profile so that everyone can see what you are doing and get motivated. It also works as a social network, like facebook. Gallop and Davis are gaining money out of this because corporations will participate in the system for an anal fee. This will also help the corporations because for example if Coca Cola wants to target 18-25 year old people, they have to find the action platform that is most helped by this target and provide financial or employee support. In that way advertising and social networking are not just there doing what they usually do, but also supporting great causes.

I think that this is a great idea. If developed correctly, it can really make a difference in the world. For me it was very pleasing to read this article and realizing that there are people trying to make a difference and not worrying just about business and money. We all have to read this article because I think that we, as generation Y, are the inspiration for this idea. In a society that is greatly using the internet for everything, something like this had to be created. Let´s hope that their intentions and goals with this project are truly the ones they say, and if they are, that the project can come true as fast as possible.

Beth Kanter is a leader of the non profit organization and she talks about non profit involvement on line:

Journalism: An Insider´s Opinion

We talked about the newspapers and its situation in class, but after hearing to an insider´s opinion, the issue became even more serious to me. Bob Wigginton has 20 t0 25 years of experience as a journalist, enough to give an opinion on what has been happening to the newspaper industry and to journalists. What he said was very accurate and interesting because it made us engage more in the problem that newspapers are facing, making us realize that we are part of the problem, and that it does has to do with us. He seemed spontaneous and relaxed, which made me conclude even more that he really knew what he was talking about because he didn’t need a lot of information or extra preparation, he just talked supported by his experience in the field.

When he started the session he said “imagine your life without newspapers” and that really made me think. What if we get to a time when we don’t have a newspaper to look for serious news? A time when we could only go to web sites and choose what to believe and what not to believe? A time when anyone and everyone could be called a journalist and they wouldn’t need any kind of preparation for it? I think that no one wants that. Even though we sometimes criticize the newspaper industry because they let us know only what they want or manipulate the reader´s mind, they are still our first and most accurate source of information, and we have to protect it.

Bob Wigginton clearly stated that the main problem with the newspaper industry is that they are now being owned by people who know nothing about journalism and have no other interest than money. That’s why newspapers are in a crisis, they have fired a lot of journalists and other members that may not seem so important, but they are. Another cause that also contributes to the crisis is the rapid growth of internet and generation Y. Thanks to the internet some people (especially younger generations) no longer read newspapers but find information on the web. We live in a world that needs to hear what is going on in it, said Bob Wigginton, and it is true, so let’s do something about it and start giving journalists and newspapers the importance they deserve.

America´s Struggling Newspapers:

Sibley Day

When I heard about Sibley Day I sighted. Of course I wanted a free day from classes (at the moment I thought that was it, just a free day), but every time I get one I sleep almost all of it, and I had a lot of homework to do. So I decided to find out what exactly did Sibley Day offered, and when I did I discovered that it really offered some interesting events and topics. I said, I think this day is going to be perfect, I will not have the pressure of classes the whole day, but I’m still going to do something interesting and take advantage of the rest of the day to do homework.

I went to a session titled Preparing for a Successful Interview. The presenters were Dr. Ayers and two Principals from schools. I chose this activity because it was about teaching and education. I am studying advertising but I´ve always had a special interest on kids and teaching, so I thought it would be interesting to change subjects for one day. I liked the session very much. In it the principals would comment and give some information that is essential at the time of being in an interview for a teaching job. I liked how they explained the areas of interest about personal and professional experience they give importance to at the moment of getting to know someone.

One of the ladies was the principal of an Elementary school, and she talked a lot about team work, passion for kids and other aspects that made me conclude that in elementary school they look for someone who is more emotional than logical. On the other hand, the high school principal talked a lot about testing your knowledge at the moment of an interview, asking how your reaction to different situations, and referring not so much to a team work but to a good self performance, d other aspects that made me conclude that in high school they focus more on knowledge than on interaction skills or emotional side.

A way in which I can relate this to media is clear. In one part of the session they both talked about a type of learning style that was in vogue. They said “be sure to know about that because it is really common these days”. Then one of the principals said I don’t even know why that is, it is just being applied by everyone. I think that this reflects how even in education people are following and applying concepts that others do too, so that in that way they feel updated to what is going on right now.

Here is a video of teacher interview questions and how to answer them:

Journalism School of Everyday Life

This kind of journalism that involves the average citizens in the role of capturing and analyzing the news, and delivering them in their own words, has a long history in the United States. First of all we have to go back in time, when the news were only analyzed by professional people that had the prestige and capabilities to do that work correctly. Also, the audience of those times was very conservative and belonged to the final part of the “media chain” (they were the final part because they were the ones who received the information after it had gone through a process). They wanted their news coming from people who were experts in the media field, and could perform a good job at the time of analyzing news.

Thanks to the quick and great advance in technology, now everyone has a camera, laptop, internet and everything needed on their cell phones, so that they are capable of capturing any kind of information and transforming it into news. Besides, in this times the people want to express their point of view on everything that happens (this is the opposite of the silent generation), and they have the tools to do it at any time or moment they want to. Now thanks to all that, people are starting to create their own spaces to express the news adding their personal opinion, and this can be on the radio, internet, television etc.

"Doing citizen journalism right, means crafting a crew of correspondents who are typically excluded from or misrepresented by local television news: low-income women, minorities and youth, the very demographic and lifestyle groups who have little access to the media and that advertisers don't want," says Robert Huesca, an associate professor of communication at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. I totally agree on this because who is more capable of communicating the news than the same people who live were the action occurs, that can show us the real suffering and essence of what is a historical event.

While for some people citizen journalism is a blessing, for others is a curse, one of the biggest oppositions to this type of journalism is the newspaper New York Times. They say that the public journalism abandons the traditional objectivity of the news. In my opinion it is a good way of expressing your point of view in a healthy way, if you don’t offend anyone and say what you think about a fact, it’s correct, but if you begin to use the media for bad purposes, then it’s wrong to use it and the professional journalists have the right to protest against this kind of journalism. I can understand that what makes some journalists angry is that they spend a lot of time and effort preparing themselves for this job, trying to deliver the best they have to people, but then someone with no experience what so ever pretends to know how to report a news. I think we should establish some limits to citizen journalism as well as to professional journalism.

Here is a very interesting video explaining in a few words what citizen journalism is:

Thanks to Marshall McLuhan

“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.” Those were the words of Proffesor Marshall McLuhan. The first thing that caught my attention from his original website were his quotes. You can get to know a character a lot just by reading or listening to words that came from his thoughts without planning them. There were a lot of quotes that helped me build a little bit of McLuhan´s character, but the one I put here is the one I think is the best example. By reading that quote I could notice that he was a very secure, strong man. A man who didn´t need anyone to tell him he was doing the right thing, he just had faith on what he was doing. Sometimes being so stubborn is not a good thing, but maybe that´s what led McLuhan to accomplish everything he did.

Then, after reading his biography, I realized that he wasnt such a stubborn and self commanded (from this I can also say that we can´t judge by the appearances). Even though since McLuhan was young he enjoyed talking and giving speeches because he thought this form better than writting, he had big goals with his studies. much of what McLuhan learned about media was from his proffesors. For it was one of the proffesors who encouraged McLuhan to study and analyze communications and advertising specifically. And so he did. Later he became a professor and a very important one. I found this video in which he is debating with another big personality and they are both called “two of the most remarkable men of this era.”

McLuhan was the creator of a lot of terms, books and concepts known and important for today´s media. He had a different vission of the media, messages and society. For example, he didn´t give any importance to the form of writting or saying something, but instead he worried more about how the message was being delivered. McLuhan was a great man with a lot of future vision too. I think he madde a big development in media and society, and maybe thanks to him I am here at Lindenwood willing to study Communications.

Here is a video of Fr. Patrick Peyton Interviews Marshall McLuhan

Beck: "I Will Never Say What I Don't Believe"

The article I chose to write about is Beck: “I Will Never Say What I Don’t Believe.” I chose this one because since I read the title of it I got very interested. We were just talking about free press and I thought that the article had to do with that too. So I opened it and started reading it. I don’t think I have seen Beck before, but the article does a good job describing his job and position. This person writes about Camila Herrera of Standford Advocate, spending an entire day with Glenn Beck to get a profile of the new Fox News host.

Glenn Beck used to work on CNN before he changed to Fox News, and he clearly stated that he felt much better now that he is the new host of FNC. The reason for that is that he feels “more at home at Fox News than he did on CNN.” That for me was really interesting because I have always thought that working on CNN, the greatest news channel in the world, had to be really awesome, but for the way in which Beck expressed about it, it didn’t seem like it. One of the things he said about the difference of the two places was that "Fox is where he can 'stick out,' where he can consistently tell 'the story of what I see in America, according to me.'" This issue is really important for media professionals because comments like that I think can help to understand better a network or the way of thinking of some people, and ease the study of television.

Being a news channel is really complicated, I think. You have to be aware of everything that’s happening and make the correct judgment of every situation. I thought that the bigger and greater the channel was, the better it delivered the news. But after reading this article, I could find out that maybe because of being so big, the judgment and truthiness of things start to go down. I think that Glenn Beck did well at speaking his feelings, because in that way we can also see some truth behind things. Now I know that probably CNN doesn’t let its employees to speak their mind, and I also know that maybe, as they manipulate comments, they can also manipulate the news. Glenn Beck said "I will never say what I don´t believe." I think that this phrase has something about Gen Y. We are always doing what we think it´s right, doesn´t matter who thinks what of it, but I think it is a good characteristic in a way, so let´s never lose it and apply it correctly.

Beck asks if Obama is the anti-christ: