Betty White on SNL

I think that it's hilarious all the hype that Betty White has gotten recently. I can't exactly say I'm not on board because I honestly cannot name a single person who doesn't have respect for the woman but she's been around for practically forever.

I think it all started after she was in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds this past year. If you haven't seen the movie, you probably should. She is brilliant in it. Then it hit the fan after she was hilarious in a Snickers commercial during the Super Bowl.

It's plain and simple, she's great and we all love her.

People started to campaign for her to appear or host a Saturday Night Live show and it was petitioned on Facebook. The numbers of people who were supportive of her to host were out of this world, and they all got their wish last Saturday and NBC sure did reap the benefits with their ratings.

5 Great Tips for Making it in this World!

I know a bunch of people in this class are graduating in a mere few days, and I know like myself you are probably full of mixed emotions of being ubber excited and scared basically to death. Since we are all in the same field of Advertising, I came across an article in AdAge from this guy in the Advertising his name is Peter Madden. I don't know who he is but he has some great advice to remember and live by. Peter is a 40 year old man who has been working in Advertising for 10 years, and throughout those years he's acquired some pretty great advice, that unfortunately he had to learn the hard way. So take a minute and read what I consider to be the five best of the twenty tips hes bestowed upon to us. (Feel free to click the link at the bottom of the page to read his full article).

1. Realize what you're great at and do it all the time. Realize what you suck at and stop doing it completely (and put the right person in place to do it).

2. If you want to make a point that sticks, stop yelling. (Or keep yelling and look ridiculous.)

3. Work as hard on your presentations to your staff as you do on your presentations to prospects and clients.

4. Are you completely freaking out, nervous, worried and losing sleep over something about your business? Welcome to being alive. Now calm down, move on, and step up your game.

5. Write personal notes thanking people you meet with and who are in your life. Besides death and taxes, the only other sure thing in life is that no matter who you are, it's exciting to get a handwritten note.

These are simple, but great tips to being a successful professional and I think if you listen to just one of them you are already in a better place than you were before!

http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=143803

Sequels and Branding

I came across an article in AdAge about how movies now a days no longer have numbers in their movie sequels. If you sit and think about it for a minute you'll realize that I am right, except for the exception of Iron Man 2. The last few years we've been exposed to new Batman movies, the first movie was called "Batman Begins" and the second one was called "The Dark Knight". The article by Chris Thilk talks about the reason why the Batman movies can get away with moving out of the "branding" name because Batman is not just about the Batman, and he is known to the world to as a bunch of different names like, "The Caped Crusader", "The Dark Knight", "The World's Greatest Detective", "The Bat", and all of the viewers may just simply call him Bruce Wayne. Since all of these names are so well known, it really doesn't constitute as going against the brand even though the name of the most recent "Batman" movie doesn't even have the name Batman in it.


I actually think it's kind of obnoxious, but in a way I kind of get it in Batman's situation or even Star Wars, and it's probably because there has been a million previous movies before the newest ones, so it would be technically incorrect to call them 1, 2, 3, etc. It just gets me thinking about maybe instead of remaking, or having prequels to old, historic movies maybe the movie industry could produce their own, new, original films?

http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=143697

Uh- Good Luck Explaining That!

So I came across this article about how angry parents were when there were half naked girls displayed on a huge poster outside of a baseball stadium on "kids day". Even though I am not a parent, I would have taken notice and would have been bothered, because I am a person who is usually surrounded by kids as babysit all day everyday. To be an outsider (babysitter) presented into a situation of an explanation in an instance like that makes for an uncomfortable conversation, and potentially dangerous because every parent is different from the next and I can honestly say I don't always know what each parent thinks as "too much information" or "inappropriate".

This makes me think of advertisements that during television commercials that are risky especially since children could be watching. The commercial that comes to mind when I think about this is the commercial for His and Hers KY Jelly. It's funny to an adult, but to a kid it could only cause questions, and how do you explain to an 8 year old about His and Hers KY Jelly and why they are in bed with explosions? I just think that people who are in charge of placing advertisements like that one need to think more about where they are placing it because just because you seem nothing wrong with it or youre past that phase in your life- doesn't mean everyone else is.

False Advertising

I've been house siting for the past couple days and have been watching an annoyingly amount of television lately, and with that an annoying about of commercials. Since I've been trying to think about something to blog about I figured this is a good thing to discuss, that being said I've been getting annoyed at the amount of ridiculous infomercials about erroneous products that claim to do next to impossible things. According to Wikipedia, false advertising is defined as the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. People who are desperate to lose weight, save money, or looking younger. People get tricked everyday by buying something that will perform in a specific manner, and then when they get the product they are greatly disappointed by what it exactly doesn't do.

Infomercials are kings of the false advertising, especially the ones on late night. Whether people are promoting a product that cleans or a product that magically disappears your wrinkles, or even a daily ingested pill that miraculously sheds away the pounds. I do not understand, nor respect people who advertise products that disappoint their customers, its simply wrong and discrediting to all involved. I wish I could think of a way to get people to not buy in to these false advertising methods, but sadly, people become desperate for a quick, easy fix and let their guards downs which ultimately empty their wallets.

Movies in Advertising..wait I mean Advertising in Movies

I came across this article about movies that basically revolve around advertising. This article kind of reminds me of a previous blog I wrote a while back, about advertising in video games because it practically gives me the same feeling, which is being annoyed. Its bad enough that products depict the class of the character but what really gets me thinking this isn't the best of ideas is the ever growing movie ticket prices. Now production companies have to pay for the usage of companies like Chryster, or McDonalds so they basically have to compensate for that, by hiking up ticket prices. I for one live for going to the movies whenever I'm home from school I attend movies with my mom once maybe twice a week, and now it's getting harder for people to afford regular tickets.

With movies like Harold and Kumar, its about their adventure in reaching the destination of White Castle. If it weren't for that movie I probably wouldn't have ever heard of White Castle, and to this day I still have yet to go, but I definietly still want too. I wonder how much the movie had to pay to use not only the restaurant in the movie, but also in the title itself. I've seen Harold and Kumar, and have to admit I did enjoy it, but I do kind of get annoyed at the logistics behind the movie itself, would the movie have been nearly as successful or would you have seen it if it were called Harold and Kumar Go To Burger Town? Probably not.

This is a question I believe worth exploring, because now having a product like Progresso Soup or BMW getting associated with a movie, may ultimately determine the success of the movie, it may come to that it is no longer about the story or the actors involved in the film.

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/04/05/who-wants-more-advertising-in-movies/

Who Influences You?

I was sitting here trying to think about something to blog about that as far as I know hasn't been discussed yet, so I was surfing the the internet and came across this study on BizReport.com called "Do Female voice-overs influence more purchases?" and you know it really got me thinking about all the thought that goes into all the voice over decisions companies make. What type of product do they consider to be a females job or a males job to voice over? I remember in my persuasion class learning that people tend to find that men are more persuasive, so if that's justified why do company's even get women to do voice overs? But you know, come to think of it I can only think of one instance where a woman's voice is advertising a product (obviously, there are more I just can only think of one). The commercial I am thinking of is a Cadillac commercial, with Kate Walsh doing the voice over.

There are hundreds of different advertisements out there and most of them are done by men's voices because according to BizReport "48% of US adults find male voices to be more forceful, 46% of adults found female voices to be more soothing and 19% found female voices to be more persuasive." That means that out of 100, 81% believe that a males voice is more persuasive than a woman's. I guess I can see where this comes from because some people may believe that men know what they are talking about, especially when it comes to something they are unfamiliar with like cars or technology.

Personally, I have to agree with the part of the article that says that "Some consumers don't care what type of voice is used - they listen only for the message and not the male or female tones." To me, I don't care who is promoting it, or advertising the product, because I either want it or I do not want it, and no male or female will all of a sudden make me crave a product I didn't want before.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/03/study_do_female_voice-overs_influence_more_purchases.html#

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Recently, I read an article in AdvertisingAge on how Tiger Woods is getting back the majority of his sponsors back, and I think that it was ridiculous in the first place that he lost them. I understand that he is supposed to be considered a role model because hes this great golf player, but what I don't understand is how him wearing Nike has anything to do with him being a good, faithful husband?

For those of you living under a rock, I'll give you a short summary of what has been happening in Tiger Woods' life. On Thanksgiving this past year, he was involved in a single car accident, which we later found out was caused due from an argument he had with his wife. Tiger reportedly cheated on his wife (Elin Nordegren) with a ridiculous number of women throughout their marriage. Once word got out that this happened a whole lot of Tiger Woods' endorsement deals were dropped, and until recently, some were just reinstated. Last month Tiger publicly apologized for his transgressions on a televised news conference, and said he was going to take a break from his sport of golf.

I basically blame the tabloids for this whole, ridiculous debacle. If we didn't have the media crazy soicety we live in today, I would think that regular people wouldn't get so involed in these celebrities personal lives. They are around for a purpose, whether its acting, singing, or playing a sport. I think we should just let them live. This situation about these big named companies thinking that we would discontinue with buying their products because someone who endorsed for them was unfaithful got me thinking ... What if your dentist cheated on his wife would you stop going to him? I think not. Simply because the decisions he made doesn't reflect on his ability to clean my teeth.

I understand that Tiger Woods is considered to be a role model because he is an incredible golfer, so obviously companies like Nike and Gatorade would see dollar signs in him, but since when does his personal life reflect in his ability to play golf? I do not understand why Nike (or any other company) would even consider pulling out in their contract with him, because no matter how you look at him, he is still the best golfer around.

http://nobosh.com/sr/video-chat-is-where-its-at-but-how-do-brands-fit-in/326842/

Mobile Advertising = Useful or Annoying?

I came across someones blog about the future of advertising and it consists of advertising through your cell phone. How does this work, you ask? Well, say your texting your friend about wanting to go to go see a movie with her and somehow through the semantic SMS device it finds and recognizes key words, and in this case it would recognize "cinema" or "movies" and it would come up with theaters near where you are. This could get pretty useful or rather annoying. Normally, at least in my case I see a movie from time to time, therefore I am aware of where the movie theaters are in my area, so having an "Ad" pop up would most likely annoy me. However, if I were in an unfamiliar area and were trying to find a theater near my friends house, I think it would be pretty useful and save me time.

After thinking about this a little more I thought about how people use words that don't necessarily mean what it actually means. For example a lot of people use the word "chill" instead of "hanging out" or "nothing". So if I were to text my friend and he or she said "let's chill tonight", will the semantic SMS word recognizer be up to date with the current lingo? Or will they send me the weather for the upcoming week or send me the address of popular clothing store, with the hopes of me buying a sweater?

What I don't want happening is pop up advertisements for useless junk popping up on my cell phone, and will people come up with virus' that will negatively affect my cell phone? My guess is, most likely. Another question I have, is not for the cell phone users, but for the people investing money in these cell phone advertisements...how do you know that your money will be well spent? How do you know that when a person gets a suggestion to go to your store from one of your pop ups, that it will inspire them to go to that store, because it could do the exact opposite and inspire them NOT to go, because of that annoying little ad.

I think that the concept is good, but my question is will the end result be as successful or helpful as the main idea?

http://mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/concept-the-future-of-mobile-advertising-on-handset-semantic-sms-advertising/

Fast Food Ads = Childhood Obesity??

After reading an abstract from Chicago Journals- The Journal of Law and Economics on an article that was published about how fast-food on television creates childhood obesity, really got me thinking about if it would really work. I have a mixed feelings about this because I don't completely know how much hold television advertisements have on a children, and if it does carry a hold then I really do believe it's the parents responsibility to not cave in and be the boss. I know that in this fast paced world people want things quick and easily, but in order to be a good, successful parent you have to do what is best for your child and that goes beyond keeping them safe, because without good health, how safe are they?

The article states that "a ban on these advertisements would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3–11 in a fixed population by 18 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12–18 by 14 percent". This is an interesting study and thought. Obviously childhood obesity is a serious issue, but since fast food places such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell aren't going anywhere maybe they should focus their advertisements on foods that are healthier and better for you that way children would see it and think that's what they sell, and eventually that's all that they could order. Wendy's is taking this advice and have recently been advertising "better for you, real products" where most others advertise their cheap costs, which to one person is a hit, while others may want better quality, because how good for you could something be and how good could the quality be when an entire meal costs you less than $4? My thoughts are that people will continue to eat at fast food restaurants regardless of what is advertised, parents just need to monitor their kids and people need to stop blaming and start fixing themselves.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/590132

Humor to Support the Disabled

After searching for an interesting topic to discuss in this weeks blog, I came across an article in the New York Times that talks about their "public service announcement" that is targeted to help employers employ disabled people. Unfortunately people are judged not on their skills but on their outward appearances, and these advertisements poke fun of peoples misfortunes that don't affect their work. There is a advertisement of a girl wearing many different clashing patterns an labeled across her forehead is a sign that says "Pattern Deficient". Just because she doesn't dress correctly, doesn't mean it affects her work.

People who are deaf, or blind or missing a limb or have a speech impediment are just as able to do the job who someone who is fortunate to not have anything particularly wrong with them. These clever, witty advertisements get people to think and look outside the box, because what makes you who you are isn't based on how you look, or how you speak. Whose to say that one person is better than the other based solely on their outward appearances?

"Just because someone moves a little differently doesn’t mean they can’t help move your business forward. The same goes for people with disabilities.” This is a statement that was taken off one of their advertisements. Above there is a picture of a man dressed professional in a nice suit, dancing ridiculously. Even though the man clearly has no rhythm it doesn't mean it will affect his skills in a job. So, to quote a librarian out there somewhere, I'm going to say "Don't judge a book by its cover", because you never know whats inside or what a person is capable of simply by looking at them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/business/media/29adco.html?scp=21&sq=advertising%20and%20marketing&st=cse

Apple Bans Hackers

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/16/apple-bans-hackers-from-app-store/

Apple has been banning hackers from accessing their App Store on their iPhones due to security reasons. If I understand this correctly, it means that Apple is putting a stop to iPhone thieves. The bad thing about having an iPhone is that their is no insurance for it, which is mainly the reason as to why I do not have one yet. I am much too irresponsible when it comes to my cell phones, so there is no way that I could get a phone that doesn't have insurance. Apple is basically blocking people from accessing other peoples accounts, which is good.

It isn't likely that someone is getting denied access from their own account because they forgotten their passwords, or exceeded their limit, if that were the case iPhone users would be able to access an App called iForgot that allows them to get it again. So if it really is your iPhone and Apple ID that is being denied from Apple, it is because they are trying to protect your personal information and I'm sure they realize that there are hackers that could figure out a way around this, but it just makes it that much harder.

I think that Apple and At&t should spend less money on ads (which is roughly $500 million a year!) and figure out a way to make cell phones, like their blackberry's and iPhones harder to steal. Hackers make it their goals to get into the system, and other peoples personal information. At&t has a major flaw, in my opinion because they make it all the easier to steal a phone from someone because all it takes it for you to put your sim card in another sim cards slot. I think they did this for the easy access and less hassle it allows us buys to have, and being a At&t user I do agree, however I have had my phone stolen one time too many and the fact that I know that someone just got a new phone, without hassle or any problems really makes me mad.

Ads within Video Games

I'm not much of a video game player, even though I do like the casual Super Mario Brother's session now and again. Now a days video games are so realistic that it actually looks like you are watching a movie or you yourself are in the scene. I wont at all be surprised when they come out with 3-D video games (which if I may say would totally be awesome). Some of the most popular games throughout the last couple of years, keep coming out with new and improved udated versions from the original, like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Zelda. A couple of years ago NewsWeek printed an article called The New Ad Game by Jessica Ramirez which'd talked about how the companies are now paying for or are thinking about putting their logo or product to end up in a video game via an advertisement. Not only will these companies open up a different target market, it will also give them a differnent more modern way to get their name out there.

Xbox 360 and Playstion 3 were just about to be released when this article was released in 2006. No one could have predicted what system was going to do better, or which games were going to be more successful by selling, yet companies were still interested in advertising through them. Companies risked their money and started to advertise within video games such as "Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, DaimlerChrysler and Honda". I don't know how I necessarily feel about there being real life products advertised in a virtual, fake world. I do know that it doesn't really make much sense to me, because my thought process is that people participate in video game playing to basically escape from their everyday reality only to be sucked back in with an ad. Whatever technology you seem to go on, there are ads everywhere.

"I don't want to play a medieval game and see a McDonald's" a video gamer named of Joshua Robinson says. I understand that video games, aren't generally supposed to make sense and be real life, but the people who spend all their time and energy playing them, I bet would disagree. Playing a video game that takes place in medieval times such as 2007's Assassin's Creed, there just wouldn't be a McDonald's or Coca Cola company advertisement to advertise yet. If I were to put myself in those peoples shoes, I believe I would get distracted and could potential endanger my life or my fellow gamers and have been in the presence of people who are completely into that, they would be completely thrown off and offended.

Another issue, I along with the article have with advertising within video games are the success that advertisement actually has, and if anybody actually noticed it or not. The ad could be in or on any number of places, located far away or so close that it appears blurry, so who and what determines the cost of the ad? We all know that the gaming company wouldn't allow them to advertise without a heavy price. The questions I am asking, are questions I'm sure other people are questioned as well, that is why I believe they came up with a code that allows them to figure out how and at what angle the product was noticed. "They can tell you down to the nth degree how long your ad was looked at, from what angle and who was looking at it." " Basically this means that the video game makers will be able to tell how much of a success another company's advertisement. This will either persuade or discourage companies to invest in this new, high tech way of advertising.

Long Tail

After reading about "Long Tail" I really got different sense of understanding today's society, and current and past book favorites, music albums, and movie sellers. For example, a man wrote a book about his near death experience with mountain climbing and entitled it: Touching the Void, it was a short lived seller back in 1998. Then another person wrote a book about their mountain climbing tragedy and called it Into Thin Air. It was a huge success, which lead people to read other near death tails on mountain climbing which brought back the sales of Touching the Void. This brings me to relate what's popular in current book sales today, which is vampire love stories among teens and woman. Authors are writing more and more about vampires, which cause older books to be brought back in the lime light. (I myself, am a little embarrassed to say that I have found my self reading other vampire stories after reading the Twilight Saga, and am now looking for older and current similar books).There is an entirely new way to view movies, listen to music, and read books, which all never existed a mere 10 years ago. With the introduction to Netflix, Pandora, and the brand new Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Nobles Nook, it is getting even lazier and easier view the things you enjoy. Most of these new gadgets are making it almost impossible for poeople to venture out past their comfort zones. For example, we have Pandora, where you simply have to type in an artist you enjoy and it somehow manages to find multiple, similar artists with similar sounds. Although, these new trends are amazing, it just means that people are less likely to go into a music store and manually search and listen to music. Also, a lot of great movies get made each and every year by great production companies, yet they are not advertised or even shown because like Long Tail said "an average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run". So even if people do want to rent a movie, even the video stores have that same mind set, and same goes for music shops and book stores. Juke boxes do some justice, I know a local restaurant that I attend almost every week with a group of my friends, and because the restaurant doesn't play music regularly we are almost forced to put our money into the juke box just have some sort of background music playing. The upside in this, is that we (along with other patrons) are able to pick and choose what we want to hear, and sometimes sitting at the table I hear songs I haven't heard of or haven't heard in years. We are basically paying for a type of radio, not once have I heard of anyone going up there and requesting a song and not being able to play it. Yes, it does get costly after week after week, but entertainment comes at a price. This type of juke box in restaurant after restaurant, and bar after bar and I whole heartily agree with Kevin Laws, when he says "The biggest money is in the smallest sales." At .50 a song, play after play, there is bound to be a great bundle of revenue to be made. If we just listened to the simple rules, I believe we could go somewhere by "making everything available" and "cutting the price in half, then lowering it".