Creative Gallery

WOM: Never-ending

Creative Gallery Plans

I think, as of right now, that I am going to try and write a short multimedia narrative about a brand advocate and their journey through the internet. I am hoping to do this with blog links, but may end up just using multiple social media platforms to link to different parts of the story.

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Completed Essay

Multimedia is quickly becoming the norm, incorporating various forms of media for tasks in business, advertising and marketing, research, the arts, education, etc. More specifically, multimedia incorporates print, television, music, the internet, radio and various other mediums to further deliver messages, create new concepts, and share content. Over the past few years, media has advanced at an exponential rate, increasing the use of new mediums and social networking. With the increased normalcy of using multimedia, many new trends are being uncovered.
 
Along with multimedia, brand loyalty and advocacy have also become a growing concept, especially in the world of advertising and marketing. Brand loyalty and advocacy are becoming more and more pertinent to the advertising industry as more and more consumers develop their lives to encompass the essence of their favorite brands through purchasing, discussing, influencing, etc. According to an article from Essortment.com, brand loyalty is "the consumer's conscious or unconscious decision, expressed through intention or behavior, to repurchase a brand continually" ("Brand Loyalty's Influence..."). A brand advocate has become accepted as someone who is an extremely brand loyal consumer and adds to that loyalty by discussing the brand and its products in a favorable manner, passing the information along to other people through word-of-mouth. As brand advocacy grows, consumers are beginning to rely more on the advocates' recommendations rather than traditional advertising messages. Multimedia provides brand advocates with the ability to contribute to brand growth through a more interactive form of word-of-mouth while also crossing current boundaries of ethical regulations and creating new ones.


The Essortment.com article explained that improving consumer loyalty and advocacy “permits marketers to maintain a comfortable and lasting position in the marketplace” (Brand Loyalty's Influence...”). While multimedia's affect on consumer word-of-mouth could be viewed as a positive step in the direction of creating a more participatory environment and interactive advertising landscape, it could be argued that, with the increasingly competitive marketplace, advertisers and marketers could be using multimedia to take advantage of brand loyal shoppers and advocates. A Washington Post article explained that many companies pay people to promote products and brands to their friends, family, work associates, etc. The author, Annys Shin, claims that as the practice has grown more popular, some groups have questioned whether advertisers and marketers are using the tactics to persuade and even trick consumers into believing that they are receiving unbiased information and messages (Shin).


Word-of-mouth has existed for centuries and for the past few decades, it has become an advantage to advertisers and brand messaging. In the advertising industry, word-of-mouth is the unpaid or paid promotion and recommendation of satisfied consumers who discuss their views of a specific brand with other people (“Word-of-Mouth Advertising”). The Washington Post defined word-of-mouth as taking many forms, including “peer-to-peer communication, such as a post on a Web blog, a MySpace.com page for a movie character, or the comments of a stranger on a bus” (Shin). With the expansion of multimedia, word-of-mouth has been given more space to reach larger audiences and present more messages. Multimedia has allowed word-of-mouth to not only become a pertinent outlet for the advertising and marketing industries, but it has also become a way for consumers to interact on a more personal level and influence the purchases and behavior of other consumers.


While some consumers are paid to promote certain products and brands, as brand advocacy grows across multimedia platforms, it has almost become an expectation that consumers will share their thoughts of a brand. Instead of allowing consumers to discuss and share their feelings and experiences privately, advertisers and marketers are now taking the opportunity to change the game of advertising and marketing by taking full advantage of the new ways some services are developing to monitor online discussions about brands. Certain analytic websites like Radian6.com, that offer tools for measuring online engagement and discussion have grown popular as a result of the rise in multimedia word-of-mouth. These sites allow advertisers and marketers to "listen-in" on what audiences of brand advocates, as well as brand adversaries are saying about specific brands and products.


Various companies like SwarmBuilder Inc are also becoming popular. Many company services like SwarmBuilder provide word-of-mouth marketing and advertising services and help various companies by “aggregating, validating and engaging armies of brand advocates to spread the word about their favorite brands, retailers and member organizations” (Beal). SwarmBuilder manages advocacy for more than 200 well-known brands. In an E-Commerce article, Vangie Beal explains that small businesses can also take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing and advertising by building loyal advocates. Beal says that small businesses need to find people of influence, like a popular blogger or a discussion forum moderator to spread the word about their services or products. The author argues, “What you are looking for is a single person with a lot of influence and reach to bring into your brand advocate group,” (Beal).


As new ideas for measuring and monitoring brand and product discussion are being discovered and utilized, many industry associations are developing policies to maintain an ethical environment. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has created a code of ethics for its members just for this reason. The WOMMA is an official trade association that represents the interests of the social media and word-of-mouth industry and strives to build trust between consumers and the marketing world. The core values of the association include trust, integrity, respect, honesty, responsibility, and privacy. Although the code of ethics is required to be followed for admittance into the association, the code is not a law or an industry regulation and does not have to be followed by the entire marketing and advertising world (WOMMA).


Along with the WOMMA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also making strides to maintain an ethical environment for consumers and advertisers alike. The commission has become known as a consumer protection agency and has weighted in on the semi-controversial practice, demanding that companies engaging in word-of-mouth disclose the relationships of the message deliverers. A group from Portland, Oregon had petitioned the FTC in 2005 to consider taking action against word-of-mouth marketers and advertisers, calling for the commission to create guidelines that would require paid contributors to disclose their relationship to the brand or product they were promoting (Shin). A Washington Post article clarified that the FTC had already included word-of-mouth advertising in regulations that govern commercial endorsements. The FTC sought to reveal that word-of-mouth advertising and marketing has the potential to be deceptive "if consumers were more likely to trust the product's endorser based on their assumed independence from the marketer" (Shin).


Although there are many concerns about the ethical state of this classic form of communication's use for advertising and marketing, the argument still remains that multimedia's affect on word-of-mouth has greatly contributed to forming an effective tactic for the advertising and marketing industries, as well as created a much more interactive and participatory landscape for consumers. In an Advertising Age article, Josh Bernoff argues that “customer experience is marketing. That is, in a world drenched in social word-of-mouth, the way you treat your customers -- and the way they perceive you -- makes all the difference in what they say to their friends” (Bernoff). Bernoff's statement is very true regarding multimedia word-of-mouth. Multimedia not only allows people to participate on a larger level, but it also establishes a potential for the audience and reach to be a large majority of the world. No wonder advertisers and marketers want to keep track of what consumers are saying about brands and products.


While multimedia has created a larger platform for word-of-mouth marketing and advertising, the traditional form of word-of-mouth, before it became the industry's new “go-to,” presented significantly positive feedback for affecting consumer behaviors and attitudes. An excerpt from Marketing Science includes an argument about how word-of-mouth has more potential for impact than any other communication channel or platform. The excerpt also included Jupiter Communication's study results from 1999, which show that 57% of people visiting a new website did so based on a personal recommendation. Although these results were collected over than 10 years ago, word-of-mouth still holds a high impact rating for driving consumer behavior (Monahan). As the study results suggested, marketers and advertisers are interested in word-of-mouth due to its influence on consumer behavior, awareness, and preferences.

 
Many brands and products currently take full advantage of the benefits of multimedia word-of-mouth. For example, J.Crew is a brand that is very familiar with brand advocates and their influence on brand expansion. Brand advocates for J.Crew are not few in number or resources, as they share their thoughts through personal blogs, tweets, Facebook likes, YouTube videos, etc. Multimedia plays a large part in consumerism today, allowing consumers to actually spread and deliver brand messages themselves, which can ultimately influence and drive others to purchase.

 
One illustration of a J.Crew advocate can be found at Jcrewaddict.com, a blog about a girl and her addiction with a store. J.Crew Addict illustrates how consumer word-of-mouth can influence the image of a brand and the decisions of other consumers. This blog in particular shows what being "addicted to a brand" and advocating that brand really is. The author hosts discussions about the brand and its products, allowing herself to become completely engulfed in that brand's world. Along with hosting discussions, the author describes and recommends the actual products, as well as explains why they are important and special to her. Subscribers of the blog are able to view and even share this information, therefore further extending the audience of J. Crew Addict's positive word-of-mouth. Readers of the blog or even random searchers seeing this information are being exposed to branded messages.


J.CrewAholics.com is another illustration of a blog that exemplifies multimedia word-of-mouth. This website was created by a young college graduate who began blogging to share and discuss her love of all things J.Crew. This blog provides more variety than J.Crew Addict, ranging from discussion of the inner workings of J.Crew to sharing promotional news and new product arrivals.


Blog sites are not the only popular platform for multimedia word-of-mouth. Various YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook users have also drawn attention to their favorite products and brands. YouTube, for example, has provided a platform for J.Crew advocates to not only discuss their love for the brand, but also create daily or weekly video blogs about their recent shopping experiences at a J.Crew location. Many of the “vlogs” contain information about current sales and promotions at certain store locations.
 
Facebook's platform could be considered the king of multimedia word-of-mouth. The popular “like” feature has recently created buzz in the advertising and marketing industries as it now offers a way for word-of-mouth to become almost instantaneous. Rather than having a Facebook user take the time to write out their thoughts and views on a particular brand or product, they now only need to “like” the brand or product to create a sponsored story that will show up in friends' news-feeds and side-bar. The platform aims to provide higher visibility for brand messages (Slutsky).

 
Multimedia is creating a circular pattern, adding to the consumer culture by providing a more interactive landscape that both assists in brand building and further adding to our society's fixation on shopping. As with most new ideas in advertising and marketing, this new form of word-of-mouth is becoming engulfed in a battle of ethics surrounding the right to privacy for consumers and full disclosure of information from advertisers and marketers. While multimedia has, in a way, pushed advertising and marketing further into the future, its platform requires regulations to protect the ethical nature of the current industry's environment. These regulations have been created and set in place for traditional media, so there should be not exception for new media. Even though multimedia has allowed traditional word-of-mouth to be used in new ways that can sometimes be viewed as advertising and marketing deception, it has created an even larger network for people to participate, create, share, and respond in their own curated environment. Multimedia is more than a new platform for communication, it is growing closer to bridging the gap between an environment where people are disconnected and an environment where everything can be reached instantaneously.

Works Cited

Beal, Vangie. "Building a Brand? Tips to Attract Brand Advocates." E-Commerce Guide. 

QuinStreet Inc., 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.ecommerceguide.com/

article.php/3861116>. 

Bernoff, Josh. "The Marketing Value of Customer Experience." Advertising Age. Crain 

Communications,12 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://adage.com/digitalnext/post? 

article_id=148164>. 
 

"Brand Loyalty's Influence On Consumer Behavior." Essortment. Demand Media, 2010. 

Web. 4 Apr. 2011. <http://www.essortment.com/brand-loyaltys-influence-consumer-

behavior-35996.html>. 
 

"Crew Girl". Weblog post. J.Crew Addict. Blogger, 14 June 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. 

<http://www.jcrewaddict.com/>. 
 

Lam, Siv. Weblog post. J.CrewAholics. Wordpress, 18 Feb. 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. 
<http://jcrewaholics.com/>. 
 

Monahan, George E. "A Pure Birth Model of Optimal Advertising with Word-Of-Mouth."  

Marketing Science 3.2 (1984): 169-178. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. 

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/183749>.
 

Slutsky, Irina. "Facebook Turns the 'Like' Into Its Newest Ad." Advertising Age. Crain 
Communications, 25 Jan. 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. <http://adage.com/article/digital/

facebook-turns-newest-ad/148452/>.  

"WOMMA: The Leading Voice for Ethical and Effective Word of Mouth and Social Media 

Marketing." Word of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA, Feb. 2011. Web. 22 Feb.2011. 

<http://womma.org/main/>. 
 

"Word-of-Mouth Advertising." Entreprenuer. Entreprenuer Magazine, 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2011.

 <http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82660.html>.

FOUND Magazine

FOUND Magazine is a collection of random notes, doodles and messages that provide "a glimpse into someone else's life." The site reminded me a little of Reddit, where people can go and post random things for other people to look at. I like how FOUND has created something out of the random "finds." The site has created magazines out of the "finds" that visitors can purchase and subscribe to. I think this creation is one of thousands of creative galleries that have come into existence because of multimedia. The multimedia landscape has provided room for people to create various projects out of random things. Even though some people may not find value in random works of different notes and drawings, I think that something interesting and worth following has been started by projects like FOUND. I think that FOUND seemed sort of similar to an online scrapbook. It would be interesting if the different magazine issues or site postings focused on specific days and compared what different people were doing and thinking. Not only has multimedia provided a space for new projects to be created, but it has also given some sort of value to things that most people would consider pointless or even weird. Why would people bother looking for and posting scrap notes and drawings discarded by others? They have an audience. Why do people want to read random notes written for other people? It sparks imagination and can provide a brief moment of distraction from their own lives.

On the Night of Mr. Melvyn's Murder

On the Night of Mr. Melvyn's Murder provides an interesting look into how multimedia platforms are changing the way we view and interact with content. The story revolves around a Mr. Melvyn's murder and provides brief summaries and accounts about new characters with each link. Although the story-line seems to be never ending, this innovative idea creates a way for the audience to control the content they are viewing by clicking on the links they want. While the same can be said for audiences reading online news articles, this story provides a look into how creative concepts are being discovered and developed through multimedia. I think that this is a really cool and interactive project, but I wish the story would be a little more organized so that there is a clear beginning, middle and end. I kind of like that the characters keep multiplying because it keeps the audience involved. I think it would also be cool if the story revealed a different murderer for each time it is read. It is interesting to me that as more content is uploaded on various multimedia platforms, we, as the audience, begin forming certain expectations for what the content will provide for us. Is creative content different? Multimedia allows creators to develop new ideas and projects that constantly alter how content is presented. As the content adapts, however, do we adapt our expectations? I think it will be interesting to see in a few years how many new types of creative content like this short story will be available and expanded upon.

Beginning Stages

Multimedia is quickly becoming the norm, incorporating various forms of media for tasks in business, advertising and marketing, research, the arts, education, etc. More specifically, multimedia incorporates print, television, music, the internet, radio and various other mediums to further deliver messages and share content. Over the past few years, media has advanced at an exponential rate, increasing the use of new mediums and social networking. With the increased normalcy of multimedia, many new trends are being uncovered. 


Along with multimedia, brand advocacy has also become a growing concept, especially in the world of advertising. Brand advocacy is becoming more and more pertinent to the advertising industry as more and more consumers develop their lives to encompass the essence of their favorite brands through purchasing, discussing, influencing, etc. A brand advocate has become accepted as someone who discusses a brand and its products in a favorable manner, passing the information along to other people through word-of-mouth. As brand advocacy grows, consumers are beginning to rely more on the advocates' recommendations rather than traditional advertising messages. With multimedia, brand advocates have the ability to contribute to brand growth through a more interactive form of word-of-mouth.

Word-of-mouth has existed for centuries and for the past few decades, it has become an advantage to advertisers and brand messaging. In the advertising industry, word-of-mouth is the unpaid promotion and recommendation of satisfied consumers who discuss their views of a specific brand with other people. With the expansion of multimedia, word-of-mouth has been given more space to reach larger audiences and present more messages. Multimedia has allowed word-of-mouth to not only become a pertinent outlet for the advertising industry, but it has also become a way for consumers to interact on a more personal level and influence the purchases of other consumers.

J.Crew is a brand that is very familiar with brand advocates and their influence on brand expansion. Brand advocates for J.Crew are not few in number or resources, as they share their thoughts through blogs, tweets, Facebook likes, YouTube videos, etc.  Multimedia plays a large part in consumerism today, allowing consumers to actually spread and deliver brand messages themselves.

One example of a J.Crew advocate can be found at Jcrewaddict.com, a blog about a girl and her addiction with a store. J.Crew Addict illustrates how consumer word-of-mouth can influence the image of a brand and the decisions of other consumers. This blog in particular shows what being "addicted to a brand" and advocating that brand really is. The author hosts discussions about the brand and its products, allowing herself to become completely engulfed in that brand's world. Along with hosting discussions, the author describes the actual products and why they are important to her. Subscribers of the blog are able to view and even share this information, therefore further extending the audience of Jcrewaddict's positive word-of-mouth. Readers of the blog or even random searchers seeing this information are being exposed to branded messages.

Multimedia is creating a circular pattern, adding to the consumer culture by providing a more interactive landscape that both assists in brand building and further adding to brand addiction.