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.

Google Map Fun

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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.

Some thoughts

After reading more about Wikipedia and the controversy surrounding it, I have come to a parallel of an idea that I've come up will through my research project. Multimedia allows everyone to contribute, create and share. Since the growth and expansion of the internet and since information has been made readily available, Wikipedia usage has become more and more discouraged by many of my teachers for the fear that the information will not be accurate and the research has already been put together. In my everyday life online, however, I find myself going to Wikipedia constantly. It is the simplest and easiest way to find a brief explanation of terms, history, etc., not to mention it is usually at the top of the list for Google's search results. With Wikipedia, anyone can be an expert contributor. But how much of the available information can we take seriously? Well, it has been my experience that most of the information I read is accurate, thanks to the editors employed by the site. If I find something that I think is questionable, I always have the option to search somewhere else to clarify the information and then flag or change anything on Wikipedia's page that may be inaccurate. The more that information is made readily available to us and research is compiled for us, it becomes our responsibility to double check what we are reading. I think that instead of all together dismissing Wikipedia as a useful source of information, we should be encouraged to contribute what we can to making the free information source more accurate by double checking the information and even adding to the information that is already there. Wikipedia provides people with a voice to share information they know about that may have otherwise not been shared. It is through resources and media like Wikipedia that our culture is becoming more participatory and interactive.

YouTube

YouTube provides people with an outlet for sharing their thoughts, talents, ideas, etc. As a sharing medium, YouTube allows viewers to comment and respond to the videos and share them with others. YouTube is a form of entertainment that you can lose yourself in for hours at a time. YouTube houses a variety of videos from commercials and music videos to amateur debuts and vlogs. Almost everyone has access to YouTube, as both an audience member and an author. YouTube began as a use for younger people and as more a form of pure entertainment. Now, the range of users is vast and increasing. Businesses and brands can use YouTube to promote their products and services. Politicians can use it to gain support. Full length lectures from a variety of topics can even be found on YouTube.


Question: Other than the ways mentioned, how is YouTube changing in terms of use?

Completed Abstract

My topic is beginning to take form, analyzing information surrounding advertising, multimedia, and brand addicts. More specifically, the topic discussion and argument will work through aspects of how multimedia is shaping advertising and how brand addicts can interact with their addiction. My argument will be focused around how brand addicts are contributing to the growth of brands and how multimedia is helping them do so. Argument: With multimedia, brand addicts have the ability to contribute to brand growth through a more interactive form of word-of-mouth.
I want to go in depth into each area mentioned in my argument. To open, I will present my argument and discuss my chosen brand, J.Crew. My project is beginning to delve deeper into what multimedia is, how multimedia is changing advertising, and how multimedia is creating a more participatory environment for consumers. The first topic will be about the general realm of multimedia and its expansion. Over the past few years, media has advanced at an exponential rate, increasing the use of new mediums and social networking. The second topic will be brand addiction and what it is. Brand addiction 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, advocating, etc. I will also go in depth about what word-of-mouth advertising is and how it relates to the industry. Word-of-mouth has existed for centuries and for the past few decades, it has become an advantage to advertisers and brand messaging. Once these topics have been analyzed, I will begin shaping my argument while relating each topic to one another. With the expansion of multimedia, brand addiction has 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 through word-of-mouth. The main idea I want my project to convey is that 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.

Annotated Bibilography

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>. 

"Customer experience is marketing." This article will add to my argument about how consumer experiences can build a brand. More specifically, even though I am arguing about brand addicts, this basic concept of consumer experiences is an important step to introduce as a basis for my project. The information will help me set the groundwork for my discussion on brand addicts. The challenge will be taking this information and building an analysis about how good consumer experiences can form brand addicts.

"Crew Girl". Weblog post. J.Crew Addict. Blogger, 14 June 2010. 

Web. 28 Feb. 2011. <http://www.jcrewaddict.com/>.

In her online blog, “Crew Girl” exemplifies what a brand addict can do to help promote brand growth. This blog will not only help provide me with an example of how brand addict word-of-mouth can help build a brand, but also what exactly the brand addict does to promote the brand. With no blog followers, this source will provide a small challenge for trying to argue that “Crew Girl's” postings influence consumers, but I can use Google's list of search results to help make up for that since this blog shows up under the search results for J.Crew.

Godes, David Godes, and Dina Mayzlin. "Using Online Conversations 

to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication." Marketing Science 43.4 

(2004):545-560. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.  

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/30036688>. 

This source discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with measuring word-of-mouth advertising online. The information will help me build to my argument by adding current ways online conversations are being measured to discover the impact of word-of-mouth on product/brand success. Although this source provides insight into how word-of-mouth's success is being measured, it provides examples mostly from television. I think that the examples can still provide useful information about how important word-of-mouth advertising can be for building a brand's image.

Henderson, Tom. "Technology and Brand Addiction, a Twelve Step
Program." IT World. International Data Group, 15 Mar. 2010.
Web. 28 Feb. 2011. <http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/100513/
brand-addiction-a-twelve-step-program>.

This source, although more of a humorous approach, provides insight
into how multimedia is creating brand addicts. The information
provided by this site will help me argue how multimedia is not only
providing a more interactive landscape for consumers, but it also
provides more ways for a consumer to become addicted to a brand by
giving them more ways to connect with it. Unfortunately, this source
does not really define what a brand addict is, but I can still use it to help develop a working definition.

Lam, Siv. Weblog post. J.CrewAholics. Wordpress, 18 Feb. 2011. 

Web. 28 Feb. 2011. <http://jcrewaholics.com/>. 

J.CrewAholics demonstrates an example of how word-of-mouth presented by a brand addict can contribute to the positive image of a brand. This will help me show how brand addicts can use multimedia to help promote a brand. The challenge will be defining what a brand addict/J.Crew addict is with this information. Rather than providing a definition, this source demonstrates what a brand addict is through their online activities.

Malone, Chris. "What Are Social Media Good For? Putting a Face to a Brand." Advertising Age. Crain Communications,  10 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. <http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=145324>.

This source describes some of the ways consumers are impacted by social media and how social media, in turn, can create brand loyalty (and even brand addicts). The information and ideas discussed in the article will help me build my argument about how brand loyalists and addicts can build a brand through social media. This will also help me provide insight about how consumers' views of a brand are greatly impacted and influenced by what they see throughout multimedia. Although this is a good resource about brand loyalty, it does not go in-depth about how consumers use their word-of-mouth to increase the brand's online buzz.

McNaughton, Elizabeth. "Social Media: An Advertising Minefield?" Blakes. Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, 19 Jan. 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. <http://www.blakes.com/english/view.asp? ID=4510>.  

Blakes' source discusses details of current word-of-mouth and crowd-sourcing strategies. This information will help me become more familiar with current word-of-mouth forms as well as emerging ones. This article specifically discusses word-of-mouth and crowd-sourcing with social media. Although this information will be useful and provides a great deal of information about advertising with social media, it does not provide enough examples of how consumer word-of-mouth can build a brand.

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>.

This source describes word-of-mouth tactics relating to advertising. The information provided through this source will help me present the typical model used for word-of-mouth advertising and how to achieve optimization. While this source is great for helping me begin my discussion of word-of-mouth advertising, it does not incorporate the information I need to fully link brand addicts to advertising.

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/>.  

This AdAge article discusses Facebook's new option for advertisers. With this option, advertisers can use the 'Like' button to their benefit even more by creating brand messages on users' news-feeds. When a user clicks that they 'Like' a product or a brand, that 'Like' will show up in their friends' news-feeds as an advertisement. This information will assist me in providing examples of new word-of-mouth outlets on multimedia.

"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/>.   

This is the main website for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. This can be a useful resource for me because it updates regularly about articles, blogs, new events, etc. surrounding word-of-mouth marketing and advertising. The information on this website can also help me bring up ethical issues about using word-of-mouth for marketing purposes. Unfortunately, being a main web-page for an association, I will have to do some digging to find fully relevant information for my project.

Jcrewaddict.com

Jcrewaddict.com is 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" 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 presented with this information, therefore making some kind of an impact on them. Readers of the blog or even random searchers seeing this information are being exposed to branded messages. Multimedia plays a large part in consumerism today, allowing consumers to actually spread and deliver brand messages themselves. Numerous branded blogs exist throughout the internet along with Facebook "likes," tweets, and YouTube videos.

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.

Rough Annotations

Out with the flu, but the work must go on. 

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>. 

"Customer experience is marketing." This article will add to my argument about how consumer experiences can build a brand. More specifically, even though I am arguing about brand addicts, this basic concept of consumer experiences is an important step to introduce as a basis for my project. The information will help me set the groundwork for my discussion on brand addicts. The challenge will be taking this information and building an analysis about how good consumer experiences can form brand addicts.

Malone, Chris. "What Are Social Media Good For? Putting a 

Face to a Brand." Advertising Age. Crain Communications, 

10 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.

<http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=145324>. 

This source describes some of the ways consumers are impacted by social media and how social media, in turn, can create brand loyalty (and even brand addicts). The information and ideas discussed in the article will help me build my argument about how brand loyalists and addicts can build a brand through social media. This will also help me provide insight about how consumers' views of a brand are greatly impacted and influenced by what they see throughout multimedia. Although this is a good resource about brand loyalty, it does not go in-depth about how consumers use their word-of-mouth to increase the brand's online buzz.

"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/>. 

This is the main website for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. This can be a useful resource for me because it updates regularly about articles, blogs, new events, etc. surrounding word-of-mouth marketing and advertising. The information on this website can also help me bring up ethical issues about using word-of-mouth for marketing purposes. Unfortunately, being a main web-page for an association, I will have to do some digging to find fully relevant information for my project.

Drafting the Abstract

My topic will be discussing and analyzing information surrounding advertising, multimedia, and brand addicts. More specifically, the discussion will work through aspects of how multimedia is shaping advertising and how brand addicts can interact with their addiction. My argument will be focused around how brand addicts are contributing to the growth of brands and how multimedia is helping them do so. Argument: With multimedia, brand addicts have the ability to contribute to brand growth through a more interactive form of word-of-mouth.
I want to go in depth into each area mentioned in my argument. To open my abstract, I will present my topic and argument. I need to provide in depth research and analysis of what brand addicts are (while choosing a specific brand to focus on), what multimedia is, how multimedia is changing advertising, and how multimedia is creating a more participatory environment for consumers.

Project Update

 So far, the major question for my project is - How do brand addicts contribute to building the brand through multimedia? With this main question, I will also need to explore what brand addicts are, what constitutes multimedia, etc. Since the beginning of the semester, I have been studying word-of-mouth advertising through online and mobile platforms. Based on these questions and my research so far, I plan on arguing that brand addicts contribute to the expansion of the brand through word-of-mouth. With the increased growth of multimedia, this process of word-of-mouth has continued to become easier while reaching more people.



"There’s a part of culture that we simply consume. We listen to music. We watch a movie. We read a book. With each, we’re not expected to do much more than simply consume. We might hum along with the music. We might reenact a dance from a movie. Or we might quote a passage from the book in a letter to a friend. But in the main, this kind of culture is experienced through the act of consumption. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to that consumption. Once we’ve finished it, we put the work away" (Lessig's Remix).


I really liked this passage from Lessig because it really has a way of defining our culture as one massive consumer. I think that this relates well to my project because (in the past) brand addicts, like a J.Crew addict, was expected to only purchase products from the brand. In a way, yes, these addicts were building the brand by increasing sales, but multimedia has provided a new way for addicts to give back rather than just simply consume. I think that retail brands in particular have begun expecting more from their consumers than just purchasing. Many brands have even started relying on multimedia word-of-mouth as an advertising tactic and have developed different programs and strategies to monitor what messages are being passed along. I think that multimedia is on its way to allowing our culture to become less of a consumer culture and more of an interactive/participatory one.

Final Trailer - Addict Hunting: Building the J.Crew Brand

A Day in the Life of a Brand Addict

Title: A Day in the Life of a Brand Addict
Question: What does a day in the life of a brand addict look like?
Lessig's Thoughts: With the idea of remix in mind, following a particular brand through multimedia can be used to present a complete story of the brand's day to day multimedia life, or even the life of a brand fanatic. By taking information about the brand, tracking brand followers, and finding discussions about the brand, a story can be made about a day in the life of a brand addict. This information is built upon and becomes an actual story about an actual person and their actual life. It becomes a remix. This remix takes gathered information and creates a new entity.

Change of Plans

After attempting a creative trailer for the broad concept of word-of-mouth, I have decided to immerse myself in a much smaller universe of of multimedia. I am now going to focus on the concept of brand building through multimedia. In particular, I am going to focus on the J.Crew brand to present a more complete story.

Word-of-Mouth

"Word of mouth has, of course, existed forever but is particularly important in social media. The objective is to create content that attracts positive attention and then spreads voluntarily and at no expense to the advertiser. When a commercial or other advertisement goes viral because it is highly creative and people like it, the advertiser wins. An advertiser is less enthusiastic when an advertisement goes viral by virtue of the furore and negative comments it receives."

http://www.blakes.com/english/view.asp?ID=4510

Trailer Thoughts

 

So, I have chosen to engulf myself in in the world of word-of-mouth advertising this semester. With the continuous growth of various multimedia vehicles, advertising online has changed greatly and even advanced to mobile. Word-of-mouth is a very interesting topic in advertising because the content being shared and repeated is coming right out of consumers' mouths/typing. The boom of multimedia has also increased the capacity of word-of-mouth and made it one of the simplest strategies to implement. Not only has multimedia made word-of-mouth easier for marketing purposes, but it has also hugely expanded the range of people that can recieve messages and how quickly the messages can be received.

For my trailer, I am going to choose one brand and walk through how a simple brand message can spread from one tweet to a huge discussion throughout the internet and mobile world. I plan on concentrating mostly on what impacts word-of-mouth can have on advertising, especially with the use of such tools as radian6.

I would like for my trailer to come off as kind of scattered, as most word-of-mouth brand discussions are scattered across the internet and can be difficult to track. Other than using simple images that keep track of a message/discussion, I plan on using one continuous background song instead of providing dialogue. I would like to keep the viewers' attention on the path of the message rather than having them try to concentrate on too much information. I'm going to try my best to keep the trailer moving fluidly, even though I want it to come off as scattered.

Here is an example of how I want to style my trailer: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Project Topic

Word-of-mouth Advertising through multimedia.

Lessig and Remix

Lawrence Lessig's REMIX, Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, discusses his view of how balanced copyright contributes to a healthy culture. In his preface, Lessig wrote that copyright, when properly balanced, is "essential to inspiring certain forms of creativity." Throughout the first chapter, he continued to argue his position that without proper balance in copyright, there would be a much poorer culture.
REMIX, like Jonathan Lethem's The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, presented the idea that current copyright laws are unbalanced and hindering creativity. Without some kind of influence from other works, many new works would not have been produced. Although incorporating an ability for inspiration should be an area of focus for balanced copyright, the continuous growth and additions of new multimedia in current society proposes a new question for copyright: How does/should the balance shift when so much information is available through so many forms of technology?
The balance of copyright should be dependent on two variables: the protection of the author's work, and the protection of creativity through certain influence. How can these variables be balanced when there is so much authored and "original" work to be monitored and protected?
Both Lethem and Lessig discussed how current copyright hinder creativity, but shouldn't certain ideas and other authored works have absolute protection? OR, are there just too many vehicles and too much information to even try to keep up?
Whether or not this balance can be achieved with all of the new forms of multimedia has yet to be seen, but for both the "original" author's and future creator's sakes, I hope an equilibrium can be achieved and maintained.

Wordle

The Ecstasy of Influence: Give All

 In The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, Jonathan Lethem discusses his view of current/corrupted copyright, trademark, and patent law. Since the beginning of authorship, all authored work has been influenced by something - many times by others' work. Lethem's point of view that current copyright and patent laws hinder certain creative possibilities seems very well plausible. As a student, I have heard time after time that even forgetting to cite a quote is considered plagiarism and could result in an immediate failure of the class. Luckily, I have come to learn to cite EVERYTHING.
Although the ownership and use of authored work should be protected, I agree with Lethem that current laws have become too strict. Lethem's use of examples in his own 'plagiarism' assists in making his arguments stronger and much more persuasive.
In The Ecstasy of Influence, Lethem writes, "The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors but to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate." Without influence by previous works, many current writings, art, music, etc. might have never come to exist.