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.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Rough Annotations
Out with the flu, but the work must go on.
"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.
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.
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.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
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.
"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.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, February 7, 2011
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)