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.