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.