Vlogs: The Most Engaging Vehicle? November 26, 2008
Posted by airyrae in New Media Effectiveness.Tags: media involvement, video ads, viewer engagement, vlogs
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“Did you ever think about life as a metaphor for television?”
Chuck Palahniuk
A consumer’s engagement and participation level make mediums more or less involving than other mediums. Television is considered a low-involvement medium because commercials are animate while the viewer is inanimate, and because the pace of viewing is out of the viewer’s control and there is little opportunity for reflection and making connections. As such, newspapers and magazines are high involvement media because the advertising is inanimate while the reader is animate.
The primary aspect of consumer participation that determines the involvement of a medium is whether or not the consumer controls their pace of exposure. For example, when watching television consumers have less control over how much time they spend or don’t spend watching commercials. On the other hand, with magazines and newspapers the consumer has more control over how much time they spend reading each advertisement. However, streaming video allows the animate qualities of television and the control of magazines and newspapers: making vlogs, marketing shorts, and other online videos a very effective marketing tactic.
Engagement is being defined as the new currency for advertising return on investment. Consumer engagement is similar to the concept of high and low involvement media in the sense that highly engaging media lends itself more to complex advertising content. The industry has finally moved beyond simply measuring the number of people that see an ad, to understanding how viewers are actually interacting with it. Vlogs have merged the benefits of traditional low and high involvement mediums.
Consumers have the power to control their interaction with vlogs, and re-experience them based on their individual whims. As such, vlogs also can disseminate more information to consumers, which use to only be appropriate for high-involvement mediums. Vlogs allow consumers to experience and reflect on the information that is being provided to them on their own terms. Furthermore, streaming videos allows consumers to experience vlogs and video virtually on demand. Video encompassing forms of engaging new media seem to be the future of both affective and effective integrated communications.
Arin
OMG! U Speak IM? November 25, 2008
Posted by airyrae in Blessings and Burdens, e-volution.Tags: IM Speak
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“WTF”
“and you can quote me on that”
Instant messaging has become a huge activity of teenager over the past decade. As such, a whole new dialect has entailed the instant messaging craze. Shorthand like: OMG “Oh my god”, BFF “best friends forever”, and BRB “Be right back” are heavily relied upon by heavily users of instant messaging. The problem is that the IMers are growing-up, getting jobs, and using this IM speak in professional communications. I couldn’t believe my ears when I read a report about how IM speak is being used by the younger generations in business communications.
I mean really – do these people have no common sense or professionalism at all. Teachers should be nipping this bad-habit in the bud in junior high and high school. I think this post will be the only times that I will actually be able to get away with using IM speak in correspondence, and it’s simply to make a point. Do these people just not realize how unprofessional and uneducated they sound when they speak and write like this. Every company that I have ever worked for insisted that even company acronyms were not used in professional communications because they are easily lost in translation in regards to new employees, other businesses, and consumers.
How does 4649 equal “please to meet you”? Being a Gen X’er, you’d think I’d be some what up on the IM lingo. But unfortunately for me, I went to this wonderful think called school, where I was taught to speak like a human and not a moron. I guess I was wrong in assuming this whole “school thing” is available to the younger generations. Or maybe schools just added IM speak to the curriculum. And alluding to a quote from a previous post, I have the luxury or criticizing the younger generations because I have yet to raise any of them.
Well my attempts to use IM speak in this post was truly pathetic, and I’m surprisingly OK with that. On a personal level, I find this ‘speak’ to be obnoxious. However, it is also apparent that this dialect is a huge aspect of reaching the younger generations. Marketers are using this ‘speak’ in several of their new and traditional marketing efforts alike if they are targeting teenagers. As such, learning IM speak seems to be another one of those necessary evils of my career choice. So if you’re as IM speak dysfunctional as I am, read up on teen talk and the ever evolving list of digital lingo: especially if you’re a parent.
Ultimately, IM Speak has its time and place. But I think the collectively this speak should be limited to certain occassions and applications. If you’re marketing to teenagers, or teenagers are instant messaging on their personal applications – IM Away. However, the existance of this shorthand shouldn’t mean that it appears in business communications or any other type of formal correspondance. On a cultural whole, technology has enabled us to save time by revolutionizing the way we communicate through new media. Since communication is now easier and more accessable than ever we should at least have the time to speak to one another in English.
CUL8R,
Arin
e-volution November 23, 2008
Posted by airyrae in e-volution.Tags: evolution, generation gap, new diversity training, technology
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“Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them”
Unknown
I watched this very interesting feature on CBS news tonight about how technology is causing more than just a generational gap. Some scientists are saying that technology is actually causing humans to evolve. Apparently the younger, wired-generations, are failing to develop the normal people skills that are necessary to physically interact with other people in a business setting. Technology utilizes different parts of our brains than traditional activities; which is causing younger generations to be unable to acceptably communicate with others on a personal basis (that is with out technology). Younger generations would rather text someone than actually talk face-to-face with them.
At any rate, researchers are actually finding that Generation Y’s brains seem to be functioning differently from other ‘unplugged’ generations. The evolution that technology is causing is also making several companies to incorporate the needs and functionality of younger generations into their business policies. Ernst & Young adopted a policy that allows employees to listen to their MP3 players in the work place and is also attempting to bridge the generational gap though diversity training.
As such it is clear that technology not only changes our life but also our brains and ability to socially interact with each other. The capabilities of cell phones and the fact that we’re buying our children these gadgets earlier and earlier only complicate the situation. Whether the human technolution is a good or bad thing is yet to be decided. However, it would seem that evolution through technology is inevitable for the American culture.
Think ahead to when Generation Y is the oldest generation of consumers in the United States. The ways in which technology has influenced Generation Y will seem marginal compared to that of generations yet to come. So until this technolution we’re experiencing is complete, more and more companies will have to implement generational dynamics into their annual training efforts: and schedule a face-to-face meeting with each new employee to introduce concepts like … meeting face-to-face.
Till next time,
Arin
The All Powerful Cell Phone November 19, 2008
Posted by airyrae in Endangered Species?.Tags: cell phones, replace gadgets
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New media and its applications are revolutionizing the way we communicate and do business. I was reading a blog this week about gadgets that were killed by the advent of the cell phone. Some of the top items on the list were: pagers, alarm clocks, wrist watches, and cameras. It’s also predicted that the next high tech gadget that will see its demise via the evolving cell phone is the laptop.
Thinking about my incredible, inedible, cell phone – I can’t believe I even consider it a phone. A phone by definition allows you to have a verbal conversation with another person. But these days I’m doing less talking on my cell phone and more of everything else. As such, I’ve created my own list of items that my cell phone has replaced in my life.
Pen Memory. Why waste my time with pen memory when I can just save the content to my cell phone. If I misplace my pen drive it takes me twenty minutes to track it down the little sucker and I don’t have time to waste. Saving copies on my cell phone, which is fully capable of handling Microsoft Office, is so much easier. Who needs pen memory these days?
Camcorder. I never even owned a camcorder and since my cell phone has this capability, I probably never will.
Address Books. I think I still have one of these from back in the good old days….somewhere. But address books are now a waste of my time since my cell phone alphabetizes entries for me, reminds me of birthdays and anniversaries, hot syncs with my computer.
Photo Albums. I take pictures with my cell phone, and that’s where they sit. I’m not a scrap-booking kind of girl, or even one that will put pictures in a photo album. As such, my cell phone also takes care of this task for me.
Board Games. Monopoly, Battleship, Solitaire, and your other favorite board game. Yes we own them but my husband and I just play these games together on our cell phones when we’re bored. It so much easier to play on our cell phones than to get out the actual game.
Voice Recorders. Once again, why buy a separate gadget when most cell phones have this feature available. Unless you need to record hours and hours and hours of content, or need a copy of the conversation for business records, your personal cell phone can easily accomplish this feat.
TV’s. My digital cable went out at the beginning of the presidential debates and in the middle of a Packer’s game. Was I mad? Of course, I was mad. So I picked up my cell phone to call friends and vent, and realized that I could tune into live broadcasts via Sprint TV. Problem solved. Who needs cable any how?
Not only have cell phones replaced all of these gadgets, along with many others, but also you can back up the content of your cell phone. So if your cell is lost or broken, it’s not like you lost your photos, contacts, video or games. The added security that cell phones bring to the gadgets it’s replacing is refreshing: making it easy for consumers to leave these once loved items in their past. What other gadgets have been replaced by your cell phone?
e-Tox November 18, 2008
Posted by airyrae in Blessings and Burdens.Tags: Blackberry, e-tox, obama, privacy
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If traditional media ever becomes obsolete, I’ll feel sorry for our president. The media has been heavily covering the fact that Obama has to give up his Blackberry once he’s sworn into office. I don’t know about you, but I feel lost without my cell phone. Poor Barack: no cell phone, no e-mail, and possibly no laptop in the Oval Office. It is apparent that while new media benefits us in convenience it costs us in security. While I understand the importance of some presidential records being open to public inspection, I can’t imagine having to cut the e-cord. Plus its ironic that the very mediums that allowed Obama to succeed throughout his campaign; he must now abandon himself.
Still, I wonder what it would be like to be independent again. On the whole, Americans have become very co-dependent on new media devices. And we accept these devices as only good. Pay no mind to the fact that cell phones may cause cancer and can allow us to be easily located or tracked. I don’t want people to be able to locate or track me by my cell phone. However, if I was a parent I’d view the tracking features on my child’s cell phone as a safety feature.
But the implications that new media has on our individual privacy worries me. And you can’t even argue that at least new media is green; in terms of saving paper. While I do not doubt that our reliance on paper has been drastically lessened by the advent of new media: new mediums can’t truly be green until the processes used to manufacture them are green. The un-environmental practices that go into manufacturing the batteries and electronics alone to create cell phones and laptops offset any green end that these mediums result in.
While there are costs and benefits associated with any form of media; digital mediums are the first to threaten the privacy of the general public. One’s level of privacy and other’s access to our personal digital communications is rather troubling. Basically, you shouldn’t text, e-mail, or say anything over a wireless phone that you wouldn’t want headlined on tomorrow’s newspaper. I guess its fortunate for us that newspapers won’t be around much longer.
Till next time.
Arin
