Social Networking and Its Effect on Meatspace. What's changed?

Okay, so. Today I want to talk about social media and networking. However, I want to focus less on the marketing and advertising aspects of it, and more on how it has evolved into a legitimate medium. With the recent introduction of Google's new social networking faction, Google+, and its unique features, other social networking sites have been endeavoring to keep up and compete. G+ introduces new features, namely the concept of "circles" which allows you to specify certain groups of friends, acquaintances, family, coworkers, etc.; and choose which groups get to see what you've posted (which Facebook has recently adopted). It also borrows features from other networking sites like Twitter's "status-only" form of posting, it's less direct and there is no "wall" feature like that of Facebook, although it does allow you to "tag" people in your posts with a "+" before their name. Just as Twitter (and subsequently Facebook) did with the "@".

Now, social networking sites have evolved over the past few years. I remember when Myspace and Xanga were the big deal, but nobody really paid attention unless they were in middle school. Then Facebook came along and restructured that same concept for the slightly older crowd. Now, however, social networking is no longer just a petty, self-absorbed forum on which to tell your friends what you're having for lunch, and where, and with whom, and a picture of it. I mean, well, it's also that, BUT it has become a legitimate, integral part of our society. For every Junior High School student posting song lyrics about teen drama and angst, there are legitimate businesses, charitable communities, sports teams, political organizations, video blogs, and easily-accessible celebrities. Facebook and YouTube have, I believe, played the most fundamental roles in this reshaping of how we network. YouTube videos and Facebook pages have become a legitimate medium for news, campaigning, and business networking. Facebook offers the option of making a page for your business at no cost. This provides advertising outreach to every user of the site who happens to stumble upon it. YouTube has become a place for businesses to purchase advertising time prior to videos in order to reach audiences who have reduced or abandoned television, in favor of more web-based entertainment or news. Even websites that were not originally designed as social networking sites have begun to take on some of its elements. Yahoo! has recently introduced a new feature for instantly sharing photos and publicly posted messages with all of your contacts on a social forum, and websites like StumbleUpon encourage you to create contacts with others and share your discoveries with them.

It seems strange for those of us who remember saying "Who cares? It's just Facebook." to think that potential employers have now hired entire departments of people whose only job is to screen the social networking histories of applicants with the same gravity with which they would perform a criminal background check. Or to realize that in the hustle and bustle of our increasingly busy days, a majority (if not all) of our social interactions happen on a screen. We are so desperate to stay connected with such demands on our time that smart phones are improving almost weekly to provide a more user-friendly interface with which to carry our social and professional lives around in our pockets.

Our society has shifted so much into a virtual world that now, I've noticed, starting with Google+, more and more privacy features are being introduced. We began social networking, despite its very nature, with a certain degree of anonymity. We were connected with whom we chose, just friends with our friends, and we felt free to blurt out every thought to share with the people who "got us" under the protective veil of the internet. Insecurities and inhibitions that kept us quiet in the real world dissolved. Photo tagging began, and our friends made plans to get together with the specific intention of taking photos to tag their friends in. Picture phones and compact digital cameras became constant companions to social networkers. Then parents, grandparents, and teachers got the hang of it, the younger generations became professionals, businesses began advertising their products and screening potential employees, all of our media websites began linking up with each other and offering to find our contacts from email and other website lists, our search results and listed interests began popping up verbatim in the banner ads on the sides of our screens, and that freedom to say whatever we wanted with impunity was banished to the mildewed comment sections of a few special interest sites, and bathroom stall graffiti. Social media has, for lack of a better word, infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Social, romantic, professional, academic; there are instant notifications for breaking news stories and every hobby, interest, and school of thought is represented in some form of online community. Recently, hanging on to the idea of being connected while retaining privacy or anonymity seems almost a bit naive. Though privacy features are being increased, soon social networks and media will offer us no more privacy or freedom than the physical realm, and no less pressure to adapt our behavior and profile settings accordingly.

Marshall McLuhan wrote about human beings creating and using technology as a necessary extension of our bodies in order to maintain equilibrium with our physical environment, such as wearing clothing and building shelters to protect us from the elements and give us privacy. Now that this tangible equilibrium has been reached (or can be with relative ease) in many modern societies, we are instead focusing on a virtual environment and inventing, by the same exact process, virtual tools and extensions needed to cope with it. Social networking may someday replace most or all of our face-to-face interaction and society, we may be a generation away from putting on a pair of goggles and living our lives in a world that is entirely virtual. Whatever the progression, one thing is for sure, the World Wide Web is vastly extending our World Wide World.

This Is Your Brain on Ads

Well, readers, I've probably mentioned before that I'm a huge nerd, and this post is about to bring it home. Because today, my lovelies, we will be talking about consumer manipulation through brain function.

Remember that commercial for the topical headache product that featured one woman who appeared to be really happy to be rubbing her child's glue stick on her forehead for 30 seconds? Remember how annoying it was?

  

Just in case.

Well, I was convinced for the longest time that this was the most ineffective advertising strategy in the history of consumerism. However, some recent research and consideration about the function of the human brain has encouraged me to rethink this opinion. Turns out I was wrong! Repetitive slogans, images, jingles and even repeated commercials are effective because the part of the brain that is responsible for repetitive tasks and behaviors and the part of the brain that controls analytical decision making can't seem to operate very well at the same time. One of these faculties will take over while the other pants pathetically in the background. Theories exist stating that this is why professional athletes "choke" when shooting free throws and kicking field goals during big games. The anxiety throws the analytical part of their brain into high gear and even though they've been kicking a ball for years, the simple, repetitive task becomes almost impossible. This is the same reason why it's difficult to give someone detailed directions to a place that you drive to every single day, and why I can operate a cash register just fine unless my boss is watching me. The same is true for the reverse, when you are being barraged with the same repeated phrase over and over, it's difficult for your brain to receive that information while analyzing it and making a decision. So when advertisers use this strategy, they are effectively temporarily blocking the brain function that analyzes information, while stimulating the part of your brain that urges you to apply HeadOn directly to your forehead...and not just because the commercial gives you a headache.

Abstract Ads-tract: Are creative commercials still persuasive?

This is a question that's been at the back of my mind for a few years now, and it has just recently come to the forefront. With the increase in control that consumers have over their media exposure, advertisers have been looking for ways to make their campaigns more intriguing and entertaining in an effort to reach their target audience without being skipped over by the DVR or the TiVo.

Some ads have opted to produce campaigns that are funny, clever, entertaining and feature the product they're selling. But I often wonder in this case, when watching television with friends and someone says "I love that commercial!" Have funny ads gone too far? Are they turning themselves into miniature sitcoms, selling their ads and not their product? My favorite example of this is the Miller Lite campaign. While a little annoying sometimes, I usually find them pretty amusing. I'm not a fan of Miller Lite, but I'll sit through one of their commercials to the punchline for the sake of entertainment. I feel that these types of campaigns are missing something. Yes, they are accomplishing one goal, convincing the consumer to view the entirety of the advertisement. But are they neglecting the promotion of their product, in order to focus on the promotion of their promotion?

On a related note, there are ads out there right now that are trying something a little unorthodox. Their images are abstract, sometimes seemingly unrelated to their product or service, but are meant to intrigue the viewer to the point that they stick around just to see what all the insanity is about. Like the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan.

Their slogan "Just the right amount of wrong." Is very interesting, especially to the target audience. In a way, I think that these ads in which there are odd things happening are more effective persuasions than the creative or clever punchline of a joke.

Mucus Babies. Intruders or Victims?

Oh boy, so I haven't written in quite a while. Sorry about that!

Today I'd like to throw my hat into the extraordinarily outdated ring and talk about the long-running Mucinex campaign. As you probably know, Mucinex is an over-the-counter expectorant that loosens and thins mucus to help clear lungs and sinuses during illness or allergies. The ads have featured coughing human characters, and animated, anthropomorphic phlegm people who "live" in lungs. Most of these humanized loogies are depicted as overweight, ugly, sweaty, free-loading, gruff-voiced men and women being evicted from their respiratory-organ-shaped apartments by way of forceful cough. I find this to be a totally satisfactory way to advertise a product, apparently so does everyone else because these have been running for a few years now.

Where it started to confuse me, was when they came out with Mucinex for Kids. They were fast melt packets flavored cherry and grape and all-around a good idea. However, the ads feature the same mucus monsters, except now they are children. These phlegm babies are still fat, slovenly-looking and obnoxious...but they are depicted in the dynamic of a family, living comfortably in a lung house together. In my eyes, I sort of sympathized with the little mucus children being forced from their happy home. Obviously, the fictional plight of anthropomorphic sputum wouldn't keep me from properly medicating my own child. But I think that using the same intruder-looking adult mucus people instead of the vulnerable image of children being victimized and made homeless, or even just showing more of the miserable, coughing human child would have gotten the message across more effectively. "Fat mucus is in your child's lungs. It is unhealthy. Remove it."

I would love to hear more about everyones' opinions about this. What to you think? Should they have introduced the loogie children? Or should they have used the grown up freeloader mucus men?

Domino's

Okay, so I have already missed a day, sorry. However, today I would like to present my inner debate about Domino's Pizza and their "We fixed our pizza because you told us to." campaign.

On one hand, I LOVED the idea of Domino's Turnaround campaign when it first started out sometime last year. It publicized the company's focus groups, they accepted responsibility for making junk pizzas and they not only changed the recipe, but they started showing up at the homes and jobs of the focus group members who had the most negative comments and surprising them with the new pizza. (Which I must say has improved greatly. Yum!) I thought this was a great way to incorporate customer satisfaction into their advertising and show that they were listening to what their customers had to say. I loved the idea of the Show Us Your Pizza photo contest held by Domino's, as well as the public apology ad by the CEO of Domino's for a pizza that showed up looking like it was scraped off the side of the road. All-in-all, I thought this campaign was a brilliant strategic move for the company. It made customers feel like their opinion mattered, and I'm sure that Domino's sales have shot through the roof as a result.

On the other hand...okay. You know that friend who says something quick and witty in a conversation and everyone laughs, and then they feel encouraged by the laughter and start forcing more jokes that aren't organic to the conversation? Yeah. Domino's is being THAT guy right now. The latest Domino's ads have been centered around filmed "focus groups" consisting of people who claim not to believe that Domino's puts food in their food. Really? Come on, Domino's. I was able to believe that someone said your old pizza had rubbery cardboard crust...because that was kind of true; but I refuse to subscribe to the notion that people don't believe that there are tomatoes in your sauce. So much so, in fact, that in order to prove that there are real tomatoes in your new sauce and real milk in your new cheese, you have to take the focus group to an actual tomato or dairy farm in a car with blacked out windows.

 

It might just be me, but I feel like Domino's is taking this a bit far. Focus groups and customer polls about the old Domino's pizza were pretty bad, but pretty accurate. Now that the pizza has changed in recipe and flavor for consistently about a year now, the focus groups shouldn't be outlandishly worse. That isn't the logical progression of things. There are better ways to advertise the website and the interactive map of where all your new ingredients come from. I don't buy it, Domino's. Start filming your focus groups where people say positive things about your new delicious pizza, say something along the lines of "Mission Accomplished" and move on to a new campaign before everyone gets wise and goes to Pizza Hut.

Getting To Know You: Newborn Blogger!

Okay, let's get this little confession out of the way. I HAVE NEVER BLOGGED BEFORE! However, I find myself quite often nowadays happily browsing well-organized blogs that have a defined theme. While blogs about sports, recipes, travel, education and art are abundant and stimulating, I haven't found many coherent blogs that post regularly about Advertising! So, as a passionate and interested Advertising student, my goal is to post one observation per day that relates to Advertising, Marketing, Branding, Consumer Relations and Manipulations and other things of that nature in hopes of receiving feedback and learning something new each day about my future industry. Posts will probably consist of my opinions about specific ads, things I'm learning in my classes, observations about advertising in general and questions about things I don't really understand.

I don't claim to be an authority by any stretch of the imagination, so if by some chance anyone is actually reading this and you have legitimate knowledge or insight into something I'm just noticing (probably for the first time) post it in the comments! I'll do my best to cite my sources in an easily accessible format. Please, if possible, do the same! My plan is to treat the extensive blogging community as an educational resource that, in my case, has gone far too long untapped.

In the interest of actually introducing myself, I suppose I should probably do that. Ahem. My name is Alyssa. I am (technically) a senior year Advertising student at an undisclosed University in Pennsylvania. I'm currently also double minoring in African History and German Language. I'm fairly loyal to a few brands and I might occasionally allude to them, but please don't hesitate to recommend things. I'm interested in knowing a little about everything, so I often get distracted in my education. Some see this as a weakness, but I believe that it has ultimately made me more open-minded and well-rounded. I'm fairly nerdy. I enjoy things like music, herbal tea, sports, baking, reading, beer, technology, food, photography, and homework (really). I like to make bad jokes and puns pretty often, so if you find them cheesy...well...sorry. I also use a lot of commas. I'm not sure if that annoys other people or not, but my English teachers were just always really aggressive about the correct use of commas.

So, in honor of my very first post, let's all agree to act like adults, check our facts, express our opinions kindly, cite our sources, and keep our minds open!

[This might go without saying, but, if you, the reader, find something I post to be unpleasant, offensive, or just downright wrong, please try not to take it personally. Feel free to let me know in a calm, rational way. I may not be a seasoned blogger, but I am certainly no stranger to the dreaded comment section. While I'm not very easily offended, I'm hoping we can all present our disagreements in a way that doesn't try to hurt anyone's feelings, you know, like grown-ups. If comments start to appear that contain (excessive) profanity, spam, insults, threats, or anything I consider to be intrusive, offensive, or mean-spirited, your post will be deleted and you will be reported.]