In the end I have to say that I really enjoyed the Trends in Advertising class. I liked the way the class was organized, with one specific topic looked at every week. I also found these topics to all be very interesting. There were a lot of things that I had no idea even existed before taking this class. Hell it was this class that really led to me discovering Twitter, as I hadn't given it much attention beforehand.
It's one thing to have an interesting topic, it's more important to make sure these topics are presented in an interesting way. I felt in this class they really were. I was never bored and the fact that this was an 8:00 AM class really says a lot right there. It's very rare that I make an effort to get to an 8 AM class, let alone one that is on a Friday morning, but I was never dreading having to come to Trends in Advertising. The workload was good too. Just enough to feel like you were learning something, but nowhere close to being overwhelming.
Overall I highly enjoyed this class. I actually learned some things, and was always geuinely interested in what was being presented. I don't really have any suggestions on how to improve the class, because I really do feel it's fine the way it is now.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Final Blog Post
It seems to me that these days just about every major (and minor) company is using media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, in order to gain some publicity. Any company who has not started to use these forms of advertising is considered to be out of touch and is also missing out on a significant part of the market.
One large example that comes to mind right away are those bizarre free gifts that you can give to people on Facebook. They aren't always of branded products. Sometimes they are merely pictures of a dog or something. However often they are connected to something, like perhaps a movie that is being released. I still remember when Friday the 13th came out a few weeks ago how many of these Jason masks I received over Facebook. This is something that is very common. There are all sorts of branded Facebook gifts and it is a very smart and subtle way for a company to gain exposure. Some of the companies and products that I've seen take part in this include: Skittles, Ford, just about every movie studio (and often TV station) that exists, Hershey's, and many, many more.
Twitter is becoming bigger and bigger all the time too. It's a little strange because it wasn't even really on my radar until maybe a month ago. Now I've really started to notice just how many companies are involved with it. Just about every website I go to now I notice a link that says you can follow that company on Twitter. I've now started to do so and it's really amazing some of the things they can do. You can get updates on news storys from a variety of sources. You can keep up to date on movie and DVD releases, which is something that's great for me. Even Torrent sites are up on Twitter now, updating you on all the illegal files you can come and download. There's something pretty mind-boggling about that. Although I do think a lot more companies are using Facebook as a tool at the moment, you can really start to see how many have learned about Twitter and what it can do for them. I think Twitter is something that we're going to see start to grow and grow even more as time goes on.
I really do think that any company who is not using these types of sites for their advertising is really missing out a huge oppurtunity. There is really no reason to not use them because in addition to getting a great deal of exposure to a very large audience, it doesn't cost anything. Plus it brings in a level of interactivity with the consumer that you really can't get with any other medium. This is why so many companies have started to use these methods, and that number is just going to continue to grow.
One large example that comes to mind right away are those bizarre free gifts that you can give to people on Facebook. They aren't always of branded products. Sometimes they are merely pictures of a dog or something. However often they are connected to something, like perhaps a movie that is being released. I still remember when Friday the 13th came out a few weeks ago how many of these Jason masks I received over Facebook. This is something that is very common. There are all sorts of branded Facebook gifts and it is a very smart and subtle way for a company to gain exposure. Some of the companies and products that I've seen take part in this include: Skittles, Ford, just about every movie studio (and often TV station) that exists, Hershey's, and many, many more.
Twitter is becoming bigger and bigger all the time too. It's a little strange because it wasn't even really on my radar until maybe a month ago. Now I've really started to notice just how many companies are involved with it. Just about every website I go to now I notice a link that says you can follow that company on Twitter. I've now started to do so and it's really amazing some of the things they can do. You can get updates on news storys from a variety of sources. You can keep up to date on movie and DVD releases, which is something that's great for me. Even Torrent sites are up on Twitter now, updating you on all the illegal files you can come and download. There's something pretty mind-boggling about that. Although I do think a lot more companies are using Facebook as a tool at the moment, you can really start to see how many have learned about Twitter and what it can do for them. I think Twitter is something that we're going to see start to grow and grow even more as time goes on.
I really do think that any company who is not using these types of sites for their advertising is really missing out a huge oppurtunity. There is really no reason to not use them because in addition to getting a great deal of exposure to a very large audience, it doesn't cost anything. Plus it brings in a level of interactivity with the consumer that you really can't get with any other medium. This is why so many companies have started to use these methods, and that number is just going to continue to grow.
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