Today is Word Aids Day (December 1) a day that is meant to teach awareness on the disease, how it is transmitted, and how it is treated. These sites are using their prominent status on the web to promote education and raise money for Aids. YouTube partnered with Alicia Key’s foundation, Keep a Child Alive, by streaming her concert live tonight. They only ask for donations of five dollars that will go toward medications and research of HIV/Aids. Twitter asked that users tweet with certain hash tags and words that will turn their posts red and thus help raise awareness. And even a small amount of money will be donated towards the fund for each tweet. Facebook, Google, and Flickr used similar techniques to raise money and promote the importance of the day.

Media professionals of the present and in the future should take notice of this article because of the representation of the newest trends in Internet usage. More and more often organizations are turning to the Internet to promote their events or products. And why wouldn’t they, the Internet is relatively free and is capable of getting a message out to millions worldwide in a short amount of time. The National Aids Trust (NAT) was able to better promote this prominent day in Aids education and research by turning to these social networking sites and search engines to promote their cause.

This article also affects Generation Y in several ways. One, Aids affects Gen Y more than ever because they are living with the disease but are also expected to manage and possibly cure the infection. From a media stand point, this article also appeals to Gen Y because of the Internet usage. Gen Y is pushing the limits of the Internet – from entrepreneurial efforts of creating new online companies to the straight consumerism of social networking site, search engines, online catalogs, and the list goes on. NAT realized this movement to the Internet and in order to target Gen Y, they went straight to the Internet to publicize their World Aids Day. 

This growing trend of using the web to promote products and events instead of traditional media outlets is changing the media landscape. Ten years ago NAT would have used magazines, television, and even radio to promote their upcoming event but now in a new generation of quicker and easier, the Internet was their most important asset when promoting. The Internet is creating a new media landscape that takes magazines, television, and radio and puts them all in one place for everyone to easily have access to. Though this article is about raising Aids awareness, it is also showing us what the magnitude these newest media outlets have on our world.

Gary Vaynerchuk

I have discussed Generation Y in previous blogs but to recap their ages range from approximately 1979 to 1995 and they are obsessed with the internet and all the options it has available for them. This factor is what Vaynerchuk and Careerist Bloggers rely on for the success of their enterprises.

Vaynerchuk started his internet career with the creation of Wine Library TV. He has completed 772 shows as of today and has no intentions on stopping any time soon. Guests to the show include Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel, blogger Tyler Coleman, and even his father Sasha Vaynerchuk.

Vaynerchuk didn’t stop with Wine Library though. He has since signed a multi million dollar book deal for his newest book Crush It, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, GQ, and Time. He has also made appearances on CNN, Ellen, and Night Show with Conan O’Brian. Most recently Vaynerchuk started a website with his brother AJ called vaynermedia. The goal of the website is to teach brand equity to up-and-coming companies as well as established fortune 500 companies.

He enforces the idea of using the internet and all of the tools it has available such as Facebook and Twitter. He says that customers of today don’t want to be talked at but talked with and interacted with. According to Gary these sites allow these corporations the availability to interact with customers as if they were at a “cocktail party.” At a cocktail party both sides share about themselves and have a conversation. This keeps the company from just talking about themselves and continually pitching their business deal. Gary says “caring about the customer” is what has made him successful.

Brazen Careerist Bloggers also shares this central idea of caring for the customer. They care by creating career opportunities for individuals who wouldn’t normally have them. Brazen Careerist preaches that most are hired for jobs due to networking and who they know, especially for those who are fresh out of college and have little or no experience.

“Other professional sites allow you to display a network, but not necessarily build one. Microblogging resources like Twitter can tell you who you should network with, but it’s tough to build a real relationship on 140 character missives. And social networks like Facebook are great for having a conversation, but it’s a conversation that employers don’t want to hear.” Brazen Careerist brings the best of all three of these organizations to create one place for networking and resume building possibilities.

Vaynerchuk and Brazen Careerist will succeed in their separate entrepreneurial efforts because they see that the future lies in the hands of Gen Y. They see that this young generation is becoming the work force, the consumer, and the seller. For a company to excel in today’s world they have to learn to appeal to this elusive generation in all aspects of their life using the tools and technology they use…the internet.

I like this commercial because similar to other Geico advertisements it is funny and consist of a clever dialog.  My favorite commercials are usually comical or have some time of happy/uplifting entertainment value.  When the pothole begins to talk her brainless banter about not having a cell phone because she is a pothole it gets me laughing every time.  

The ad is memorable because of the almost annoyingly overdone accent that is used for the pothole.  For hours after I can still be caught repeating “oh shoot I got no phone cuz I’m a pot hole….soooo…”  If you were to ask me though before I wrote this blog what was the product that the advertisement is representing…I would have guessed maybe a tire company.  So the commercial is memorable but as for effective, maybe not so much.

In this ad, Geico is saying that no matter the accident they will help you quickly and efficiently…I don’t personally carry Geico as a car insurance so I have no idea if they are “good” as they claim in their ad.  Even though for the most part this ad is straight forward, the puffery could be the way Geico makes it seem so easy to get your car fixed and back on the road after an accident if you use them.

The only stereotyping in this ad would be the voice of the pothole.  They used a high pitched women’s voice with a strong southern accent to represent the pothole and then made her stupid.  The idea represented by the ads it that women with this type of voice are probably ditzy.  Am I really offended by the ad though?  No, I see the innocent humor it in and only find it funny.

The target market is pretty much anyone who owns a car.  When I first saw the commercial it was during a Sunday night football game.  But I have since then viewed the ad in primetime television during a variety of differing shows.  The ad is appealing to the target market and does catch the attention of it audience.  It is quick but to the point and still funny and memorable.  The only criticism I would have is the brief representation of the actual product: Geico’s Emergency Road Service.

Even though I do like the ad and I have never heard anything negative about Geico’s insurance, I did not switch my car insurance to Geico after viewing the commercial.  That may be because the commercial was too entertaining and not actually convincing enough…or it could be because I really have no need to switch my insurance right now.  Something the commercial has accomplished though is if I were ever searching for new insurance in the future Geico would come to mind because I would remember “this funny commercial I had seen a while back.”

According to Steve Outing writer for PoynterOnline there are “11 layers” or ways for citizens to become citizen journalist. He believes that “two-way conversation is an imperative characteristic of most citizen journalism, yet it appears to remain threatening to many people in the journalism and publishing professions.” Sites that he recommends that offer user comment opportunities are: InsideVC.com, PoynterOnline, and ZDNet.com.

Outing names several other ways for citizen journalist to incorporate themselves with traditional journalist. The most common of these methods is blogging which is an inexpensive but very powerful tool for non-journalist to express their thoughts to a large majority. Citizen journalists have also been known to write whole articles for citizen-journalism web sites such as MyMissourian, Westportnow, and iBrattleboro.com to name a few.

During the 2008 presidential campaign Huffington Post recruited 12,000 volunteers to gather news on the campaign for their citizen-journalism edition, Off the Bus.   Amanda Michel was made “editor of distributed reporting” for the edition. Michel believes that the debate over citizen reporting replacing traditional is irrelevant to the actual practice of journalism. “By focusing on who is doing it and making that the most important criteria, I think we actually lose sight of what journalism is.”

Though is has been controversial from its birth, citizen journalism has done nothing but expand its reach on the public and prove its necessity in our modern society. A big step for citizen journalism started with the Dan Rather incident on 60 Minutes in 2004. Dan Rather produced supposedly authentic documents that contradicted President George W. Bush’s service in the Air National Guard. Bloggers pointed out inaccuracies in the document such as the “modern, computer-based font” used for a 1973 typewritten memo. The claims were later retracted.

Later that same year a tsunami hit Southeast Asia that destroyed the coast. Tourists caught the damage on film and distributed it via social networks and blogs. The London bombing of 2005, the Virginia Tech massacre and the California fires of 2007 also displayed the power of citizen’s ability to distribute faster and better content photos than the organized press.

Then in 2009 when the U.S. Airway 155 passenger airplane crashed into the Hudson River, it was Twitter user Janis Krum who was one of the first to break the news on Twitter with a detailed tweet and photo of the incident. Later traditional news organizations picked up the story but they relied heavily on the first hand accounts that were distributed by citizens. It is incidents like these that have instilled the importance of citizen journalism and the impact it has on our lives.

Last Tuesday, my Survey of Professional Media class had a guest speaker.  We knew that our speaker was a local communications professor at Lindenwood but not much else.  But when Rift Fournier began to recite his endless resume, we were blown away.  It seemed to me that with every new story he told it involved another job he had held. 

With a name as unique as Rift though, he was bound to live an interesting life.  His name originated from the rift that was caused between his parents when deciding a name for him.  Thus his “independent” mother went behind his fathers back and named him Rift.

His work history includes everything from working in children’s television, to teaching math and English in high schools, to working on a Norwegian cop show which won many awards in Norway.  Popular shows that Rift has worked on include:  Matlock, Charlie’s Angles, Mike Douglas Show, and Kojak to name a few.

I enjoyed most what Rift had to say about education and the role he believes it plays in your future.  He says that it’s more important if your education in well rounded and diverse than having an important sounding degree.  He said that when he went to school he wanted to be a writer but because he was constantly told that that was a ridiculous field to pursue, he got a degree in philosophy and psychology and a minor in chemistry instead—none of which did he actually hold a career in.  He does believe they played apart in how he went about his television career, though.

To students today (myself included) this is a huge relief.  I’m 21 years old with less than two years left to finish a degree, if I want to graduate on time, and I’m still second guessing my decision.  In fact I really want to study history but up until a week ago I thought this wouldn’t get me anywhere and now it’s too late to completely change my degree for the fifth time.   If only I had heard Rift speak my freshman year, “it’s not what you study but that you went to school at all…The purpose of college is not just to teach you but to teach you to learn.”

Rift also enlightened us on his opinion of current television.  “I think in five to ten years local television stations will be history.  I don’t think that’s bad its just evolution,” he says of stations local stations like FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC.  Shows that Rift likes and feels are well written include 30 Rock, The Office, NCIS, and especially Madmen on AMC.  He says that Madmen represent where he started out and that it is “fabulously written.”  He said that when he and his colleges started in the television industry they “believed they could change the world.”

 After hearing Rift speak, it’s hard to not to also feel the pride this man has for the live he lived and works he produced.  I only hope to be as satisfied and proud of my career as he is of his.  “Being an artist is a very moral service.  Being of service to my bothers and sisters and allowing them to see more of the world is a real privilege.”

Tiger Woods on the Mike Douglas Show.

Irene Taranhike, a citizen of Zimbabwe, explained this concept to me. “They [the Zimbabwe government] have every right to ban media and they have before.”

She went onto explain several instances that she could recall some type of media being censored from the public. “I can remember when they banned a song because its lyrics referred to the president in a negative light. Also a popular TV show was kicked off the air because it spoke accurately of the government. That means they presented both the bad and the good facts. The government is very particular about what types of messages are presented to the public about them.”

Living in an Internet centered world I have heard of the censorship that governments have placed on countries but I wondered to what extent the restrictions are for Irene in Zimbabwe. “Out of all the Medias the Internet is the most lax when in comes to censorship. The government probably wants to ban certain things on the Internet but right now they are just not technologically cable. It is probably the best place to find information. TV, radio, and newspapers; the government has their hands on all of those.”

 

Zimbabwe President: Robert Mugabe

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Despite the culture shock Irene received from our more explicit media, she does say it is much more entertaining. “I feel that Zimbabwe shows are geared toward an older more conservative audience. Most of our entertainment television comes from South Africa or Botswana.”

I always took the United States media freedom for granted. As I grow older and get to know more and more citizens of other countries I am realizing that the freedoms in the US are unheard of in many places of the world. Speaking with Irene has given me a new appreciation for the American freedoms.

At 70 million people, Generation Y makes up 25% of the population.  They are raised in blended homes where both parents are working, they are encouraged to reach for the stars and that they can be anything they desire.  The expanse of technology that is prevalent in their day to day activities is considered common knowledge by their peers.  They are more aware then ever of the environment and how they can play a role in its well-being.  Yet, with all of the differences between Gen Y and other generations, 89 percent state to hold traditional beliefs in God according to Google Answers.

With such a large population and a radically different outlook on life, the demand is high for companies to appeal to this new age group.  They are spending more money than their parents but their taste is drastically different.  This is creating problems for old favorites such as Nike and Levi’s. 

“So how do you reach these 71 million “Millennials” that spend over 200 billion dollars annually and will soon replace the baby boomer generation as the largest percentage of the workforce?  The answer is simple—you STOP marketing to them” (Bea Fields).

I love this concept.  Generation Y doesn’t want to be talked down to or tricked.  They love honesty and authenticity.  Bea Fields goes on to say there are four factors that are important to the Generation Y consumers:

            1. Cheap cost

            2. Good quality

            3. Fast service

            4. An ‘experience   

Field’s uses Apple to explain her theory.  She says that Apple’s 99 cent download is cheap, fast, and produces good quality.  The experience is music.  By using this four part equation Apple is able to create successful products.

Blogger Sarah Malarchy would argue that Apple’s online presence is the key to their popularity.  She blogs “the buying tendencies of the echo boomer is very computer orientated.  Anything digital makes your product or company more appealing. If you don’t already have a website, develop one very soon.”

Though modern technologies are important and prevalent in a Gen Y’s lifestyle, traditional methods have been known to work as well.  According to a 2005 survey by the US Postal Service a marketer is more likely to grab the attention of their audience using snail mail as opposed to TV, radio, or internet advertising. 

The Survey states that “young consumers rate 75% of their mail valuable.”  It also says that “70% are more likely to open and read credit card offers by mail rather than e-mail.”

With this mesh of traditional and modern marketing it is surprising that any companies have managed to thrive in this diverse market.  Companies such as Apple, Facebook, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull are learning to adapt though.  But it won’t take long before there is another brand at the top of the market with this quickly changing culture.

Whatever the reason for my lapse in knowledge of this key figure in media explorations, the fact is he revolutionized a whole new thought process. At the height of McLuhan’s popularity in the late 1960s he had world wide recognition.

He was sought by key figures in academia, mass media, and big businesses…Captains of industry and world leaders invited his counsel. He spoke wherever and to whomever, with an unbridled passion.

McLuhan was born July 12, 1911 in Edmonton, Canada. He would continue onto college in Canada and would spend a good majority of his adult life teaching at the University of Toronto. During the 1950s McLuhan began his research on the different outlets of communication and how each is perceived.

Over the years he adapted a very catchy phrase “the medium is the massage.” This would later become the title of his best-selling book published in 1967. McLuhan’s basic message is that it’s not what you’re saying but how you say it. He says that the best TV is “TV that is not scripted and live.” He also says that “TV should be watched not made” and the best interactions come from spontaneous conversation.

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McLuhan coined the term Tetrad as a scientific method for the public to evaluate our culture. The Tetrad consists of four questions:
1. What does it (the medium or technology) extend?
2. What does it make obsolete?
3. What is retrieved?
4. What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?

What this means is that every media is an extension of a human attribute. The car is a common used example when explaining McLuhan’s theory of extension.
1. The car is an extension of the foot.
2. It makes travel by walking obsolete.
3. A faster mode of transportation with increased comfort and decreased effort is achieved.
4. Over-extension reverses into obesity from lack of exercise and a want for a simpler lifestyle like that of the walker.
Other than his famous book The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan has published several other works that support his theory as well as produce other ways of viewing and understanding media on a similar scale.
• The Mechanical Bride: The Folklore of Industrial Man (1951)
• The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
• Understanding Media (1964)
• War and Peace in the Global Village (1968)
• From Cliché to Archetype (1970)
• Take Today: Executive as Dropout (1972)

McLuhan died on New Years Even of 1980, never giving him the opportunity to see the way media would change with the introduction of the Internet which hit a booming success rate in the late 90s and new millennium. It would have been interesting to know McLuhan’s alternative views on this key figure in the “global village” and influential staple of society.

            The passion that I love is reading.  When I was in high school my English teacher gave me a list of 101 recommended books by the College Board. I have made it my goal to read every single one of those books and try to own them all as well.   I love all stories, even the ridiculously boring ones.  I feel that no matter what it is that I am reading, I am learning.  Even if what I’m learning is to never recommend this book to someone else.

            Some of my favorite authors are Jodi Picoult, George Orwell, and Lois Duncan.  Some of my favorite novels are Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and Animal Farm.

            The passion that motivates me is well simply enough my future.  The idea of one day being able to pay my own bills, own my own house, and sufficiently manage my life without calling on my parents every time something goes awry  is a pretty nice dream.  So I push forward with college and make plans to continue onto my masters, despite my dread of a new semester every August and January. 

My favorite YouTube Video: