Showbiz

As I was doing research for my economics paper, I stumbled across a couple advertisements for American Idol on economics websites. The advertisements featured the American Idol cast helping Haiti victims, which I though was a really nice effort to bring attention to a problem. I'm sure there was some self interest in this pitch to enhance the brand of American Idol, but as long as this image is supported by action, I dont care.

The shows themselves, usually mean nothing. In fact, a Washington Post article explains how little the writers know about the season finale. The writers seem to admit that they will leave a lot of questions unanswered. I wonder if the finale will just be someone waking up in the middle of a night and proclaiming, "boy that was a really crazy dream". I think there would be massive protests and even riots if that happened. The Oakland Raiders fans would lock themselves in their houses and cry if they saw what Lost fans were doing. Some people I know are so hooked on shows like Lost and Prison Break that I only hear them talking about that crap.

On a serious note, I think it is important to take a look at what role these shows play in a persons life. If the answer is actually a major role, there might be something wrong with you. Spike Lee was right when he told our school that reality T.V. is crap that will pollute our mind. Instead, I think looking at a daily show episode might be more productive to giving you news that will make you a more informed citizen.

This is a total recall

As if on cue, this past month most of the major auto companies have been recalling their vehicles. Schwarzenegger approves.

Let's start with the basics. Toyota. We all know that Toyota recalled most of their vehicles because of faulty break pads and a sticky accelerator. This month at a European car show Toyota officially apologized to the European consumers for their faulty products. Out of the nearly 8.5 million cars recalled, 2 million were sold in Europe. Ms. Andrea Formica, Vice president of Toyota Europe says, "All the vehicles currently being produced meet the highest safety and quality standards." I mean I really hope so. I just want to point out that this was "being done" before and during the recall so this statement is nothing more than vague crap. I mean even the fixed cars are still broken according to some Americans. In the embedded article, Stewart Stogel, a free lance journalist tells us how his Camry accelerated and the breaks did not engage immediately, resulting in Stewart to almost hit a wall. Ok, fine, everyone makes mistakes even if its with peoples lives on a large scale. How bad can it be?

Oh great, Nissan recalls 539,864 cars to fix a break pedal problem. Apparently Nissan sold faulty models and parts to the US. From the embedded article, "Fred Standish, a spokesman for the company’s U.S. unit in Franklin, Tennessee, said there have been no accidents or injuries related to the flaws and that U.S. regulators “didn’t pressure or push the company” to recall the vehicles." http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-02/nissan-to-recall-539-864-vehicles-to-fix-brake-pedals-gauges.html>

So this is an "us and them" type of deal huh? The Japanese are selling us bad stuff are they? At least we have good old American cars that can be relied on. I mean really whats left to screw up... tires? Steering? Flip a coin. Heads is tires, tails is steering.

Tails Never Fails

Mergers and Partnerships, another example of convergence culture

Mergers and partnerships are a common sight in the corporate world today. Much like the Power Rangers, these giant corporations morph together to create even bigger creatures.

Some mergers create efficient corporate machines that are very sucessful, but others just boggle our mind. One example of a ludacris partnership is McDonalds with Weight Watchers. Let me repeat that for those of you with a short attention span, MCDONALDS IS PARTNERING WITH WEIGHT WATCHERS!

From the article: "
In the new deal, McDonald's will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and tray mats. Weight Watchers will promote McDonald's to dieters."

At first I thought this was a genius way for McDonalds to make you fat and then send you right off to Weight Watchers, which would in turn create an intense craving for McDonalds making the cycle go full circle. Unfortunately, the people at McDonalds dont have as sick of a mind as myself. Instead, Mcdonalds will lure the people who are looking to lose weight (who are ironically the biggest eaters) with the Weight Watchers symbol, but these people will most likely consume a lot of food, including non "Weight Watchers" entres. Smart, but literally deadly. (Picture found here)

Another merger that has stirred up some legal controversy has been the T-Mobile (Owned by Deutch Telecom) and Orange (Owned by French Telecom). The merger was approved by the European Union after they agreed on a network sharing agreement to help out competition.

Facebook advertising

Since new media is a popular mechanism with which consumers (mainly young consumers who happen to be the most likely to buy) shape their lives via collective information, the information present on new media outlets is very precious for advertisers. However, since the content on new media sites is personal, advertisers need to be careful not to creep out the users. Since the advertisers want to target people interested in their products, an advertiser will pay for you to see the advertisement if you have selected certain things as your interests on facebook. For example, I have a lot of hockey ads on the right side of my facebook page at the moment. This is a good thing for advertisers because anyone who knows me, knows that I love the sport and am always interested in new developments surrounding hockey.



I read a New York Times article about advertising on Facebook, and the article focused on poor advertising techniques on facebook pages. The article mentions a woman being advertised "Plan-B" or the morning after pill. This did not go over well with the women who did not want her sexual behavior to be questioned. ouch.

I have to agree with The Times that sometimes advertisements on facebook are targeting the wrong people. I myself have seen an ad for a U-19 rugby team and the picture below it was a bunch of women huddling in a circle. I have no idea how that is supposed to entice me to play rugby or why would I even play rugby.

Actually, I dont really care how misplaced the ads are on facebook, because I dont want there to be advertising clutter on my facebook page. If advertising stayed away from facebook I dont think I would be very upset.

Dominos Pizza has been going through a "re-evaluation" process in the last couple of months in their advertisements as a public relations campaign. Admitting that your pizza sucks seems like a very grown up thing to do and yet it is a reverse psychology pitch that has probably never been seen before. The Washington Post examines it here. The commercials stand out from other commercials by startling the consumer with a critical reflection of the franchises pizza taste. Even just by standing out, this advertisement will ingrain the Dominos brand into the memories of consumers. Standing out of the clutter is key for advertisers.

Here is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH5R56jILag

Well the results are in. Dominos has doubled their profits in a year. The combined effort of their advertising campaign and enhancing their pizza recipe has actually produced results during the worst economic times. Of course, Dominos has been lowering the price of their pizzas and designing "deals" such as two medium pizzas for $11.98. This three pronged attack on our wallets has obviously been successful and should force other fast food restaurants to compete with Dominos.

Welcome To Google, Kansas!

The mayor of Topeka, Kansas has anounced that he will rename the city to "Google" for a month. The mayor of Topeka has renamed his city to Google in order to entice the company to test out their new internet connection that operates at 1 Gigabite a second. This is a very

interesting step to take as a city. I want to point out how the power dynamic has changed in our society if a town has renamed itself in order to entice a giant corporation to test its new internet program in their city. It seems that this is either the most lobbied and corrupt city in the world or the consumer has gone to extreme lengths to have a taste of a product. Unfortunately, it looks like the latter is true in this case. Usually it is the case that large corporations play fetch with cities and government entities in order to be able to sell and market their products to the people. It is alarming that we have become so accepting of corporations as a pet dog is to his master. (Picture found here) The reason this is alarming is because corporations are designed to create profits and not always look out for the peoples best interest. With this mindset a corporation would not care if it hurt someone if the profit margin was satisfying. Because of this, I think we should be careful to how much power we give corporations over our lifestyles.

Ok, enough rabble rabble. What is actually going on in Topeka? Well google has a broadband connection that has the ability to send information at the speed of 1 Gigabit a second. Is that a lot? Well according to this guy the average speed of broadband in america is 3.9 Megabits a second. One Gigabit is 1024 Megabit. So this connection speed will be 256 times faster than the average broadband speed. Woah.

Maybe Google, Kansas doesnt sound that bad if you put it that way. Just kidding.

The negatives of new media

New media may be a great and entertaining tool for people in the world today, but we must be careful not to bow at the altar of new media.

There are certain negative aspects of new media that must be addressed.

The negatives of new media:

-New media is very free from censorship and is anonymous in many ways, so the quality of the information presented on new media websites is unknown. Not only is it possible for my little brother to post online about politics, but the people posting information might be lying. Whether they are lying for strategic reasons, or just out of jest, the information picked up on twitter can be totally false. In fact the "people" posting the content might be fake.




-There are times when information can be very dangerous, especially if the truth is not something that should be shared with the public. If the "truth" will put people in harms way, it should not be totally withheld, but a strategy of informing the public is usually necessary. Panic is not an easy thing to contain once it has fully developed. This can be anything from someones sexual preferences, to top secret government plans.







-The fact that not everyone is an expert on what they know is an important negative aspect of new media. I may be able to tell you what I see happening in front of me, but usually people are not experts at articulating and explaining why they see what they see. Old media outlets usually hire people with expertise to report on subjects that require a thorough understanding of the subject. In this way, information that might be "true" can be understood in the wrong way by people with no knowledge of the news story.

- New media does not value scholarly writing as much as old media does. Grammar and style mistakes are overlooked in new media. In newspapers, journalists and editors pride themselves on their ability to write well technically and they pride themselves on writing interesting articles.