Sunday, November 28, 2010

Extra Credit

The only blog-like website I have ever used before RTF 305 was xanga.com in middle school. The purpose of this blog was to update your friends on what you were doing or had done. It was similar to facebook except the main focus was on writing about what you were doing or your opinions on life. The positive aspects of using a blog for this course was that I didn't have to print any pages out and remember to bring them to class to turn them in. It also allowed us to fully exemplify our ideas by being able to add media to our posts that you wouldn't be able to get that out of printed out papers turned in every week. Formatting the blog and the media I embedded was the hardest thing about the blog posts. I know basic html formatting so it didn't take me all that much to figure out how to edit it like I want it but, I could see anyone who doesn't know anything about html to be very frustrated when trying to embed videos. This website does have a very easy to use editor though so it made changing backgrounds and color schemes easy. The blog prompts that were more difficult were the ones based upon specific topics in class because the lecturer coved much of the material and there wasn't much deviation that we could bring into our blog posts. The most interesting blog posts were when we got to give our personal opinions about a facet of media and how they affect us in out lives as college students. Yes i would recommend using a blog in future classes because it is an easy way for students to write short responses for the TA's to grade them and provide feedback. Also with the ability of using enriched media and connecting it right to your words makes examples that much more effective. I would suggest making the blog less formulated because it would give people greater room for using creativity and making their blog experience that much more exciting. Overall though the way this blog has been set up was very effective and made this class more effective.

yes you can use my blog in a paper or report.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Effect of Advertising



I find this advertisement particularly powerful because it makes no sense. Ray Lewis, linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, is giving a pre-game pep talk which results in a quite bizarre description of what the heart of a champion is made of. Old Spice has had a recent streak of really strange TV commercials which has created quite a buzz about their products. It uses a few appeals but the one that is most prevalent is the affiliation with Ray Lewis. This is important because he is one of the best defensive players in the NFL and they really emphasize that aspect of his life by having him in uniform and talking in front of the team. This is influential because their target market is males 16-35, which is the primary audience of the NFL. Also Old Spice was known in the past to be a deodorant that old men used, so they needed some crazy and creative ideas that will attract younger users who are now their target audience. The general characteristics of that kind of appeal is associating your product with someone that your target audience idolizes and/or looks up to and respects. This is one of the most used appeals in that every product is looking for or using a movie star or famous athlete to push their goods. This can be very expensive for the company but is probably one of the most effective ways to advertise.