Category Archives: Advertising

Advertising Trends & Issues on Modern Media Mix

UNI Digital Media Students Head to NAB Radio Show in Orlando!

Advertising, Home, Media Distribution, Media Management, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics, Media Trends, Radio, Technology,

Today’s the day! The University of Northern Iowa’s Digital Media students are off to this year’s NAB Radio Show! Professor Torre will be accompanying this years participants: Monica Cruise, Kaylee Daniels, Nick Langel, Gabrielle Leitner, Brandon Lynch, and Rachel Renes to the Show in Orlando, Florida. All of the participants are interested in careers in the digital media world, and conventions like this are great opportunities for students to learn more about the industry.

NAB Radio Show

The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Radio Show is an annual trade show that keeps producers and consumers in the radio industry up to par with the new things happening today like Podcasts, interactive advertisements, etc. At this convention there will be guest speakers, performances by popular singers, and booths with information about companies in the industry.

Before heading to the Radio Show, we each created a presentation about some aspect of the radio industry to share with each other. We learned about the history of radio and where it started to new technology hoping to make a step into the industry, like interactive ads. We also learned about advertisements and how important they are in the radio world.

We created a short video about what we are most excited about going into this trip:

While on this trip we want to document our adventure and what we have learned so we assigned roles for everyone so that we all are able to participate in this group project, but also do what we enjoy and create a journey shown through digital media. We have a production group, which is in charge of getting video from the Radio Show and content to put all together at the end. We have some questions we are wanting to ask some of the presenters and employers at the booths to get and learn more information on a one-on-one level. We also have a social media group to provide exciting content throughout the trip. To stay updated you can follow us @DigitalMediaUNI on Facebook and Twitter!

On behalf of the UNI Digital Media participants in this year’s NAB Radio Show, we want to give a big thank you to Professor Torre for taking us on this trip, and to the Iowa Broadcasters Association for supporting this great opportunity to gain experience in the industry!

-Monica Cruise

Is GoPro Dead?

Advertising, Home, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics, Mobile, ,

When you think of GoPro advertisements, the first thing that might pop into your mind is an ad with footage of someone on a vacation or hiking in the mountains, right? What you may not know is that GoPro didn’t make these advertisements themselves. What’s unique about GoPro is that they use their consumer’s videos for their campaigns. The question is, does user generated content effectively advertise the product and make it successful?

GoProWhen purchasing something relatively expensive we are going to want to see reviews on the product. With GoPro, you can see the quality of the camera based on the videos created with them. People may assume that since GoPro advertises with user-generated content that the videos will be low quality and shaky, but this isn’t the case. Knowing that GoPro uses user-generated content makes their advertisements seem more genuine. Consumers are able to create high quality videos and are even advertising the product themselves by sharing it online. In fact, the company more than doubled their income by saving money with user generated content. Instead of spending advertising money on video equipment, a director, and a cast they have one person do take their product, create content, and share it online.

GoProThen the company thought, since consumers are basically advertising for us, why not reward them for their work? So, they introduced GoPro Awards. Every week they would pick photographs from three different categories and the winners would receive $500.They also gave awards for video content in two different categories: $1,000 for unedited footage and $5,000 for edited footage. They created these categories so that amateurs would have a chance at winning money too. The winners of these awards have a chance at making even more money. If GoPro liked their content a lot and wanted to license it to ad agencies, the creator would receive some of that licensing money.

However, in November 2016, it was released that GoPro’s income dropped by 330% compared to the year before. They lost $84 million in three months and their stock dropped 15%. This, obviously, made a lot of their investors angry. Their CEO, Nick Woodman says the reason behind this wasn’t because they weren’t effectively advertising the product, it was because they were behind in production and couldn’t make enough GoPros to meet the demands of the consumers. See link below for more details.

After their large drop in income, GoPro created their first ever scripted TV ad. The purpose of this ad was to show people that with a GoPro you can be more “in the moment” on your adventures. We can all find ourselves hidden behind our phones while on vacations or hanging out with friends, and GoPro can help you to capture what is going on while enjoying it at the same time. But, it’s interesting that they tried to tell people to stop taking videos while taking a video. If the demand really was still high, why would they need to create this new scripted ad? See below for the ad.

I believe that user generated content effectively advertised this product at first. It was cool and exciting so see what you could all do yourself, but this soon wore off. I think that the main reason there was a downfall in 2016 was because there are many different products out there now that are cheaper and do the same thing. It seems that almost everyone has some kind of camera nowadays, so the novelty of a GoPro has worn off. Do you think that GoPro will be seeing any more success in their future, or has their time passed?

–Zildjian Bartels

A Techy Genie in a Bottle: “Just Ask” and the Amazon Echo Will Assist

Advertising, Home, Internet, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics,

If you want to order a pizza for dinner, you may look in a phonebook or the restaurant’s webpage. Maybe you want to know what’s going on in your community, so you pick up the local paper. How about some music? Turn on your stereo or pop in a CD. What if you simply asked and that pizza is already on its way, music starts playing, and the headlines are being read to you. With the Amazon Echo, it’s becoming the new reality and the “Just Ask” marketing campaign is highlighting it’s easy usage and how it’s geared toward everyday households.

Amazon

To begin, what is the Amazon Echo? Amazon released the product in the fall of 2014 to Prime and select members and then to the public in the summer of 2015. This is a digital speaker device focused on voice activation. It has the ability to play music through streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, and iHeartRadio, list off news headlines, create shopping lists, provides weather information, and even find the closest restaurants to you and order meals. If you really want to get techy, extra additions are available to hook up around your home so the Echo can flip your lights on and off or control the thermostat. Are you an Amazon Prime member? The Echo can also order products off of Amazon through your account.

How does it work? The Amazon Echo is paired with Alexa, which is a cloud-based voice service. So, if someone wanted to know the weather conditions, all they would have to say is “Alexa, what is the weather today?” and it will rattle off whether or not it will be warm and sunny and so on. To ask it questions, you don’t have to be standing right next to it either. It can recognize and pick up commands and questions from across the room.

So how does Amazon push this amazing and futuristic product? Currently, Amazon is using a marketing campaign that focuses around the slogan and hashtag, “Just Ask.” The message is pretty clear and simple, right? That’s because it wants to reflect how the Echo is used: simply. It also highlights the fact that Echo is hands free and based around voice interaction. This slogan can be seen all over Amazon’s social media pages such as Facebook and especially on Twitter. Users on Twitter are using the hashtag #JustAsk to show how they are using their Echo on an everyday basis. Along with these pages, some advertisements show the product, the slogan, and nothing else to highlight these characteristics of the Echo.

Short commercials are also being played on TV. During Super Bowl 51, Amazon produced three 10-second advertisements to showcase the Echo. An additional three ads were aired leading up to the game as well. During these commercials, something unexpected would happen and a person would ask the Echo to help solve the problem and in no time, it was fixed. Again, literally all you have to do is ask and your requests are answered and filled. If someone sneezes in the chili, just ask Alexa and Domino’s is on the way. Did you find your dog eating your awesome snacks stadium? Order more.

Earlier advertisements featured big stars like Alec Baldwin and Missy Elliot. The situations were different than the ones in the Super Bowl commercials. The stars would be in glamorous situations, like wondering what fancy outfit to wear or needing new cashmere socks, and ask their Echo for assistance, whether that be to play music or order new socks. With the “Just Ask” campaign, however, Amazon has decided to demonstrate how the Amazon Echo is not just for the rich and famous, but for everyone and can be used for everyday tasks. The campaign also strives to showcase the voice interaction. For example, in commercials with Alec Baldwin, the Amazon Echo was seen sitting next to him. In the Super Bowl ads, however, the Echo was not seen, but rather heard. These ads may also highlight that you do not necessarily need to be close to the product to ask for assistance.

The Amazon Echo has done extremely well and their “Just Ask” campaign is helping with the numbers. Everyday people can bring the future to their home. So where does the campaign go from here? In one of the Super Bowl commercials, the woman asks Alexa to order Domino’s pizza. Companies, like Domino’s, are partnering with the Amazon Echo to help push their products and services as well. It’s great the Alexa can help with cooking measurements and play music, but the next step for the product is to connect other products and services to the device. FitBit is the newest brand to pair with the Echo and people with FitBits can now ask their Echo how they slept last night and how many steps they have. This will further push the “Just Ask” campaign and expand all that users can ask the Echo and in new and various aspects of their lives.

–Casey Allbee

Nintendo is Switching Things Up: But How Effective is the Switch?

Advertising, Film, Home, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics, ,

What’s all this commotion about a “Nintendo Switch?” If you live under a rock and haven’t heard yet, the Nintendo Switch is Nintendo’s new gaming console that is both a home console and portable gaming system hybrid, allowing gamers to play games in their homes and on the go.

“Nintendo’s innovative new console lives up to the hype,” according to many websites like Vice. And they’re not wrong. Just look at the first few minutes of Nintendo Switch’s Presentation Reveal! Can you feel all that hype through all those lights, sound and that countdown?

Why is there such a hype for Nintendo’s console in the first place? Nintendo is a strong brand and has a strong fan base. Nintendo has captured the hearts of many gamers from the Nintendo 64, to the Wii, along with many of their iconic IP characters such as Mario and Link. No wonder the Switch looks successful even before its official launch!

There were many rumors about the Nintendo Switch before the official reveal. While that could be bad for the company, one wonders if those leaks were intentional. It certainly helped enhance the already existing hype for the new console. And the rumors were very detailed, stating before any crucial information about the console was officially revealed that it would be a hybrid console.

While the Wii may have been a huge success for Nintendo, its advertising campaign…wasn’t that great. And don’t let me get started on its successor, the Wii U. Even the name of the console itself wasn’t the best.

Nintendo needed to switch things up. Which is why the Switch is so perfect. It’s innovative and what the consumers want! Plus, the product itself works well, many who have already gotten the chance to hold a Switch have stated that it just feels right.

The name itself is clever and works brilliantly. It’s catchy and tells the consumer what the product is all about: switching up the gameplay. Even their advertisement as well as the Switch short animation logo are quick, simple, effective & catchy. You won’t be able to have that little animation and click sound out of your head.

The Campaign Switch!

Nintendo SwitchThe Switch’s campaign itself was fairly simple. It started out with a system reveal trailer that clearly shows what this new gaming system is all about. However, it is missing commentary and other key information such as an official game lineup and release date. The missing information may have been also used to enhance the already high hype surrounding this console.

This trailer was followed a few months later by an official one hour long Nintendo Switch Presentation which aired and was streamed worldwide live. In it, Nintendo officials showed off and explained various features and games that will be coming out the Nintendo Switch.

Many ads were also released afterwards, as well as some airing during the key time frame for American audiences: The Super bowl. Nintendo also uses a lot of social media, especially twitter to let their fans know when and how new information about the new console will be released.

The ads themselves are also well done. They aren’t too confusing, showing what the product is and its potential.

Switch up the timeline?

The most confusing aspect of Switch’s campaign, is it timeline. Why all the wait? Why was the NX (Nintendo’s Switch working title) not revealed at E3 (a summer gaming convention, known for its gaming consoles and games reveals)? Why was the Switch revealed by a short trailer with no commentary and followed with no new information for months until the presentation?

While many people argue that this is a failure of the Switch’s campaign, I see more potential in its reasoning behind it. I believe this timeline was intentional to add even more hype to the console. Since the console was surrounded by a lot of mystery and many fans, this wait made them even more excited and curious for this console. Even when rumors started surfacing that Nintendo wasn’t going to be able to make a console by March 2017 (since there was no new information regarding the console officially from Nintendo for a long time) and that the NX was already dead, everyone was getting their wallets out, excitingly waiting for any new information they could get. Carefully teasing, one by one its fans, Nintendo found a new and innovate way to hype up their new product before its launch!

The Overall Switch?

Overall the Nintendo Switch has a very effective campaign. The product itself works, its ads are simple and clear and the console is living off its hype. What about you? What do you think? Are you excited for Nintendo’s new console? Do you plan on getting it on its release, March 3 2017? Do you plan on getting it in the future? Do you think it will succeed or is it getting to much hype and will come crashing down as a disappointment?

–Clara Tosi

A Marketing Campaign as Convoluted as the Plot of the Game

Advertising, Gaming, Home, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics,

The Metal Gear franchise has a storied history over the past thirty years. The first release was in 1987 that redefined and created an entirely new genre of video game. The creator of this series is Hideo Kojima and he is well known for his convoluted story arcs as well as character development. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released in September of 2015 and is the most recent addition to join the modern console series since 2008 when Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released.

Metal Gear

In December of 2012 a trailer for a game called “The Phantom Pain” was released, featuring a fake game development studio brand named Moby Dick Studios. This sparked a keen amount of interest in this game that had essentially shown off a spectacularly crafted world but no one had heard of these developers before.

Metal GearIn March of 2013 an interview was arranged between a game journalist and the CEO of Moby Dick Studios. The journalist arrived to the interview to find a man dressed in bandages over his face. His name was Joakim Mogren, and he bore a striking resemblance to one of the characters in the trailer. Joakim refused to answer any of the journalist’s questions but he did reveal that there would be a more official announcement later that month, and he showed some photos from the game indicating that it would be running on the Fox engine.

This interview had a number of journalists speculating as to what exactly happened and how strange the interaction was. Later that month the official announcement was made at the Game Developers Conference. It was unveiled by Hideo Kojima himself with a terrifying mask dressed in bandages similar to Joakim. Hideo announced MGSV: The Phantom Pain and the community surrounding the MGS series rejoiced as they eagerly began to speculate on the events leading up to and during the game’s storyline.

Metal Gear

When the release date for MGSV was announced, they also unveiled a skimpily dressed character design for Quiet which caused a fair amount of controversy. When pressed about this, Kojima mentioned that when the game was released people would regret their assumption that she was just a sex object. But in my opinion this has yet to be seen. However, the controversy more than likely helped the game’s presence in social media and increased their visibility.

Metal Gear So, the marketing team for MGSV had to rekindle the community it had once garnished with gamers to raise awareness of the upcoming release. To do this they released a playable teaser type of game that was retailed for full price in 2014 called MGSV: Ground Zeroes. In my opinion this was a very intelligent thing to do, because not only were they able to create a product that hints at a later release. But it also gauged interest and people’s willingness to purchase a full priced game that wasn’t a complete product.

Another fairly clever aspect of MGSV: Ground Zeroes is that the game is almost entirely packed with easter eggs of self-referential content as well as a huge amount of fan service that was definitely appreciated. One specific mission in the game has you pointing a special sort of flashlight at logos of Kojima Productions as well as the various titles of games that have been made in the Metal Gear franchise.

When you point your flashlight at these titles or logos a voice will say something along the lines of “this one’s not very special” or “nice job, that’s another one” depending on whether Hideo Kojima himself worked on the game. If you find all of the relevant titles Hideo Kojima himself will speak and assume that you’ve got extensive knowledge of the series. Then he will thank the player for their knowledge of the series and their support throughout the years.

Metal GearThe amount of time that this campaign took to painstakingly create some semblance of news throughout a course of 3 years is astonishing. The constant trickle of tidbits kept the fans of the series speculating and the critically acclaimed reviews of the game helped with the recommendations through word of mouth. The game itself cost $80 million to create and on the initial release date $179 million were made and a total of 6 million units had been sold in the following months. All in all, I would say that the campaign was outlandish, counterintuitive and at times completely absurd but that’s just what fans come to expect from Hideo Kojima.

–Brigham Swanson

Pizzaslime: New Wave of Hip-Hop Marketing

Advertising, Home, Internet, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics

If you’ve been on social media within the past year, you have seen the many challenges that start trending. Your friends, coworkers, and family members all start sharing the same video and it shows up on your feed about 50 different times yet, you still manage to watch it because there’s always a new variation to the challenge.

Mannequin Challenge

Since the fall of 2016, people have been involved in a challenge and weren’t even fully aware of it.

It all started with the infamous mannequin challenge. In early October, a group of students from Edward E. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida decided to pose like mannequins in awkward poses while one person walked around them and filmed the entire outcome.

Even though just about everyone has seen and/or participated in this challenge, nobody hopped onto the trend until one particular group popularized it with the help of one new marketing company.

Rae Sremmurd’s album, SremmLife 2, dropped in August of 2016 but only sold 27,000 copies compared to the 49,000 their previous album. However, in November, SremmLife 2 went from basically forgotten, to jumping 126 percent in album sales, and rising to #5 on the Billboard Hot 200 albums chart.

Rae Sremmurd was able to rise in the charts and popularize the mannequin challenge by teaming up with a company by the name of Pizzaslime.

In an interview with Pigeons and Planes, Pizzaslime owners Stoveman and Hobin, talked about how they teamed up with their friend Gunner Safron at Interscope records. Safron needed a marketing plan for the rap duo. They needed a nontraditional method to promote Sremmurd’s album and only had a month to do so.

Pizzaslime had seen the mannequin challenge gaining traction on Twitter and knew they should aim to use that for their marketing strategy. Sremmurd members Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi decided to do the challenge that evening at their concert with all of the audience. Except, for their version they used their song Black Beatles as background music.

Once they posted the giant concert challenge online, the mannequin challenge took social media by storm. Black Beatles instantly became the most recognizable and most played song of the moment, and SremmLife 2 went from an album flop to the top.

Pizzaslime’s success with Rae Sremmurd prompted another Interscope partnership, but this time it was with Kodak Black.

Kodak Black released his song “Everything 1K” in June of 2016. However, the current most unpopular, popular, person on the internet, Danielle Bregoli, decided to put out a clothing line. During her clothing line photo shoot, the director needed Bergoli to bring more energy to the shots. In order to do bring that energy, they played one of her favorite songs, Everything 1K.

The song helped bring so much energy, they filmed a quick music video starring Bergoli. Her team sent that to Kodak Black’s team who decided to use that as an unofficial video for the time being.

Pizzaslime was part of that team that received the video. They put their name on the title credits and this is the first time we actually saw the company’s name on something.

Everything 1K instantly started jumping the charts eight months after the initial release date. The video has reached over 12 million views on YouTube and continues to rise.

Pizzaslime has capitalized on social media trends in order to promote artists, songs and albums. Songs that were basically nowhere on people’s radars, have become instant chart toppers.

It’s just a matter of time before other companies and record labels start incorporating similar tactics to get more sales.

What do you think about this new style of music marketing? Will it stick around or is it just a fad?

–Kaila Pacheco

Is That a Video, or am I Tripping?: Cinemagraphs are the Next Big Thing

Advertising, Home, Media Sectors, Media Topics, Media Trends,

No you are not tripping. Well maybe you are. But what you are actually seeing is not a video, nor is it a picture. It is a cinemagraph. A cinemagraph is a little of both. It is basically a video that is partially frozen so, while parts of it are in motion, the rest is still. While I can go into great detail about the technicalities of this new art form I will be focusing on the marketing and advertising aspect of this new, engaging medium.

Cinemagraphs are perfect for capturing a quick moment of action that can be looped over and over. Though cinemagraphs have been around for a few years, they are just making a big hit in forms of advertising and branding. They are very popular on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram where users are often times overloaded with content. A cinemagraph is a way to stick out in a sea of content. Because of their automatic play and short loop they are easy to consume and hard to ignore.

cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs can be used to create suspense

We are used to seeing photos or videos and often times our minds subconsciously skip over content we know already and by playing a trick on the mind consumers are easily attracted to this new concept. In my digital advertising class we learned about how eye tracking is giving us more knowledge on how people are consuming media. We learned that banner ads are no longer effective because eye tracking research shows that people’s gaze are going directly from the url and AROUND the banner ad to continue reading an article. While I am not able to provide data for eye tracking research on cinemagraphs, it is something that would be interesting to see.

Because of their low production costs, they are great for campaigns and marketing strategies. These are not to be mistaken for a GIF. A GIF is a low quality file and is created for entertainment and humour. There is also no aesthetics to a GIF while cinemagraphs focus more on creativity and art. A cinemagraph also creates an illusion and gets people to stop and stare. That extra five seconds of looking may not sound like a lot but in today’s world marketers and advertisers five seconds is a big deal. Like I said, they are the next big thing.

cinemagraphs house of cards
House of Cards Cinemagraph Campaign

Brands are starting to take note of this new medium to create a new form of storytelling. TV shows like House of Cards are also paying attention. Recently they just promoted a new campaign consisting of cinemagraphs to create hype for their upcoming season. More from their campaign can be found here on their tumblr site. For other examples of brands incorporating cinemagraphs into their social media campaigns check out this article from ADWEEK.

Let’s look at the benefits of cinemagraphs.

  • A new form of engaging advertising
  • Form of media that gets people’s attention
  • Cheap production costs
  • A new trend that is just beginning to take off
  • Creates higher click rate on social media sites
  • THEY’RE  F****** AWESOME!

Ad Age also recently posted a blog talking about the impacts cinemagraphs are making as well as giving some social media statistics. So now that you know a little more about this new art form you are probably going to start googling cinemagraphs, am I right? To make things simpler I am including a hyperlink to Flixel which is a program used by professionals to create visually stunning cinemagraphs. If you know After Effects or Photoshop you can even make your own. These are great for startups and bloggers to get more traffic to their site and make a little more noise in the loud advertising environment we live in.

–Josh Berendes

BOOM! Storming The Beach of Advertising

Advertising, Gaming, Home, Media Planning, Media Sectors, Media Topics, , ,

Taking on an advertising campaign is like storming a beach with no clue what you will find once you land. Boom Beach, a mobile game, literally stormed the world with its large and successful advertising campaign. From showing in-game play to humorous stories and scenarios, Boom Beach and its creator Supercell, has really shown the mobile gaming world that they know how to conquer the island of mobile advertising.

Boom Beach

Boom Beach is a mobile game distributed through the App Store and the Google Play Store. Boom Beach is a free app which was released on November 11th, 2013 and was created by the company Supercell. Boom Beach is a strategy game where users invade other user’s islands and computer generated islands. Players use their island set in a tropical archipelago to defend their treasures and attack others to gain more. The main objective is to control islands that the Blackguard has taken over and defend from their attacks. Users grown their island and get better by upgrading their troops and defenses. The game uses different currencies in the game to allow upgrades but uses diamonds as a special currency that users can purchase through the game or gain for free in other ways.

(Boom Beach launch ad)

Boom Beach released their launch advertisement on March 28th of 2014. It showed game play the entire advertisement but it included people singing humorously to the background music. That ad now has over 1 million views on YouTube. Since then, Boom Beach has put out 16 official TV commercials and only 3 of those have under 1 million views on YouTube. Clearly Boom Beach and Supercell know what they are doing.

When it comes to the content of the commercials, most of them use humorous dialog that is simple and appeals to a lot of people. They refer to the user as HQ or headquarters. In my opinion, it makes the user feel very in control and gives them a sense of intelligence. They are the ones making the shot and they have to use their skills and strategy to win the island. Their tag line is ‘Come with a plan, or leave in defeat’ which really puts the pressure on the user to have a good strategy before attacking an island. In this commercial, they make fun of the user in a sense but also show the control they have.

Boom Beach’s campaign seems to have proven very successful. According to this YouTube blog post, Boom Beach’s most viewed ad on YouTube ranked at number 4 in 2015.

(Boom Beach’s most viewed and successful ad)

And according to MarketingLand.com, two of Boom Beach’s advertisements were number 8 and number 7 on their top advertisements of May in 2015. Boom Beach has been installed between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000 times from Google Play. Google Play and the App Store also have Boom Beach at a 4.5 rating out of 5. The App Store from Apple does not show numbers on how many times it has been installed.

It is pretty obvious that through their campaign they have peaked the interest of many consumers on the mobile platform. People want to see their ads even though they are silly cartoons and people want to play the game. I know from my experience that I feel a sense of accomplishment when taking over an island. I want to build my base and feel like I can make decisions in a simple game. Boom Beach has done an amazing job with attracting people and keeping them there as well.

If you have the chance to download Boom Beach and play it for a while, do it. Millions of people clearly enjoy it and I think you would too. They keep bringing people to their app every day and I think their advertisement campaign has done a lot to help it. Boom Beach definitely came with a plan and I don’t think they are leaving in defeat.

Do you think Boom Beach has had a successful campaign so far? Would you want to play Boom Beach? Do you play Boom Beach and if so what do you like or dislike the most?

–Connor Kenney