5016 What Happened in Class

First we discussed the chapter questions. This was a very lively discussion, with class members telling about various products and alternative means of advertising.

We then discussed the newspaper project. We heard a reading of the newspaper ad and talked about the focus groups. More details on this discussion to be posted here later (it's cold, it's 6 a.m., and my notes are in the car!). We set a date for the Google Adwords project and decided to go with two types of businesses, a pizzeria and a dance studio.

No class this coming Wednesday, and Happy Thanksgiving!



Readings:

Chapter 15, Questions 1, 3
Chapter 16, Questions 5, 10
Chapter 17, Questions 8, 9
Chapter 18, Questions, 5, 6


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Some articles timely to our discussions in class:

PCMag to Cease Print Publication (NY Times).
This article not only tells about why the publication is discontinuing its print edition, it gives background on other publications that have done so. There are references to what Prof. Lauro talked about in regard to the economics of print and the economics of the web. There is a second article linked in this one that tells even more, "Mourning the Decline of Old Media."

5016 What Happened in Class

The class met with Pat Lauro, the adviser for the newspaper. We learned about the history of the paper, how it is set up and how it works, and the position of the newspaper in the mix of publications available at the Kean campus.

Students turned in their political narratives.

We met in small groups for the newspaper to plan out the details of the newspaper project.

The instructor will choose the two questions from the chapter and post them here.

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Janice sent along this timely article on Google.

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Text questions:
OK, I know I said two questions but in reviewing this chapter, it all looks so interesting. Ch. 13:
questions 5,6,7. Chapter 14: 3, 9.

What Happened in Class 5016

NEWSPAPER MARKETING PROJECT • PRINCIPLES OF CORPORATE ADVERTISING

Three groups have been formed to assist in the marketing of the student newspaper:

• Marketing research group, which will conduct a focus group to learn what students think of the newspaper’s content (Allison, Danielle, Gerry, and Janice)
• Media kit group, which will put together demographics, rate card, and sample publication (Kristin, Ilaf)
• Radio/TV/youtube group, which will write a 30-second radio and TV/youtube ad (Egdanis, Olu, Ximena, Nari)


We spent most of our Wednesday, Nov. 5 class laying out the details for The Tower marketing project. Here are the details:

Marketing Research Focus Group

Focus group questions were discussed and written by the students. Kristin finalized the questions and e-mailed them to the instructor. The questions, which still need to be reviewed with The Tower adviser and staff, are:


1. Tell me about what you like to read.


2. Tell me about where you spend your free time on campus.


3. Tell me about the campus newspapers.


4. Introduce The Tower. What do you like? What don’t you like?

The date for the focus group will be December 3, and Allison Edgeley will be the focus group facilitator. We need to speak to the Tower adviser about booking a room appropriate for the focus group. Ximena will check with her department about possibly taping and we will also speak with Media/Film about getting cameras to record the session.

We discussed other audiences for The Tower, such as the graduate students and professors. For reasons of time limitations, we decided to focus on the undergraduate student body.

We will need to recruit approximately 10-12 students for the focus group. An incentive will be that we will serve pizza. Ilaf suggested that we work through the 1402 instructors to give an extra credit for attending the focus group. The instructor will contact Dr. Fitch about this, as he is the 1402 director. The 1402 students are ideal because they are from all disciplines and are not strictly communication students.

Media Kit

The kit will include a page that will not only show the sizes of the ads graphically, but the ads will be ideas for promotions and ad content that would be successful with the Kean student body.

There will be a demographics page that will explain the demographics of the Kean campus.

We hope The Tower office can obtain Kean University folders in which to insert the media kit.

Radio/TV/youtube:

We reviewed the Starbucks election day coffee video, which was posted on youtube. The instructor showed it as an example of a fairly simple-to-produce commercial. Such a commercial can be produced using stills from digital camera shoots and through use of such a program as Windows Moviemaker, which is found on both XP and Vista. In addition, we may incorporate the use of a video camera.

Next week the instructor will present to the class the benefits that are important to customers. Students need to understand the benefits so they can focus their copy on a benefit of importance to the Kean undergraduate students.

Corporate Advertising students will write the copy for the radio spot and we may turn it over to the student radio station staff to produce. The TV commercial could run on the campus’s closed circuit TV network. There is one spot on campus where video is looped and we would like this commercial inserted into that loop.

We have yet to discuss how we will use the video on youtube.

After the organizational work for the newspaper project, we discussed the election results.

5016 What Happened in Class

Oct. 30

The instructor handed back the written questions from the text, the flyers with grades, and feedback on the political narrative assignment.

She also presented projects for the newspaper advertising project. Students decided which area of the project on which they wanted to work.

We watched student agency presentations by examining agency web sites. We saw what we thought were highly effective sites and some that were not so effective.

The instructor used a .ppt to explain how creative works.

We chose chapters for the next week.

5016 What Happened in Class

We spent the first half of class discussing the possibilities of the newspaper project. The latter part of class was spent discussing the Google Adwords project.

Intrigued by the possibilities for the newspaper, I looked around for people who envision the future of newspapers. I found Philip Meyer, professor emeritus in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of "The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age." In this follow-up article, he says:

The newspapers that survive will probably do so with some kind of hybrid content: analysis, interpretation and investigative reporting in a print product that appears less than daily, combined with constant updating and reader interaction on the Web.

Here is another strong point of newspapers: community influence.

I still believe that a newspaper's most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.

Read the entire article.


Next week we will have student presentations of their agency web site and the instructor will discuss creative strategy. We will look at television ads for the Las Vegas campaign.

Students turned in their flyers and rough drafts of the political narrative project.

We are reading Chapter 10 and the questions we're doing are X and X (instructor has to look up the chapters and post back).

5016 What Happened in Class

Added Oct. 19, 10:30 p.m.: There is a digital media conference coming up on Nov. 4th:

Through November 4^th, $35 gets you access to
the exhibits and the keynote addresses.
This year is Jonathan Klein, CEO of CNN and
Shelley Lazarus, Chair/CEO of Olgilvy & Mather.

Theme: how digital is transforming ALL media

http://www.ad-tech.com/ny/adtech_new_york_register.aspx

Thanks to Janice for alerting us.
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Added 11:45 p.m., October 15: The malware protection program I spoke about in class is Webroot Spysweeper. Google "webroot spysweeper" and a sponsored ad has a $15 off coupon. :)
Note: If you get it for an extended period (mine was 3 years, I think), it comes down to a cost of around half a cent a day. The spy removal tool I mentioned XoftSpySE.

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Tonight we listened to the instructor discuss Google Adwords. This was a Powerpoint presentation that explained how the online search marketing service works. We discussed freeware. Prior to the presentation, the instructor gave the class a NY Times article to read, "Why Google Makes Everyone Else Nervous." The article told how Google has turned the advertising world upside down through its efficient way of delivering customers. Through the presentation, students learned how Google reaches customers through search and content partners. Sponsored ads are another avenue.

Danielle has a possiblity for someone who may want to do Google Adwords so this may be our means for an Adwords assignment. Danielle will be contacting the instructor this week so she can construct the potential assignment.

Next there were student presentations on agencies. Next week students will take their colleagues through the web site of their advertising agency.

We looked at several student's flyers on the overhead document cam. Students are revising their flyers to turn in next week.

Kristin presented DISC, a personality profile. She had a handout with information on this profile and she told the class how she used it in her work. This profile is important because it can indicate personality traits that would indicate success in the advertising field. "Influence," for example, would be a personality well-suited for the field.

Next we reviewed the class projects. The instructor said she was meeting with the newspaper adviser on Monday and will have a better idea of the parameters of this project by our next class meeting. The instructor took out the two papers as assignments as we will be substituting the newspaper project for one of the papers and substituting the individual advertising assignments (flyer, Google Adwords, radio/TV copywriting) for the second paper.

Students handed in a folder of their responses to the question of the chapters.

For next week:

Rough version of bulleted summary on candidate narrative. Includes Words Cited or References page. Documentation can be rough, too.

Read Chapter 9 and do questions 6 and 9.

Prepare 3-5" presentation of Web site for advertising agency.

Final of flyer is due.

Instructor will deliver .ppt of Ch. 8 with exercise related to Las Vegas campaign, so please review the pages from Ch. 8 shortly before class.

5016 What Happened in Class

Note: This is just a reminder that we dropped the one paper that was due at midterm. If you recall, we were asked to do a special project related to the school newspaper. That project will replace the midterm paper. No papers other than the answers to the questions from the text are due this week (see penultimate paragraph of this post).

Another note: NY Times article on John McCain's narrative.

We started class off by discussing the previous night's debates and in particular, we focused on what personality characteristics were displayed that served to promote or detract from the narrative for each candidate. An example cited was Obama's origins, where money and other resources were tight but where opportunity was not.

We did some followup with our previous week's exercise about the used and new car buying decision making and psychological steps. We came to the conclusion that the process was the same but the application a bit different. An example is the search for information. New car information acquisition on the internet is much more colorful than interesting than the used car, where one might be consulting state records on whether the car has ever been in a wreck. Another cited was the actual ads, where color, style, etc., might be limited to what is on the market at that particular time.

We discussed the questions from the text, with extensive exploration of the first one about the risks of celebrities.

The instructor handed out a Google adwords glossary and told students which words were the most important to know.

Next we had some agency reports, with students reporting on what agency they chose to study and why. We will continue with these reports next week.

Finally, the instructor returned the flyer assignment with feedback. There were no grades, however, as there is one final step to complete the flyers. We will go over them on the doc cam next week.

Janice told the class about the archetype profile. The link will be posted here later. She thought the profile to be quite accurate.

Next week marks the midterm, so bring the answers to each of the chapter's questions since we started doing them. Put the answers in a folder to turn in so the instructor can give you credit. It is not necessary to type them if you have previously handwritten them, but each one should be marked with the chapter and question number.

Next week:

Read chapter 8 and answer questions 5 and 10. More agency presentations.

5016 What Happened in Class

We went through the consumer buying steps. The instructor provided a worksheet which students who had purchased a car--new or used--filled out. The instructor first told what the steps were and then the students went through the steps, recalling their car-buying experience.

Next we turned in the flyers. At a future class, we will be learning how Google words work. The instructor will grade the flyers and we will look at a sample of them next week.

We discussed the answers provided to the questions from the text.

We watched a video of Joseph Campbell, who was delivering a lecture on birth, growing up, and rites of passage. The instructor then showed how ads are written that touch up on these points of the human experience.

We didn't get to the presentations about the agencies, so we will do that at the next class.

The next advertising assignment will be about buying Google Adwords.

For next week: Read chapters 6 & 7. For Ch. 6, do questions 6 & 10. For 7, 3 & 4.

Regarding predictive linguistics:

I checked youtube for the video we were searching for last night but it is no longer coming up in the search engine. There is, however, a very good program there that talks about the archetypes. It is the program that is in 12 parts (search term web bot oct 7 or click the preceding link). It is not video, but it is a posting of a Sept. 21 radio interview with the two men who run the web bot project. Also, the people who posted this recording at youtube are not the same people who run the web bots. Because the 12-part video that is posted there is of a program that people normally have to pay for, I am thinking it might not stay up there very long. You might want to save it to listen to when you have time.

This program does discuss the archetypes, so pay particular attention to those areas.

Also, here are two links that are referred to in the program. The second link is the site of one of the two web bot computer men who are interviewed at the programs mentioned above:

http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/

and

http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

The second link has an extensive entry about whether this "big event" is a global market collapse.

Added Saturday, Oct. 4:

This is a similar project to the above. The research is performed at Princeton University:

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

5016 What Happened in Class

We began the class with a review of what happened last week. Next we moved in to a .ppt by the instructor on the topic of Carl Jung, on whom we are relying in our project on the narratives of political candidates.

There were several handouts for this section of the class: a table of contents which lists archetypes and two opinion pieces by op-ed writers who have keyed in on the narrative. In class we read one of the columns (Dowd) and circled or highlighted references to the narrative.

The instructor then explained what kind of statements might be generated from such columns for the bulleted summary that will be due at the end of the project.

We also detected approximately three references to a storyline for the opposition candidate and discussed the possible narratives.

After a short break, we worked with the flyer assignment. We put the flyers on the doc cam and looked at them. Then the instructor passed out a handout of pointers on steps to constructing a flyer. The students' flyers were returned and each person was asked to analyze the flyer at each step. The .ppt showed visual examples for each point.

For next week:

Prepare agency background presentation. This is a casual presentation.
Read Ch. 4 on consumer psychology. Do the last three questions.
Revise flyer
Watch the political scene for evidence of narrative and write statements for bulleted summary.

Added Sept. 27, post-presidential candidate debate:

If you recall, we noted how Maureen Dowd referred to Barack Obama as "ethereal." In post-debate commentary, this word is used by commentator Chris Matthews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZZDIJHkGH8

I am posting the link to this clip for other reasons, too. One is that you will see Robert Gibbs, Obama's communications director. He would be a key person in determining a "story line" for Obama. As you will see in the clip, however, Chris Matthews criticizes him for not being on top of such strategies.

5016 What Happened in Class

We began class by answering attendance with the selection of an ad agency. Students told about the agency they chose and why the agency interested them.

Next the instructor told about the Agency Redbook. She then showed the Redbook database on the web. We will each take out a trial subscription for a week, starting with Janice. The instructor showed students how to enter their agency name to a personalized news page with Google (it can also be done with Yahoo). She also showed how to do it with news alerts (to an e-mail address) and the Google Reader. The Kean Library and most public libraries have the hard copy of the Agency Redbook.

Two new students joined the class, so they did paired introductions and we also finished the intros from last week.

We discussed getting the Lakoff books. A number of students had obtained the books and started their readings.

We decided on chapter questions to do from the upcoming readings (see "to do for class" below).

The instructor advised students whose books had just come in to work on the current readings and go back and catch up when they had time on the earlier ones.

Finally, the instructor gave an advertising assignment for the next class. The assignment is to design a flyer.

To do for next week:
Readings and do questions 4 and 10 from p. 107; questions 2 and 10 from page 173.
Design flyer with rough sketch. Review handout sample flyer in preparation for upcoming critique/discussion.
Prepare agency background sheet for presentation in two weeks (Oct. 1). Info you might need at the Redbook: "weekone" and "fall2008".
Read in Lakoff

5016 What Happened in Class

The instructor told about her career in advertising and the types of jobs she has held in the field. She also discussed different types of jobs available in the field, particularly with the changes brought about by the internet.

The class discussed the book. We read the syllabus and discussed the projects for the class. There is the possibility of doing a project with the campus newspaper.

We did paired interviews and began introductions but did not finish them.

The instructor showed students the blog and a link to the publisher web site.

For next week:
we will finish introductions
bring an advertising agency choice (see links at this blog and also check the Agency Redbook if you want to track a NY agency)
Read Chapters 1 and 2 from the book. For Chapter 1 do questions 5 and 9. For Chapter 2, do questions 2, 4, and 9.
Go to the web site for the book and bookmark. We will discuss it further in depth next week.
See if your local public library or McKay Library has books by George Lakoff.