Media Log: Summary

After analyzing my media habits, I have discovered just how much of a role media plays in my life. I now realize the most common way I stay in touch with friends is through Facebook. Between shuttle rides to and from campus, and work out sessions at the gym, I listen to my iPod almost six hours per week. While driving, I never listen to the radio, because my iPod is always plugged in. I watch about 10 hours of television per week. Add about five hours of video game play and that's about 15 hours per week spent in front of the TV. When I catch up with the news, I never read a paper. My news is delivered through iPhone apps and websites. It's scary to think how much of a role media plays in my life.

Think Piece: Week 4

Since the Great Recession in late 2007, the world economy has been rolling on a downslope. Many businesses have lost profit, declared bankruptcy, or shut down. Advertising on “print and television saw double-digit declines” (Frelinghuysen & Joshi). Fortunately, “online advertising revenues fell by just 3 percent in 2009” (Frelinghuysen & Joshi). Still, online advertising attracts minimal attention from marketers and publishers. Through innovation, advertisers can tap deep into the realm of online advertising, intrigue marketers, and gain healthy profits.

It’s odd advertising agencies still pour funds and talents into the traditional media pool. The Internet is relatively new, but the same types of advertisements have been overused. Log onto AOL.com and one will still see cluttered banner ads that have been used for years. It’s time for creative change. Advertising agencies should have their creative directors focus on the possibilities online advertising offers. Some companies, such as Apple have gained success by creating intriguing online ads. Apple’s “‘Mac vs. PC’ campaign on the New York Times, Yahoo! and Wall Street Journal sites showed a willingness to experiment with new formats—using video as well as custom ad units that interact across the page” (Frelinghuysen & Joshi). The first advertisers to follow Apple’s lead could profit off innovation.

Creating a better system for calculating return on investment will help the evolution of online advertising. Marketers may be able to know how many hits, views or click a certain online advertisement has accumulated, but it does not share other factors, like brand awareness. Marketers will be persuaded to turn toward online advertising if there is a more reliable way of analyzing consumer data. Having advertisers cross-platform their campaigns could solve this issue. Through a cross-platform, an agency could easily connect an online advertisement to an advertisement in a magazine. Marketers could then use consumer analyses to relate their findings back to the online advertisement. 

Media Log: (1/23)

I woke up today and went to school. As usual I listened to my iPhone before class.

After class I watched the movie Dive on Netflix.

I took a nap for 3 hours

I cooked steak for dinner. While cooking I listened to music on my Playstation 3.

After dinner I read a book on my Kindle and went to sleeps

Week 3

Advertising on the Internet has evolved to become an interactive, entertaining and creative way to reach consumers. As popularity for the Internet grows, advertising follows. The current problem for advertisers is the clutter surrounding the online environment. Search engines, in particular, host several advertisements that can become intrusive. Banner and pop-up ads tend to annoy, rather than entice. If advertisers want to attract consumers, then they must create innovative promotions that stand out from competitors. Another problem is accountability. Companies want to know the advertisements being paid for are reaching consumers and bringing in profit.
            Technology provides advertisers to create promotions that are interactive. These advertisements can be come in the form of games, videos and pictures. It’s up to the developers to create an advertisement that appeals to consumers and stands out from the clutter. This is imperative for the growth of online advertising.  With creative ads comes the need for accountability.

            Companies require that advertisers provide accountability. Companies want to know if their paid advertisements are attracting consumers. According to DoubleClick the following metrics are used to calculate advertisement effectiveness:

·      Post-click conversions

·      Cost per conversion

·      Unique reach of ads delivered

·      Average frequency of exposures

·      Frequency-to-conversion ratio

·      Ad exposure time

·      Ad interaction time

·      Brand impact lift vs. control ad

·      View-through rate

·      Share of voice

·      Web page eye tracking

·      Offline sales lift

·      Cross-media-mix econometric modeling

DoubleClick uses several of these tools to measure advertisements online.  Another factor that helps the progress of Internet advertising is control. Control is what consumers and companies want.

            By creating innovative advertisements that can be measured, companies will be satisfied. Progress in the advertising world will continue and consumers will benefit from the balance of creativity and accountability.

Media Log: (1/22)

Today I woke up around noon. My ear is feeling a little better. I cleaned the house for about an hour while listening to music from my Playstation 3. After cleaning, I went on a bike ride on the beach.

When I came back from my trek, I began studying and accomplishing homework throughout the Internet.

Media Log: (1/21)

Today, I woke up with an ear infection. I used the Internet to reserve a spot in line at a local Solantic Walk-In Clinic. While waiting for my call to come in to the clinic I watched TV.

I received my call and drove to the clinic. I was sent to a room immediately, but had to wait about 20 minutes before I saw the doctor. While waiting I used my iPhone to read the news on my CNN app.

After the clinic visit I watched TV, played video games and read a book on my Kindle. I was in pain and it was nice to not have anything to worry about.

Media Log: (1/20)

Again, I woke up to Fleet Foxes. Today, I had no classes, just work.

At work, I helped put new tarps on the pool. I work as a lifeguard at a YMCA. My co-workers and I enjoyed listening to Sirius XM Radio while we worked.

After work, I drove home and watched TV for about an hour. Later, I went to see one of my favorite bands, Rebelution. I bought tickets to the show on the Internet.

Media Log: (1/19)

I downloaded an alarm app for my iPhone, so today I woke up around 9:15 am to one of my favorite songs by Fleet Foxes. I drove to school to make my morning class and listened to my iPod along the way.

I take the shuttle to get to class, so along the way I listen to my iPhone. In class, I interact with media, as both classes revolve around media.

After class, I drove to work. At work, I listen to Jam On via Sirius XM Radio

Media Log: Yesterday (1/18)

Yesterday, I did not use much media. I listened to my iPod at the gym.


When I came back from the gym, I played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for about an hour. After losing the majority of games, I became very angry. I turned my Playstation 3 off.

Then I checked my email and went to sleep.

Week 2

            Using search engines like Yahoo!, Google or Bing allows web surfers to find what they’re looking for with the click of a mouse. Type the word that describes your search, click enter, and the Internet opens up. Modern technology has enabled these engines to use searches as an advertising tool. Type in “gardening” and one is sure to find several advertisements for gardening products and a list of related websites. A big push for this merge of advertiser and search engine occurred in 2007 when Google bought DoubleClick.

            DoubleClick provides ad serving. What is ad serving? Ad serving is “the act of serving, or delivering, ads to websites” (Kinnier, 2007). There are two products ad serving offers, publisher and advertising-agency. Ad serving helps publishers decide when and where to place an advertisement on websites. If one is using a search engine to find a new bicycle, the search engine will display a list of related websites. DoubleClick will help publishers find the most appropriate time and place to put their ad on one of those sites.

            For advertising-agencies, DoubleClick helps track the effectiveness of the agency’s ads. This function is crucial, as “real-time performance reporting enables advertisers and agencies to change the content, and timing of ads almost on the fly” (Kinnier, 2007). DoubleClick was valuable to Google for many reasons.

            DoubleClick allows Google to have a productive advertising system. Advertising agencies can use Google to promote products in an efficient way, while keeping track of how effective those promotions are. Everyone benefits from this system. Google attracts more advertisers, advertisers have productive promotions, and consumers receive an easier way to find they’re looking for. Since 2007, more search engines have adopted similar systems to DoubleClick, because of Google’s huge success.


Sources:
        Kinnier, A. (2007, June 26). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-were-buying-doubleclick.html

            

Week 1

            The history of the Internet can be difficult to follow. With words like hypertext, TELNET, Xanadu and MOSAIC one may become lost in the jargon. The idea for a communication network began during the Cold War after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite. President Dwight D. Eisenhower “saw the need for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)” (Gromov). This agency will later lay the foundation for what the Internet is today. After launching an American satellite within 18 months of the agency’s creation, ARPA “began to focus on computer networking and communications technology” (Gromov).

            The original goal of ARPA was to make computers more interactive. To achieve this goal the agency began to give contracts to universities. This move provided the world with the first application of a communication network. Four universities, UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah were connected through their computer systems. Kleinrock, “a pioneering computer science professor at UCLA, and his small group of graduate students hoped to log onto the Stanford computer and try to send it some data” (Gromov). The UCLA team contacted the Stanford team to confirm the data retrieval. The data was simple; “login” was the only attempted word to be sent. Stanford received two letters before the system crashed, but those two letters marked the beginning of a new era and ARPAnet.

            ARPAnet is the networking of all ARPA funded computer systems. To show the public the new discovery of connected and interactive computers, ARPA held a demo at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The demo proved to be a huge success. A text based Star Trek game “where you used photon torpedos and phasers to blast Klingons” (Gromov) was created at one demo. Networking rapidly advanced as technology improved. Today we use the same basic networking that ARPA created on a global scale. The information has advanced from simple words to pictures, videos, games and much more.