DCS- Online Ethics

Ethics and Regulation are “hot” words in the advertising industry, they refer to regulating content and the way they talk to people.  As of march 1^st 2011 The Uk code of non-broadcast advertising expanded to include online, relating to misleading advertising, the protection of children and social responsibility. The CAP code can be found at http://www.cap.org.uk/The-Codes/CAP-Code.aspx.

Ethics are important to any company as they need to rely on consumers having trust in their brand so that the can therefore be loyal.  If a brand has any negative publicity regarding ethics or social responsibility then they are likely to see it affect their brands status and customer following.  They will also be very unlikely to attract any new customers. Now that online advertising has become increasingly popular, companies also have to worry about everything they do in their online adverts but also on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Social media can be a good way to gain brand awareness for charities, there are many ways in which they can do this, by having a page where people can donate to a cause, having an intereactive application where you do something which will raise or donate money or just by having a pag to make people aware of what the cause does.

The website , http://www.squidoo.com/top10facebookcharityapps has compiled a list of the top 10 charity applications on Facebook and each one has different ways which people can get involved with donating or raising money for the cause.

I personally think that social media can be a good way to advertise your brand but you need to make sure you are ethical and show you know your consumers and can relate to them.  However, I don’t think that brands that use a “world disaster” to gain publicity for their brand are very ethical with using online media, for example with the search engine Bing, asking people to retweet a message with their name in, saying they will donate money to the Japan Tsunami appeal everytime someone does, on Twitter.

References:

http://www.cap.org.uk/The-Codes/CAP-Code.aspx.

 http://www.squidoo.com/top10facebookcharityapps

DCS- Digital Activism

“Activism the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations or protests etc. “ (Dictionary.com)  There are many ways to show activism, but as the digital world has continued to grow, it is more commonly used online. . The meta activism project builds a toolkit that allows online potential activists to become politically and socially active. Mary Joyce ( Mcmanus, 2010) said that the “practice of using digital technology for political and social change” Facebook and Twitter amongst other social media platforms can be used as a means of protesting and using digital activism. A good example of how Facebook has been used as a way of trying to actively change a social norm was in 2009 when there was a Facebook campaign launched to get “Rage against the machine” to number 1 instead of the X Factor winner. The group claimed that they were fed up of the predictability of the music charts and the success of “The X Factor”. According to the creators of the campaign Jon and Tracey Morter the campaign started out as a “ silly idea that makes you laugh in your own home” ( BBC News, 2009) These platforms are often very cost-effective and bale to reach many people at the same time. 

Digital activism follows a hype cycle :

The hype cycle has 5 stages,  the technology triggers a buzz, there is a peak of inflated expectations, a trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment and a plateau of productivity.

In regards to Twitter a recent article on the BBC News page discussing Oprah winfrey’s first tweet on air during her programme, which led to a 43% increase in traffic to the Twitter website  because eof the Oprah effect. However, Twitter has only just peaked in popularity but one of the co-founders Mr Stone said that “ if the early response to the service had not been so positive, it would probably not have survived” ( Shiels, 2009)

Is digital activism a new way to express feelings for change and actually get a result at the end of it? Or is it just a way of causing nuisance? Let me know what you think.

References:

Dictionary.com, definition of Activism. Available from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/activism [ Accessed 20th march 2011]

Macmanus, R., 2010. Digital Activism: an interview with Mary Joyce Avaiable from: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digital_activism_an_interview_with_mary_joyce.php [Accessed 20th march 2011]

Shiels, M., 2009 Can Twitter survive the hype cycle? BBC News  Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8015777.stm [Accessed 20th march 2011]

DCS- Is there such thing as absolutely private?

Privacy if often described as the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one’s private life or affairs. With today’s growing technology is it possible that anything is truly private?

Take Facebook for example , there are so many different elements which come under “privacy settings”, you have to go every single thing separately , wall posts, photos etc and check if you want friends to be able to see them, friends of friends as well or everyone.  Although up until recently they had sort of generic privacy settings which just had everything under one heading and you chose who could see it. However, when it was switched to the new privacy settings it didn’t alert you and you didn’t realise that it had changed the settings. I only found out because someone said something to me about it and I looked and had to change all my settings because it was automatically set so that everybody could see everything on my page.

It’s a bit worrying to think how easily someone could gain access to details of your life through something like Facebook. I personally used to put a lot of things on Facebook without even thinking about it, but after hearing some horror stories on the news I now think twice about it. You hear stories about people saying that they’re going on holiday on Facebook and then coming hoem to find it that they have been burgled because it was evident on Facebook that no-one was going to be there.

 Big news articles in recent years concerning privacy online have been things like the Wikileaks, "The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies" (Leigh, 2010) and in 2007 there was the “lost” disk of 25million UK Child benefit recipients personal details.( BBC, 2007) These stories show the casual nature in which sensitive information is dealt with.

Yet after these horror stories we still willingly put things on Facebook and enter our bank details online to various websites.

So with the complex and fast moving area is it always going to be possible to know if something is actually going to be kept private if it says it is? Well I think in the short term the answer is no.

References:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privacy
Leigh, D., 2010 US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis Guardian.co.uk Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis [Accessed 13th march 2011]
BBC News., 2007 UK families put on fraud alert. BBC News.co.uk Available from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7103566.stm [Accessed 13th march 2011]

DCS- Product placement- good or bad?

As of the 28^th February this year, product placement will now be allowed in the UK. This means that brand can pay to have their products featured on a television or radio programme. Obviously, as with every from of advertising there are a set of rules which coincide with this, which can be found at http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/commercial-references-television/. So the question here is , is this a good thing or a bad thing that it has been allowed in the UK? And will it lead to certain brands dominating the market?

Well the first piece of product placement was on “This Morning” and it was by Nescafe, it signed a £100,000 deal to feature its Dolce Gusto coffee machine for 3 months in the kitchen area. Now having watched the clip I don’t think it’s actually too obvious that it has been placed there on purpose. Being honest, I didn’t know it was by Nescafe either it just looked like a normal coffee machine that could have been bought from Asda. Now if all product placement is going to be this subtle is it really going to be a problem? Well I don’t think so because if you think about it,  in everything we watch films, soaps and even documentaries there are products being used , so what’s the difference if a brand has paid to have that product there?  No I don’t think there is going to be much difference.

However if we think about the fact that certain brand may try to dominate the market through the use of product placement then it’s a different story.  For a strong brand such as Cadburys then product placement can simply reinforce brand awareness and subtly target their audience in ways they feel necessary. However, a less well-known brand may struggle with using product placement successfully because they may not be able to afford to compete with stronger brands to reach their target audience.

I think that product placement has good points and potential bad points, but I think it is definitely something to monitor and watch over the first few months of use, to see if it can achieve anything for specific brands. 

References:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/commercial-references-television/.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/disciplines/advertising/nescaf%C3%A9s-dolce-gusto-first-product-placement-advertiser/3023909.article 

DCS- Seamless Branding

Seamless branding is all about enhancing the consumer experience, digital can be one way in which this is possible. There are many ways it can be done digitally, through social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, through mobile phone apps or even microsites. These are all ways in which the consumer can actually interact with the brand. I for instance, “Like” the brand Cornetto UK on Facebook and this is now a way for me to interact with this brand. I can see information about its latest products and any updates appear on my homepage. 

Most brands now have a facebook page which they regularly update to inform consumers about their products or services. I think this is definitely a way forward, because of the high proportion of people using social media sites like Facebook, if they can access information about brands they like without having to go on to their websites they are more likely to take notice of the brands profile because they are not having to leave Facebook. An advantage is also that if , like me , people see they someone has “liked” a brands page on their homepage, they will think “Oh, I like that brand” and press like straight away without thinking twice about it and there we go, they now receive updates from that brands page constantly.

Another digital way of enhancing the consumer experience of your brand is through things such as mobile phone applications. A good example of this is the “Wetherspoons” app, in which if downloaded can direct you to the nearest “Wetherspoons” pub. This allows consumers to be able to access the brand very easily. They are being informed of how to get to the pub and whereabouts the nearest one to them is. Many companies now have “apps” which are available for their consumers to use, Tesco have the grocery scanning app, Aviva has an accident claiming app and even Topshop has an app which is updated 5 times a week and claims to have over 300 new styles added.

As someone who uses apps, I think that this is a good way to enhance consumer experiences. With an app like the “Wetherspoons” I would definitely use this and find it useful because I have been in the situation before, when your visiting a place you’ve never been before and looking for somewhere to eat and you don’t know where anything is and you think oh a spoons will do but you don’t have a clue where one is. An app which is going to take you directly to the desired brand will be a hit because people are lazy and don’t want to have to figure out things for themselves, or if there anything like me they don’t want to stop and ask someone directions!

I think that digital can be very effective in enhancing consumers’ experiences and it does relate to seamless branding, because it can easily give people information about a brand without directly advertising to them and a lot of the time people are choosing to interact with the brand and are actively searching for the information.

References:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/topshop/id355683626?mt=8 

DCS- Mobile

It was only a year ago that I got my first smart phone yet I feel now as though I wouldn’t be able to cope without one.  My old Nokia phone was perfect all I needed it for was texting and making calls. Now, my Android smart phone allows me to take photos, video call, send texts and multimedia messages, keep up-to-date on Facebook and Twitter, play games, download numerous apps, listen to music and many other things.

Mobiles have been developing constantly since they arrived in the 1970’s. From the basic 1G , first generation of wireless technology mostly in the form of analogue to 4G which has higher speeds and a higher capacity at a lower cost which can lead to enhanced performance, it supports video streaming and has world wide access.

Denso Wave in 1994, created a two dimensional bar code which would allow its contents to be decoded at high speed, calling these bar codes “ Quick Response Codes” . They can be lcicked on and taken to a mobile site. QR codes can be relevant in the world of advertising and marketing because they can be highly useful in getting a brand or product noticed through the latest technology. However, not everybody with a smart phone is going to be interested in using QR codes. They can be placed in magazines, a newspaper, and posters or even embedded in a internet ad.

Stump et al (2008) said that “Mobile enables consumers to stay in constant contact with others; allows them to gather information, entertain themselves, and engage in transactions; and serves as an important element of identity construction and expression for many individuals.” For many people having a new or up-to-date mobile is very important, it is about social acceptance and being seen as “cool” especially in younger generations, people often talk about what applications they have on their phone and what they use them for, which could lead to the QR codes being used in response to advertising and word of mouth.  QR codes are the biggest driver of traffic to mobile internet.

Mcstay, (2010) claims that “mobile represents a range of opportunities for advertisers, sponsor and marketers” he said that one of the benefits of mobile advertising for businesses is the “ ability to target of-the-moment and close to real-time sales messages” This along with the benefit of mobile marketing being personal and trackable can be reasons why advertisers should start to use mobile marketing more.  Mobile advertising has been increasing quarter-on-quarter, and was worth £28.6m last year (Guardian, 2011)

This along with online advertising poses the question whether with all this increasing technology, will traditional advertising become less popular and relevant in years to come ?

Please feel free to comment if you have any opinions on mobile advertising.

DCS- Interactivity

Interactivity can be defined as “two way influence” and also can be described as “many-to-many” communication.  When talking about “two way influence” there are three areas to think about, Choice- there are 200 channels on the TV but although this is a lot to choose from it doesn’t mean it’s interactive. The second area is Involvement- books and films may “involve” us but we cannot influence them therefore it is not two way. The final area is Active Audience- the interaction between memory and the imagination means we are active when we consume media  but again we cannot influence it , so therefore it is not two way.

Two types of interactivity that are important are person-to-person interactivity and person-to-machine interactivity. Person-to-person interactivity allows communication between people, it may be described by the number of people it can reach, the speed of communication or the ease of use. Person-to-person interactivity dominates web and mobile phone communication and allows a much higher degree of person interactivity than traditional media.

Steuer, (1992) defines Person-to-machine interactivity as “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time”, it may allow person interactivity and like Person-to-person interactivity the web has high potential for this form of interactivity.

You often can’t tell the difference between person-to-person or person-to-machine interactivity, because sometime an interactive function uses both.  There are certain cases where each one is more relevant. In terms of social tasks person-to-person interactivity is most appropriate and person=to-machine interactivity favours things like the task of information searching.

Deighton and Kornfeld believe that where the consumer is concerned there are five paradigms in which relate to how consumers use media differently. These are:

1.       Thought tracing- people search the web for information or entertainment.  Businesses can infer states of mind from the content of the search and then serve the relevant advertising.

2.       Ubiquitous connectivity- people integrate always-on-computing into everyday life. Firms can exploit information on proximity and pertinence to intrude.

3.       Property exchanges- people participate in anonymous exchanges of goods and services.  Firms compete with these exchanges rather than participate with them.

4.       Social exchanges- people build identities within virtual communities; firms can sponsor or co-opt communities.

5.       Cultural exchanges- people observe and participate in cultural production and exchange. Businesses offer cultural products or sponsor their production.

They argue that the developments in” interactive technologies in the past decade lead to the conclusion that direct marketing is not appropriate for interactive marketing”. They felt that in terms of marketing, interactivity needs to be used to facilitate people’s identity projects.

To use interactivity effective, the needs of the consumer need to be fulfilled, through social exchanges or even through the search of information, for example on Google. Advertising on Google can be effective to businesses because it is not getting in the way of their information search, it is simply relating to their search and therefore will appeal to the consumer.  

“In the age of digital communication anyone who has the power to harness technology has the power to harness political and social power itself” ( Rheingold). This can easily be applied to the world of advertising and marketing communications.  If advertisers and marketers use technology to their advantage to reach consumers they can gain social power. The power of the crowd is an area in which could be seen as important to advertisers because of the use of User Generated Content, if they can use interactivity into these areas they could use this means of digital communications to successfully gain the needed social power for their brands.

References:
Deighton, J and Kornfeld, L., 2007 Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing,and Consumers Available from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5783.html [Accessed 13th feb 2011]