Augmented Advertising

The growth of augmented reality has brought about many changes to the technology world and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. The market is predicted to grow to around 90 billion dollars by 2020. One big reason for this growth is actually because companies want to showcase and advertise their own products more personally to the consumer. They are tired of the boring way to advertise.

A trend that has been on the rise for companies, is the ability to produce interactive ads for their audience. They are allowing customers the ability to do more than just read words of off a billboard. There have been many concepts and ideas that have been getting proposed. As a person who is constantly being exposed to this type of technology, these ideas will most likely happen in the next couple years. We are already seeing it with different apps that allow people to virtually try on clothes to see what it would look like without actually being at the store. These weren’t the only ideas that have been in motion or used. Many ideas include being able to hold up your phone on a busy street and looking through the camera and being able to see what businesses are in the line of sight of the camera. This would advertise a countless amount of businesses so this is definitely the future of advertising. These are just a few of the thousand ideas that are out there. There are also countless of apps that have these ideas already working. So it is just a matter of time before it becomes the mainstream of the way to advertise.

PRing Like a Girl

Public Relations has been a growing industry for a few years now. While I have found it to be my perfect fit for me, I feel like all the women before me should be praised. For International Women’s Day, PRWeek put out an article that opened my eyes a little. The article is called “Celebrating women in PR” respectfully, but for me it helped me realize how many women from a different background do just what I want to do for a living.

The article talks a lot about while these women should be praised daily, they are still fighting for equal pay in female dominated industry. To be exact 3 out of every 4 PR pro is female. The article also included article coming soon that would be celebrating the women in the industry. The part that struck me the most was the actual list in the article, I had never realized how many women I had to look up to just by reading PRWeek. The article reads, “take a bow Diana Bradley, Maia Samuel, Joann Whitcher, Brittany Aron, Kara Giannecchini, Allix Berkman, Livvie Zurlini, Aleks Vayntraub, Lindsay Stein, Alison Kanski, Carrie Gavit, Tracie Palmer, Chaeli Marinelli, Jennifer McLaughlin, Kim Cataldi, Louise Boyle, Edelyn Sellitto, Emma Golden, Tracey Harilall, Adele Durham, Maggie Keller, Anna Naumoski, Nicole O’Neill, Amanda Hassler, Bianca Andia, Kisha Allison, Rinagrace Sapang, Katharine Volpe, Jourdan Davis, Carmen Burgos, Donna Santarpia, Paula Fox, Lindsay Maraviglia, Crystal Zhang, and Taylor Pisani.

While I have recently become familiar with what I need to do to achieve my career goals, I have always wanted to find women in the exact field I found interesting. I followed a few on Instagram that I knew of before today. After reading this article it has become prevalent that not only am I passionate about PR, but that I will always be able to fit all of my passions into one job. PR, music, and social justice. I can follow their stories and one day hopefully be a part of it all, by not only being in the PR industry but fighting for equal rights amongst women in the workplace. Especially a woman dominate industry.

Game of Ads

Game of thrones has been one of the most talked about TV series in the last 100 years. The trailer for the newest upcoming season alone has garnished over 37 million views in just 3 days. This TV show is larger than life and now has transcended fictional TV and into actual reality.

Game of Thrones fits into advertising because it has slowly been causing companies to tip toe the line of infringing on intellectual property. You may not know this, but companies have been using characters from Game of Thrones for commercials to advertise their product. Let me tell you, I am all for it. There is something so satisfying about seeing your favorite character from Game of Thrones advertising KFC chicken. I personally feel like this is a bonus to both companies because technically, the company that is advertising its product isn’t actually stating that it is a character from the show so they aren’t crossing any boundaries. Not only that, but they are helping the show advertise because they are causing people to continuously talk about the show. It causes people to think about Game of Thrones when it could be the last thing on their mind, thus growing the brand. All in all I love this trend and I would like to see it from more companies, involving more than just Game of Thrones characters.

Mercedes-Benz celebrates Bertha Benz

In honor of National Women’s Day, Mercedes is honoring Bertha Benz, wife and business partner of Carl Benz, founder of Mercedes-Benz. The Benz’s were automotive pioneers and the automaker has made a campaign in honor of her memory.

The four-minute film titled “The Journey that Changed Everything,” chronicles Bertha Benz’s journey in her automobile-like, motorized carriage, in what is considered the world’s first long-distance drive. The company celebrates Benz’s confidence and vision, which was instrumental in Mercedes-Benz’ foundation.

The ad tells the story of Bertha Benz’s 12-hour drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany to visit her parents in 1888. She did this in order to prove the skeptics wrong about her husband’s new technology.

The ad is shot like a western with modern stylization, conveying the fear of the people as Bertha comes into town, thinking she is a “witch.”

After her carriage breaks down, Bertha went to the pharmacy to find fuel because mechanics didn’t exist and fixed her carriage as the townspeople watched. Benz’s tenacity helped pave the way for the Benz Patent Motor Car, which has grown into arguably the world’s most renown and well-known car brands, synonymous with luxury and affluence.

Facebook Bots are hurting Local Restaurants

Social media bots have been troublesome ever since people started using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The are basically accounts that are solely made for a single purpose. Whether it’s to anonymously troll other accounts, or to simply boost the amount of followers of a single person nonetheless, they are annoying.

Since the early 2000s the caliber of these bots have amped up a notch. They used to be easy to spot: a picture less profile with no posts and probably follow a weird amount of people. Unfortunately, bots can sometimes look exactly like real accounts, and may even have posts on their pages.

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Facebook has recently found itself in some more hot water concerning a local restaurant who reported have low ratings due to Facebook users. A whopping 71 one-star reviews showed up in their feed. But the question is: are these genuine reviews from dissatisfied customers? Well, probably not.

All 71 of the one-star reviews, were all posted on the same day and time. Which leaves the Facebook to believe that they had been rated by random bots on Facebook.

The restaurant owners are upset about this because it makes their service look bad and now when people search to see if they want to eat there, they’ll likely completely over look it because of a 2.5 star rating.

Although technology has progressed over the years, it seems as though it is still extremely hard to pin down people who create these bot accounts. Especially since these individuals are working to make sure these bots mimic the accounts of real individuals.

https://thetakeout.com/71-one-star-facebook-restaurant-reviews-single-day-1833156587

Facebook adds feature that allows users to respond to Instagram messages via Messenger

Facebook announced earlier this week that users will soon be able to respond to Instagram and WhatsApp messages through their Facebook Messenger app. They hope that this will add a heightened sense of convenience with users between platforms. I think this is an awesome feature given that you can’t respond to Instagram direct messages if you’re on another platform besides a mobile device.

Owner of Pavos Extreme, Anibal Fuentes Perez, was selected to be a beta tester for this new software. Perez said that this unified messaging feature helped significantly with customer service issues. “It speeds up my work and has facilitated communication with my clients, especially during busy periods such as Christmas, when I received a large influx of messages,” says Perez.

Mark Zuckerberg announced this unified messaging system alongside his plans to integrate Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. I really think that this feature is going to help out the corporate side of social media, specifically the customer service aspect. Right now, I assume that Facebook customer service personnel probably have to switch between all three different messaging applications when responding to users. Hopefully this integration helps make things a little easier for them. On the public side of things, I also think that users will enjoy having the ability to check all their messages on one platform.

Zuckerberg hopes that this integration program between the three apps is completed by the end of 2019 or early next year. Facebook intends to get this done quickly, so I assume that they are going to do everything in their power to get this update out sooner rather than later.

https://marketingland.com/facebook-pages-will-soon-be-able-to-respond-to-instagram-direct-messages-256708

International Women’s Day in Advertising

A 1956 print ad for Budweiser ran side-by-side in The New York Times today with a modernized version for International Women’s Day.
Budweiser

Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, let us look at how agencies from all over the world are making changes to the stereotype way women were portrayed and how they are challenging gender stereotypes to empower women!

Budweiser is reprinting their 1950s ads that portrayed women as the stereotypical housewives. Showing their original ad side by side with the new ones, Budweiser portrayed a woman who is empowered to enjoy a refreshing beer with her female pals, something we won’t be able to find in ads in the 1950s, where women are often stereotyped as either domestic obsessive housewives, selfless nurturer, sex object and just a supporting character for a male protagonist.

Budweiser has partner up with #SeeHer, an initiative launch by an ANA’s Alliance for Family Entertainment, that aims to create a more accurate portrayal of women in the media. The goal is to see a 20-plus percent increase in the accurate portrayal of women and girls in ads by 2020. Data has shown that women, although making up half the population and make most of the household purchase decisions, are not as well represented in ads compared to me, who are four times as likely to appear in ads than women. Men also received seven times more speaking time than women and are portrayed in a diverse age range while and usually only feature women in their 20s.

Dream Crazier by Nike

Nike has always been a big supporter to empower women. Their spokesperson, Serena Williams, is no doubt one of the most powerful athletic in the world, yet she often received less recognition as compared to her male counterparts. Nike decision that they did not want to shy away from the issue on how the world is making women feel. The ad was created so that the world can see that women deserve as much respect and appreciation as man in sports and in life.

While in Amsterdam, in honoring International Women’s Day, 72andSunny, wants to show people that boobs are just boobs. Women’s breast is often sexualized in ads and breastfeeding women are often stigmatised. The ads just want to show people that we all have boobs (Male or female!) so there’s nothing to make a big deal about.

The Problem with Freedom and @2020fight

In January of this year a problem broke out with a misleading Twitter account. A twitter account posted a video that went viral. This video showed the political and religious tension happening in our country at an anti abortion rally. A Native American man named Nathan Phillips stepped into a group of Catholic boys wearing “MAGA” hats to pray over them. The boys were apparently disrespectful. The virality lead to the Catholic school the boys attend to look into expulsion. Many people ended up being hateful to them on social mediums. When you read one of the articles below, you can see that Phillips and the students actually both seemed to have “good intentions” and were not very upset with each other. Social media took off with this video and made it their own. Thousands of people had signed an online petition started by a graduate of the school to remove its principal!

The virality of this video is chilling. Yes, we love to share videos that turn us to “awe” but we also love to share controversial videos. Rob McDonagh is a social media analyzer who explains why this account is probably not the most honest. The handle @2020fight is the one who shared the video. This account has over 40,000 followers but was not verified. The account was also saturated in political posts, posting over 130 tweets daily. These sort of numbers, and the amount of shady followers says something about the accounts credibility. The account also has a fake profile picture of a Brazilian man. CNN pointed out this weird behavior of this account and Twitter suspended the account. Twitter took a while to take this down, MdDonaugh says that it is because this traffic and virality makes Twitter better and they are not looking out for the good of society.

There are a couple problems here.

1. There is not a lot of regulation on Twitter where things like this can be prevented. They only are addressed once the damage is done.

2. The freedom to share videos, comment with hate, or create accounts with ill intent – hurt our unity but somehow unify Twitter’s popularity and profits.

This being said, there is a disconnect here with the outcomes of virality. Some things are blown out of proportion, sometimes virality can bring justice to circumstances. Do we have too much freedom of speech, sharing, and creating?

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/23/687619696/suspended-twitter-account-plays-a-role-in-misleading-viral-video

Instagram continues to be a game changer of social media

Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has been the game changer of social media. Experts have predicted that Instagram will soon surpass the OG of social media, Facebook, in the near future, becoming the most popular and profitable platform on social media. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to many.

When Instagram was gaining its popularity between 2010 to 2012, many people see it as a hipster app, where you take pretentious photos of your latte and throw in a filter to make it look good. Slowly, Instagram started to add in more features. Each time when a new feature is introduced, despite the wave of uproar at the start, many users soon accepted it and embraced it. From allowing users to post videos on their feed to allowing portrait photo format to IG story and to even now, IGTV, Instagram has come a long way. But each feature was a strategic choice that makes the app better and it has succeeded at making the user spend more time on it.

Right now, Instagram is trying to grow its IGTV but since it was launched, the result has been lukewarm. Although Instagram engaged a few creators who have a significant following to engage people to watch IGTV, many people are still turn-off by the vertically-oriented video.

Instagram knows it very well that the reason why IGTV did not take off is that video rarely look nice in a vertical format (this is why we created widescreen!) and it is always hard to tell a story using it. So, the solution that Instagram came up with was to challenge some of the world’s most creative people to show users how to make vertical video looks good in a native ad on ADWEEK.

In the article, creators from all over the world dissect the reasons why the vertical format is difficult to work with for storytelling and video production. Then they continue by showing example and tips on how to shoot in vertical format. After reading this article and seeing the creative example, for the first time in my life I’m loving the vertical video format.

I started to see a lot of potential in IGTV and how it will get really trendy very soon because after seeing all these creative vertical videos many people would be inspired to create their own vertical video and be one of the first adopters of this video format and IGTV.

When creators make videos that are aesthetically pleasing, people would naturally want to spend their time watching it. The fact that Instagram has become an all-in-one app (update function, messaging function, story function, polls, live video etc. ) means that there is a huge potential that other platform can become obsolete if they don’t catch up with Instagram when it comes to innovation. In the near future, IGTV might even surpass YouTube!

https://www.adweek.com/sponsored/the-worlds-most-creative-people-show-you-how-to-master-vertical-video/?mvt=o&mvn=0556ac8f77ef4474bf61919d89dac452&mvp=NA-ADWEEKRESPSITE-11238673&mvl=Homepage+Multi+Creative