Kirk Bouley: The End

I know for this last entry I was support to write about some radio talk show host here in Macon, but I couldn’t find much of anything to write about. Instead I have decided to recap my thoughts from the class. Going into this class I thought I had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do. Once we actually got started I was really surprised how interesting I found most of the subject matter. Since my dad works in the advertising field, I even found myself talking to him about some of the stuff from class. All in all I am really glad that I took the class because it made me think about many things that I otherwise never would have considered.

Thanks!

Kirk Bouley: Luxury Goods

It is no secret that the economy as of late is in the tubes. The interest rates are very low and the value of the dollar on a worldwide scale is very low. As a result of this downturn, many people have put off spending money on luxury good. Most of all people have been putting off buying new homes and cars. In an attempt to boost the market, the homebuilders are offering many incentives like low to zero interest on new homes. The major auto industries have been feeling a similar pinch in the market. They have also been offering zero interest to certain qualified buyers. Even this has not stimulated the market as much as the auto manufactures would like so even more incentives have been issued. From complementary options and upgrades to extended warrantees car companies are doing everything they can to convince people that they need to spend the money on a new car despite the poor economy. One of the best incentive plans I have seen is being offered by Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler. To compete with many of the import products, they are offering a lifetime powertrain warrantee. If was considering buying a new car in the next year of so, I would seriously consider biting the bullet and buying one now to take advantage of these incentives. Maybe this outrageous offer will be enough to get buyers out.

Kirk Bouley: Truth in Marketing

I recently received an e-mail that was sent to me just to be funny. It was a compellation of actual advertisements that could be seen in circulation in the early twentieth century. They were advertising all sorts of different things and some of the claims were obviously not true. One article was boasting about the miracle weightless aid “ Tape Worms”; and another claiming that more doctors smoke camel cigarettes than any other brand. Seeing these adds made me wonder what shifted in US advertising ethics because today that sort of thing would just not fly. I looked into it a little and the cigarette companies are the main reason that there is such oversight on US marketing. Before they released how dangerous cigarettes could be to your health, there advertisements even boasted that cigarettes could make you healthy and thin. Now that the Federal Trade Commission oversees advertising there are nowhere near the blatant lies found in the past.

 

Kirk Bouley: Music Downloads

Ever since the launch of the file sharing website called Napster, there has been a constant ongoing fight between the record companies and people illegally downloading music. There are millions of people that have downloaded countless songs. I don’t feel think that it is entirely the fault of the consumer. Before the Napster era, a new CD would cost about $20. New the cost of a new CD is about half that. I was asked to think about a possible solution to this problem. Instead of coming up with an idea that is completely new I thought about what systems we already have in place. In the US, if you have some sort of creative material that you want to protect, you can get copy write protection. I don’t see why a similar type of system couldn’t be applied to music, especially since it is a form of creative material. It would work just like a copy write. It is capable of being renewed but after a certain amount of time it can become common property. I think that if the artist wants to pay to re-release the song, that there music stays protected, if not, it becomes common property.

 

Kirk Bouley: MySpace Music

In the past an up and coming artist had to be talented and lucky. Just being found by a good record company is extremely difficult. There are countless artist that were never discovered and had to go find other ways to make a living. Its not that the record companies were not looking for new talent, there is just no way to send people to check out every local musician. Your best bet was to spend the money on some studio time and make a demo and then try to get it in the hands of some influential people. The problem is that studio time is expensive and making demos is expensive. If you didn’t have the money to put all this together, chances are good that you would never get discovered. In the last few years, artists have found a much cheaper way to get their name out, MySpace. Quite a few of the new hit bands out right now were discovered on MySpace. It is easy to set up a page that features your music and it can be accessed by anyone in the world. All of the sudden many of the barriers to entry into the world of music have been taken down.

 

Kirk Bouley: Interactive Sales

Like I mentioned in my previous entry I think there is potentially a huge market for advertising that requires consumer involvement. As I was thinking about what other industries could benefit from this form of exposure. I eventually would like to go into the home building industry so I thought of a way to tie the two together and this is what I came up with… In a field that is so based on what the consumer wants it would be very useful to get the input of your potential customers before investing the amount of money it takes to build a home. Builders could sponsor a design contest that would start with providing potential customers with a choice several floor plans. From there they would have the options the finish the interior, or even exterior, with there preferred countertops, flooring, paint, even furniture and artwork. The all of the submitted designs could be judged and the winning designs could be presented a prize. It could be anything from a discount on interior finishing to free appliances. The biggest asset to this type of advertising is the amount of excitement and word of mouth publicity generated.

Kirk Bouley: Starwars Fan Films

We were talking about Hollywood inspired subcultures. More specifically we were taking about the hundreds of star wars fan films. They range from completely original ideas featuring star wars characters to re worked versions of the original movie. These films have become so popular that there are even competitions and awards for the best fan film. My professor made a remark that he would like to se the original uncut footage to be released on a DVD that would be directed at just this kind of buyer. It would allow for even more creative flexibility when altering the footage. I started thinking that this would be a good idea for movies that have not yet made it to theaters. Film companies could release selected clips from the movie and sponsor a fan film competition. It would be great publicity and it would be pretty cheap to do. Now with internet sites like youtube distributing film clips and viewing entries even easier. While the example I gave is all about the film industry, this sort of consumer involved advertising could be applied to almost any industry. I am going to try and think of a use in a different industry and write about it in a later blog entry.

Kirk Bouley: Renewable Energy

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about “renewable energy sources”. One of the biggest potential markets for a shift in energy reliance is that of the consumer vehicle market. One of the first steps that could be very easily made is a wider variety of diesel vehicles on the US market. Not only can a well-maintained diesel engine put out fewer harmful emissions than a gasoline of similar size, it can get double the fuel economy. Not only are diesel engines naturally more efficient, they can be easily altered to run on completely renewable fuels. One of the most plentiful sources of clean fuel is waste vegetable oil that when burned releases zero emissions. The military has been producing trucks since the 60’s that would run perfectly well on gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, vegetable oil, and even alcohol. The military has been using alternate fuel sources for close to fifty years and I find it hard to believe that this technology has made the jump into the civilian market. I wonder if the major oil companies had anything to do with that?

 

Kirk Bouley:E-mail

It is not hard to find countless articles reflecting how amazing e-mail is as a tool for both personal and business use. You can easily formulate messages, send them to countless people and attach all sorts of documents in seconds. You can forward messages and best of all is it is completely free. In this day of speed and convenience e-mail has become an absolute necessity. There is no faster or cheaper way to reach volumes of people. While all of this is great, something really important has been lost in the e-mail revolution. No matter how advanced e-mail gets there will never be a way to convey the sincerity of a personal message. Even thinks like birthday cards and wedding invitations are all electronic now. I understand the use of e-mail in some settings but when we allow it to become our only form of communication we are missing out on a lot. In our endless quest for convenience have we lost sight of what communication really is? Isn’t the point of communication to make a connection with another person?

 

Kirk Bouley: Before the Internet

Before the internet, if you had an idea that you wanted to present to the public, you couldn’t. The public did not have access to the media. Media has always been expensive and time consuming to produce. Print media takes a long time to produce, is expensive to print, and expensive to distribute; and we all know the limitations to radio and TV advertisements. If an individual had an idea that they wanted to share with the masses there were very few options for reaching a large audience. With the advent of the internet also came programs like youtube and flicker. These can be used to broadcast your message all over the world in seconds. I know I have talked about the value of free media in several of my blogs before, but I had never really given any thought to life before it was around. I am part of the very first generation to be raised with the internet always available. I can see how difficult it would have been to broadcast yourself without the internet.