Budweiser gets the Best of Us-- Blog Project One

 Drinking and Driving. Everybody has heard the spiel to not do it, but how often do people often pay attention to the commercials or the ads that advocate against drunk driving? We pay attention to the ads that capture our hearts and our attention, but too often are the ads still ignored. This ad caught my attention because it was an ad that, although I don't drink, got me right where it counted. I have three dogs, whom I love dearly and the thought of them waiting for me to come home makes me sad, and to even think about them waiting for me to come home, when I can't because I was out doing something stupid and got myself hurt, or even worse, killed, is probably one of the worst things imaginable. Which I why I think Budweiser really used our emotions to put more consideration into whether or not we should get in the car.

  This Budweiser Ad starts out with a man bringing home a yellow lab puppy named "Buddy." As it progresses it shows Buddy and the man playing together, going places, and in general just being together. The song that is playing in the background is called "Friends Are Waiting" by Dan Rodriguez. The pair shares a day at the park, a meal of peanut butter, a wake up call, and a trip to the lake, but towards the end, Buddy is left at home while owner goes out to drink with friends. Buddy is left by himself overnight and whimpers, waiting for his owner to come home. As he waits the screen goes black, and words come up saying "for some, the waiting never ended". Buddy continues to wait, and when his owner finally comes home, Buddy is ecstatic. The pair is united after the owner explains to the dog that he didn't want to drive home after drinking, but that he was back. As for the product placement, it was what the people were drinking at the lake and what was on the table when the pair were sharing peanut butter.  Budweiser had previously used a yellow lab puppy in their 2014 Super Bowl ad, which although it wasn't the same puppy, they were from the same breeders. They produced the 60 second, digital broadcast only, ad in part with Momentum Worldwide as part of  Global Be(er) Responsible Day. I personally first saw it when I was visiting Youtube one day.
   The primary persuasive technique that is used in this ad is hidden fear. Everybody is afraid of losing someone they love, and it's hard to even think about it. Most of us refuse to. This ad brings into account that our human companions aren't the only ones that would be waiting for us to come home. The hidden fear is portrayed through the use of story telling. The story telling is portrayed two different ways, one is that it shows Buddy growing up, and the other is the as Buddy is growing up, the pair are going on adventures, such as the park and the lake. The story telling is effective because it goes to show how the pair has bonded  over time, and how Buddy misses his owner when let alone. That's when the hidden fear comes into play, because Buddy is waiting for his owner to come home, and when the screen says "For some, the waiting never ended," the worst is thought, and it is assumed that the man is never coming back, but he does come back, and it's a happy ending for everyone.
Interpret:
  Budweiser tends to associate themselves with friendship and good times in their ads, and this one was no exception. Buddy and his owner were close and they went on many adventures together. In their famous 2014 Super Bowl, also know by #bestbuds, an inseparable bond is formed between man, puppy, and Clydesdale, later following up with the puppy idea with the #friendsarewaiting ad. When they produced the video they had people aged 21-27 in mind. They wanted to target people who use social media to spread the message, leading to the trend in #friendsarewaiting on websites like twitter. The ad doesn't show any stereotypes throughout, and rather than offending someone, this ad is more likely to a make them sad, as well as rethink their actions.

   One of the major strengths of this ad was the fact that it wasn't intended to scare us, it was meant to give us a different perspective, on how you effect other people. The one weakness that I noticed was the message about drunk driving wasn't until the very end, but even so it was still effect with the actual message. I believe that this ad was memorable, it was one that although I haven't seen it in awhile I knew right away that it was the one that I wanted to use. This ad gives us another reason as to why we shouldn't drink and drive. With my having grown up with dogs, and having three right, I know for a fact that this ad will make me think twice about ever drinking and driving. The ad spread like wildfire, bringing in 10.8 million views in the first four days, and it now has over 21 million views since its posting on Youtube September 19, 2014.
   Budweiser was using social media to spread the message to the people under the line  #friendsarewaiting. According to AdAge article "Budweiser Says Drunk Drivers Kill Puppy Love" , the ad was timed to be released in correlation with the brewers fifth annual promotion of drinking responsibly worldwide. Based on the ad, I probably wouldn't buy Budweiser, mostly because I'm under-aged, but also because I have little interest in alcohol. I would recommend people to watch the ad because its a different perspective on the whole being against drinking and driving campaign, and the ad is more advocating for not drinking and driving rather than drinking Budweiser itself.
   To be honest this is one of the few anti-drinking and driving commercials that's really caught my attention. I saw a different perspective, and it showed me that the decisions we make not only affect us, but those we don't really think it would affect, like our pets, our companions. When I was watching the ad, one of the things that really stood out to me was the fact that the Budweiser products, didn't really stand out to me. They weren't a dominant part of the story. Another thing that stood out to me was the fact that this ad had a happy ending, a lot of the ads I see against drunk driving are ones that end in tragedy, and nobody wants to watch a tragedy fold out in front of them. It was a message that is for wellbeing of people, that didn't try to force it our faces, but rather show us a different side of story. If we call a cab, or stay the night at a friends, then we are not only prolonging our lives, but we are also ensuring that others don't have to wait for something that isn't coming back.To be honest this is one of the few anti-drinking and driving commercials that's really caught my attention. I saw a different perspective, and it showed me that the decisions we make not only affect us, but those we don't really think it would affect, like our pets, our companions.

Blog Form Post Three

And we're back at again with week number three.
   Since I already used my work as part of my blog response, I think that I'm going to just stick with that theme for now. I've been working at PizzAmore for about two and half years now, and for as long as I can remember the only advertisement I've ever heard my boss talk about is word of mouth, which is just about all the advertisement we do, but on the other hand, we do have a facebook page that gets updated, if you look there's even a picture from when the staff dressed up for Halloween. Looking further down, a lot of the status updates consist of reminding followers that our seasonal pasta is back or that we started a new seasonal salad over the summer. A picture was posted saying that we were hiring and every single of the comments had a name in for somebody to look at. Now, we're a relatively small business in Albany, with there being only one of us, but we are definitely oriented around all ages. There are a couple older posts about our seasonal beers or that we were hiring. As a whole we have a wide variety of customers and I've had many customers walk up to the counter and tell me that they heard about PizzAmore from so and so, old and young alike, so I would think that with that being really our only form of advertisement, we're doing pretty solid.
    Continuing on with the PizzAmore topic, Jeff Jarvis talks about how google is changing the way advertising is looked at and from what I read, I agree. What really stood out to me was the five lessons that Rishad Tobaccowala described when asked how he was trying to create a new ad agency around what Google has taught him. The one that stood out to me was number four " Make money through the side door." He stated that the way to "make money by giving a key part of their business away for free, and then making money on something else." I believe that PizzAmore is a good example of that. We don't spend money on TV commercials or newspaper ads, not even when we're hiring, so we aren't making money on customers that ads are bringing in, we aren't charging ridiculous amounts in order to fund that kind of thing, keeping our foods cheap. And in turn our quality is bringing in customers who heard from other people and that's how we're really making the money. We're making money because we have people coming in from within the community and outside of the community telling their friends about us and our food. If that makes sense?
   One of the ads I consistently hear is for Kiefer Kia, and does boy does that ad make me change the station. I regularly listen to 104.7 kduk on the radio and the ad plays constantly. I honestly doubt there's been a day where I haven't heard the ad at least once. It's ridiculous. I'm going to assume that the target audience is anyone and everyone just because of how much they play it. The "persuasive" technique definitely has to be the irritation factor, because its "Kiefer Kia" this, come to "Kiefer Kia," zero down at "Kiefer Kia." Constantly. I honestly don't think that the ad is working because I know that I am definitely one of the people who changes the station when I hear it, or at least turn it down. I feel as though if you need that much advertisement and repetition then maybe something isn't working. Or I could be completely wrong and it really works for them. But I stick to what I said about there being WAY too much advertising going on in that situation. I think that it could be a situation similar to the one stated by Jarvis about Dell not focusing on their customers.
  Another ad that I've been hearing lately is from I Heart Radio. The add is basically a singer talking very briefly about their station or to try to listen to similar ones, or even listen to their own personal station that they listen to. The two I've heard were Ed Sheeran and Tove Lo, both artists that are played on kduk as well as ones that I listen to on a regular basis, which would instill the famous person testimonial technique. Another reason I believe that this worked, was because not only did the ad use two different singers at two different times, the ad isn't constantly playing with is nice on the ears, especially when I can get back to listening to their station. I Heart Radio is definitely using the right station because kduk is generally for people that are on the younger end, teens through early 20's maybe even older than that, but its advertising with people that would actually download the I Heart Radio ad and listen to those singers.

Blog Forum Post Two

Hello!
   I haven't really taken a look at the kinds of things that I follow on my Facebook lately, but I did notice three that stood out to me; "College Humor", "I f*ing Love Science", and "SomeEcards". First off, College Humor is ridiculously funny, I absolutely love the skits they do. They also post some pretty funny articles such as one that I just read called "The 10 Most WTF Shipped Couples," of course with Elsa and Jack Frost at the top of it...Big surprise, right? And if you haven't heard of the massive Jelsa ship you should look into on apps like iFunny, or Deviantart. But on to the next one, I f*ing Love Science, they post some pretty interesting articles as well, and they aren't boring ones, which makes it even better. I think that the reason I initially "liked" the page was because of how they presented the articles, they first thing that the show on their posts is a picture that captures my attention, then my attention drifts to the title of the article and it just make me want to click on it. Last, SomeEcards really make my day. The sarcasm ones of them really get me. Some of them even apply to how I'm feeling at the moment and if I can relate to it and it still be funny then that makes it all that much better.

   Looking on my Facebook some more, I was scrolling through my newsfeed and I came across my friend who shared a picture that said something along the lines of "How I'm handling life"( I lost the post so I don't think that's exactly what it said, but..) and it had a girl slowly knitting herself a bright red yarn cocoon, and I don't even know why it was funny, but the last little frame of he picture had her all covered and laying down on her side. I'm seriously wondering if I could do this. If I could figure out where it went, I would "like" that so hard.

   To be honest, I don't really follow the government or politics, unless it's something that really captures my attention. So I can't really give you an honest opinion on that. If it is something important, I usually hear it from my grandparents, who only watch the news for their source of information. If anything the things that Facebook keeps me most updated on is the things that are going on within my community, like when South Albany is presenting a play, or like who's having a garage sale and where. I just tend to avoid things like politics, and the government because some stuff is just extremely frustrating.

   One concept that Jeff Jarvis brought up was really there being very little need for the advertisement business, because you can count on the consumers of your product to spread word about your service and your product quality. I also very firmly agree with the fact that there should be someone on the inside to help not only work with the customers, but also make sure that the people are being heard by said business.
   I'm currently working at a pizza joint by the name of PizzAmore, some of you may have heard of it, if not it's a little hole in the wall that serves primarily Italian food. But if you do know about us, then you know that we're famous for our garlic rolls (not knots, not "buttons," ROLLS). That's beside the point though, walking into the restaurant you may see the "Like Us on Yelp" sticker we have up, our restaurant doesn't do advertising and we trust our customers to pass the word along(whether good or bad) to their friends, and so on and so forth. We strive to make sure that everything is correct and we work to please all of our customers, but not everything is perfect because, yes fast food and restaurant workers are human too. When something goes wrong, the servers try to fix it first, then if they can't handle it or are unsure, they take it to the management level to see what they do. We're a small place and we do what we can. If you want to check out some of our reviews, you can find them on our PizzAmore Yelp page.
   One of the other things that was discussed about Jarvis was the "Internet Arguments" video. One of the first things that he answered, was that the internet is a way that anyone can express themselves in anyway. Damn straight, excuse the language, but I completely believe that its a way to express yourself. If I want to start a blog and post about things like relationships, or make-up, or video games, or whatever, if you don't like what I'm writing then you don't have to read it. My Facebook is full of photos and status updates, and some of them have comments and some of them don't. The comment sections is the perfect example of how I or anyone else can express ourselves. Granted if it's offensive, I have the ability to respond to it, or to take it down, but the opinion can still be presented.

Blog Forum One Response

   Hi everyone! My name is Sydney Christopherson, and currently I'm working towards an AAOT, with my major undecided. I'm hoping to transfer to Western Oregon University once I have completed my AAOT, though. I decided to take this class because I enjoy writing and I feel like I have some strong feelings about society's dependence on media. With that, I took journalism and worked on the school newspaper for three years in high school, and I'm hoping that this class will give me different takes on media, as well as influence my interest of the world of journalism.

  My favorite part of journalism would have to be the stories that are actually affecting myself, and those around me. What I want to learn about the most would be why are we so affected by social media stories and magazines that aren't directly influencing our lives, and why, if they are influencing us, do they give us that mindset. I guess my outlook would have to be why media does so strongly influences us and changes us daily? Why should I care that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wore match red outfits to the Oscar's? Why should I try and change myself to look like an unrealistic Victoria Secret model, when having images like that circulating the media only hurts me and others who will never reach the "ideal" model image? Why is it such a big deal to society to know these things?

What's the point?

   Back to talking about myself a little bit, I don't think I'm passionate about one thing in particular. I love doing all sorts of things; reading, writing, playing with my dogs, and hanging out with friends are all in that category. I also like to travel, I've never left the west coast, but I've recently taken a bunch of fun trips just here around Oregon. Something I really want to do is to go on what I like to call "food adventures" and visit places in Oregon that shows like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" have visited to test out the food for myself. I love good food, especially a good pasta dish!

   As for gaming, awhile ago, I actually got back into laying World of Warcraft, with my most used character being a Worgen hunter(if it can  have an animal companion, I'm probably playing it). But because of things picking up at work, I haven't played it in awhile. When I did play it, it was maybe for an hour or two after work, maybe once or twice a week, and yes, I was actually playing with somebody close to me, so I was a bit more involved. I also play games like Diablo 3 but never online, just in co-op campaign. But the most recent game I've been playing is the Sims 4, which I guess could be considered online, but not really. How often I play online games depends of how my week goes. I find these games interesting because sometimes it is nice to escape from reality and feel like I can accomplish something, other times its just fun to run around and button mash.

   I personally think that maybe Jane McGonigal had a point, but because I don't think that many people use games like the ones that her workplace created, I think she needs a different approach. Like the mathematical algorithm that the gamers solved that the researchers couldn't. I think that in order for her idea to work that there needs to be something more like that, something that baffles some people, but interests the gamers and the population into wanting to solve or improve it.

   The documentary "Second Skin" did open my eyes about some things, but I feel like it really only showed two sides of the story, it was only black and white, and I believe that there is a gray area, because I believe that I am part of that gray are. Yeah, I play video games a lot, but a lot of the time I play them when I'm sitting next to someone who is playing along side me. I still have the ability to go out and hang out with friends, do homework, succeed at work, and go to school. Granted, I don't get enough sleep, but that's not because of how much I play video games. I know a lot of people who play video games, and I actually know people who become "gaming widows," stuff like that does happen and its not just to an online game like World of Warcraft. That was only one example. I disagreed with the video because I only saw two sides of the story and they were both two extremes. I believe, like I said in class, that it all depends on how you approach it.