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The two advertisements chosen were specifically picked as their fine examples of successful new media projects that clearly have adapted the new forms of media interaction, focusing on the two examples, I will be using the two advertisements in order to explain how the development of technology in postmodern media culture have resulted in a change in the way advertisers are now targeting and engaging with their specific markets.
The essay will be focusing on two New Media projects ‘Tippet Bear and Hunter campaign’ and the ‘Google Glass impacting’; I will be using these two examples, in order to come to an accurate summary on how advertisements in the 21st century have blurred the boundaries between the user and the producer. Tippet-Hunter and Bear Experience Campaign 3 Background: Hunter and Bear campaign featured an advertisement created by Bushman (USA) for Tip-Ex (a brand of correction fluid). The campaign launched on Youth in 2012 and in Just under 2 weeks generated over 6 million hits.
Viral Video: The hunter and the bear advertisement is a short 30 second advertisement that displays two characters fearing for their lives as a meteor hurls towards their erection but to avert catastrophe users are given the option to type in and change the date in the place of ‘2012’, as soon as the user’s does so, the Tip-EX facilitates corrections and links the user to over hundreds minutes of fun and engaging content split in to over 40 different scenarios depending on the year chosen. On one of the clips the user is even asked to blow down a microphone to blow out Mr. Bear’s birthday cake.
Project Glass #flagella’s Campaign 4 The project glass #flagella’s campaign is an advertisement created by Google that heavily focused on creating a buzz and a demand using the twitter hash tag flagella’s for its wearable augmented reality glasses. ‘Instead of relying on press analysts, and influences tell the story; Google relied on the voices and visions of the market. Less then 1% of the total buzz was generated by the top 6 press outlets while almost 92% of the traffic was generated on Twitter’ (Forbes, 2013).
Google required users that wanted to trial the glass to follow the following three simple steps that involved (1) Becoming part of the community by following the Twitter page and the Google+ (2) Biblically announce to the public via twitter what Google Glass means to o (3) Invest financially with an upfront $1 ,500 for the privilege to be a tester (called a “Glass Explorer) this resulted in a massive viral trend that generated over billion impressions with over 1. M mentions on the social networking site twitter. (Forbes, 2013) 5 The project glass advertisement is shot from a POP (point of view), the video demonstrates the unique Google Glass concept by displaying several videos shot from numerous locations which include the Google Glass wearer rushing to his departure lounge and using Google Glass to find out the flight information.
Convergence 6 Featheriness (2007) describes post modernity as ‘an epochal shift or break from modernity involving the emergence of a new social totality with its own distinct organizing principles’, new forms of internet connected technology (Mobiles, tablets and computers) have now become incorporated in to our lives and as an result, the rise of the internet has resulted in the internet becoming the favored platform by advertisers as the internet ‘offers a more cost-effective way to reach target markets’ (Gauguin, Allen, Semen, 2009), advertisements posted on the internet also eve the potential of reaching people on a global scale but the factor that really differentiates digital internet advertising from the traditional methods are the level of interactivity that the internet offers, as Spurge’s (2007) states that the ‘internet is considered the most interactive of all communication media because it is engineered to support all modes of interpersonal, mass and computer-mediated communication’, Burnett and Marshall (2003) supports this statement and describes the internet as being the ‘loose web’ due to internet’s sheer flexibility and adaptability. Therefore it is argued that convergence of media to digital has changed the way in which audiences engage with media, as Nag (1996, p. 9) states that ‘audiences are not gullible consumers who passively absorb anything they’re served, but must be continuously targeted and fought for, grabbed’.
This is today’s postmodern audience Nag (1996) describes as being the ‘Active Audience’, Spurge’s (2007) also supports this by stating ‘new media audiences cannot be conceived of as passive consumers’, Youth is a video sharing site in which users can upload view and share videos heir tagging ‘broadcast yourself clearly reinstates this, Youth therefore could be viewed as a platform for today’s postmodern ‘active audience’ that blurs the boundaries between the producer and user, as the site encourages users to interact and respond to content that they engage with and this is something that would of not 7 been possible with previous traditional methods.
The publishers that use this site also ensure that their videos offer some sort of engagement with the audience such as ending the video with an open ended question. Holt (2009) states that the ongoing rigger of media production and consumption signals the emergence of a global convergence culture, based on an increasingly participatory and interactive engagement between different media forms and industries, between people and their media, as well as between professional and amateur media makers’. The viral video phenomenon ‘Kananga Style’ is an example of Halt’s theory as without the participation from the audience in regards to Faceable shares, twitter rewets and parody videos, this video simply, would of not of become the #1 most viewed video of all time.
Postmodern consumers are fully aware of different media technologies that exists therefore as Holt states that their fighting for the right to participate more fully in their culture, to control the flow of media in their lives and to talk back to mass market content’ (Holt, 2009) this as a result allows a closer relationship between the producers and consumers as ‘sometimes these two forces reinforce each other’. Youth therefore could actually be viewed as a platform in which videos posted on to the site can blur the boundaries between the producer and user as the site encourages viewers to engage with the content from the producers. The clear distinguishing factors between the ‘new digitally networked media and old mass media therefore is the ‘pervasive sense of interactivity associated with new channels, that is, the selectivity and reach that media technologies afford users in their ‘choices of information sources and interactions with other people’ (Livelier, 2006).
New media platforms therefore enable advertisers to broadcast their message to a mass audience; however, it differs dramatically from the traditional method. As 8 advertising agencies publish adverts that are specifically tailored for the short attention span of ‘active audience’ therefore the adverts published are highly engages the brand or product with the consumers and encourages users to share their experience through social media sites as Nag (1996) and Superglue (2008) both states that we are not passive consumers, it’s the brands who need to engage us, and the ways in which brands are doing this now, all comes down to enabling us to get involved with the brand, and we don’t want to sit idle by, and the ‘active audience’ we are’.
Both Google and Tip-ex have created engaging new media digital advertisements that and due to its level of interactivity demonstrates a clean convergence between the producer and the user as both of the campaigns with the audience on a participatory level. Media convergences therefore ha contributed to the idea of the postmodern loss of authorship. Engagement 9 The method of engaging the audience used by two advertisements differs FRR to another however the similarities that they do share is that both of the co clearly encourages engagement. Google Glass campaign sells the product u id??e that puts the audience in the eyes of the Google Glass user, the video clearly the benefits of owning this augmented reality glasses and creates an demand for the item.
Google Glass primes focus for campaign was to create on twitter using the washrag #flagella’s, using this hash tag users posted explaining what they would do if they owned the ‘glass’. The objective of ‘Cree demand before supply would of not been possible without the active parasitic from each and every single individual that posted a tweet, as every tweet pop to twitter contributed towards the bigger picture, it being, worldwide trends Since the #flagella’s Campaign was open to the world, individuals posted tweets mentioning the hash tag ‘#flagella’s’ but as expected from the com being published on to an open platform, people around the world began be rules in order to differentiate them from others, the methods that they used included blobs and parody videos instead of the regular generic tweet.
This ended up creating 10 more of a buzz for the campaign. (Image displaying, one of many parody videos uploaded by users for Google Glass) The Tip-ex adverts method of engaging with the audience is by typing in the year hat the user wants to see the two playful characters in. Therefore the individual, who interacts with the video, could be viewed as being the producer as without the interaction, there simply would not be an outcome to the advertisement. This is an example of the postmodern loss of authorship, as the producer becomes irrelevant to the advertisement that they produced, the advertisement is instead a platform that requires interaction from users for it to be an advertisement.