Caribou Barbie

Oh how I love to hate Sarah Palin. Everytime you think you've heard the last from she appears back in the media with some new agenda. This time it's to promote her new book Going Rouge, which tells Ms. Palin's side of the campaign trail. The book supposedly talks about how Ms. Palin was not briefed properly for interviews, how it wasn't her decision to spend reportedly over $50,000 on her campaign trail wardrobe. Other tales are about how she knows the same amount about middle eastern conflicts as an "Average American", stories about how the Palin family are "thrifty" CostCo shoppers, and her views on women's health rights. I know, I know, you all want to run out and buy her book now, but just wait! If you're lucky Ms. Palin may be coming to a city near you on a book tour!

Read the New York Times article: Sarah Palin is Coming to Town

She is towards the end of her 18 city book tour around America. And of course there is buzz about how much she spent on her massive tour bus and of course outfits. Anyway I want to know what you guys think, do you think Ms. Palins new book is going help improve her image with people don't support her? Or do you think it will only perpetuate her image of being undereducated and unqualified to be in the political arena?

Palin Tour Schedule

Also for your Christmas shopping needs, may I suggest the Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Going Rogue Coloring and Activity Book found here on Amazon.

Ps- this picture is of one of her supporters at her first stop in Grand Rapids, MI (my hometown) that my father took and posted with this caption...

"Isn't Grand Rapids amazing? There were more than 1500 people at the mall to see Caribou Barbie and I can personally confirm that there wasn't a single Asian, Latino, African American or any other ethnic group in the entire crowd. Not a single one. There was however, a lot of people like this one. BTW, in order to sign every book Ms Palin had to spend less than 7 seconds per person. Oh and btw2, Yes, she did indeed get off the tour bus with the baby in her arms. Ain't she grand?"

IndieGoGo

The social media trends continues to grow by the day. New websites are being created for filmmakers to use media to get their work seen. One of these sites is IndieGoGo. IndieGoGo is a social media driven platform built on the idea of crowdfunding, creating a location where independent filmmakers can showcase their work, and fans can show their support through microdonations right on the site. The site was founded in 2008 because the creators wanted to address the fundraising and marketing challenges that independent filmmakers today are experiencing.

The site has also recently started a partnership with Snag Films, which allows filmmakers to have a new way to connect viewers directly with the causes they support, by giving them the ability to make their films and a difference. They believe in using social media to the fullest to mobilize their fans and what they call "DIWO" (Do-It-With-Others!).

Because of this, many of the films posted on IndieGoGo are related to social causes. One of the films that has earned over $20,000 is Tapestries of Hope; a documentary about a rape crisis in Zimbabwe due to the misunderstanding that sex with virgins cures HIV and AIDS.

So far IndieGoGo has raised $150,000 in funds to date with participation from 90 countries. The social media the site does involves widgets, social networking, real time Internet, and an online hub. IndieGoGo believes the site will help deliver important social and environmental topics that will connect with viewers emotionally, and keep lasting connections with them after the film ends.

Tweet Your Scream

The movie Paranormal Activity has become a huge success. So far the film has grossed over $100 million and the number is growing. It followed the success of 1999's The Blair Witch Project by using an internet net campaign to secure a wide release of the film. Director Oren Peli made film for only $15,000 and used his website for the film to get noticed. Peli used Eventful.com to have people demand the movie be released in their city. Paranormal Activity was released the film in 13 college towns in the United States, 12 out of the 13 showings sold out almost immediately. The films distributor Paramount Pictures then decided the film would get a wide release in the U.S. The film also used Twitter to help promote the movie. Their Twitter account was appropriately named "Tweet Your Scream" and they encourage people to tweet their reactions to the movie. For example:

RT @josezuniga1: Paranormal Activity is one of the most intense, creepiest, & heart-pounding movies I've ever seen!5:17 PM Nov 9th from web

The Paranormal Activity campaign really took what The Blair Witch Project started in the 90's and brought it to a new level.

Social Media Revolution

After doing a lot of research on social media for my research paper I came across this fantastic video, which really proves why social media isn't just a fad.

SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION VIDEO

This video gives incredible statistics that affect a lot of different industries. for example the video gives the statistic that 70% of 18-34 year olds have watched TV on the web. This figure for any television executive to know, especially for advertising purposes. The video also talks about branding and how 34% of bloggers post opinions about brands and products. This is vital information for companies when looking at how their brand is being viewed by the public. In a day where "Mommy Bloggers" can heavily influence consumers it's important for companies to find a way to get their own advertising seen over the clutter. One thing I find interesting is Disney Parks has a "Mom's Panel" (the bloggers don't have to be Mom's...there's male bloggers as well) that blog and answer questions to consumers in a more personal way, but are still doing so for the company.

Sound off: What forms of social media do you think will stick around? Do you think companies/consumers take "Mom bloggers" seriously?

The Blair Witch Project

Continuing on the topic of social media and independent cinema I wanted to write a post about The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999 and went on to gross over $248 million worldwide, making it the most successful independent film at the time. The first rough cut of the movie was made for only $20,000. The film premiered at The Sundance Film Festival and soon after began it's global ad campaign. The campaign was groundbreaking because they used the Internet to suggest that the film was a documentary instead of a mockumentary. By creating the idea this was real footage from the filmmakers that had died it created a huge buzz. The buzz granted the film a wide release first in the U.S. and then a global release to follow.

The Blair Witch Project really paved the way for independent filmmakers to compete with Hollywood films. July 2009 was the ten year anniversary of the film being released. Entertainment Weekly did an interview with the filmmakers about what the movie meant at the time and how it holds up now. Check it out here.

Social Media History

This semester I took a cinema history course on independent cinema, which I have a passion for. During the course I started thinking about promotion of independent cinema and how social media can help filmmakers get their film distributed. So I decided to do some research. For this post I'm going to focus on the history of the term social media and the first use of independent cinema and social media.

The first time the phrase "social media" was published was by Tina Sharkey (the co-founder of iVillage, former SVP of AIM and Social Media, and now the head of BabyCenter.com) in 1997. She used the term to refer to the Internet as being community driven. The term was used loosely through the late 90's and early 2000's when chatrooms and AOL were extremely popular. Then in 2004 Chris Shipley (co-founder and Global Research Director for Guidewire Group) coined the term to focus on business. Social media now referred to user-generated content or consumer-generated media. It is believed that social media utilization is a driving factor in the idea that the current period in time will be defined as the Attention Age.

Social media is broken down into three components:

1. Concept (art, information, meme)

2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal)

3. Social interface (intimate direct, community, engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print)

These components work together to create many different forms such as, concepts and slogans, electronic media sharing, media campaigns, and print media to be redistributed. By understanding the basic concepts of social media, independent filmmakers can use the knowledge to create social media campaigns to try to get their film distributed. In my next post I will talk about The Blair Witch Project and how it was one of the first independent films to use a social media campaign and gain wide release.

Oprah says Farewell

As I'm sure the whole world knows by now, Oprah Winfrey is leaving her self titled show after 25 years on the air. At the end of her show on November 20, she announced that she was calling it quits. (View the video clip here or read the Chicago Tribune article here) Now, I have to admit I'm not Oprah's biggest fan, but I wanted to focus on how the news was communicated and what this means for her employees. According to an article by the Chicago Sun Times employees were asked to attend an afternoon meeting. Inside the meeting the employees watched a montage of television show finales, where they realized the Oprah Winfrey show finale was in the future. Apparently employees began to cry (whether is was because they truly loved their job or because they realized they were going to be unemployed is questionable). The meeting ended with a letter from Harpo President Tim Bennett, which concluded with "And, if you think the last quarter of the century has been something, then don't touch that dial, as together we plan to make history in the next 20 months...and beyond".

After reading the article I wanted to know more about the meeting. First of all I was surprised President Bennett wasn't at the meeting himself to announce the shows end. I wonder who read the letter he wrote (or rather the companies public relations facilitator wrote) and why he didn't attend the meeting. Also I'm interested in how employees were asked to handle the press and the media after Oprah broke the news. I thought it was very creative to use the video montage of finales to segway into the news, and I wonder how the presentative of the news affected how employees took it.

Sound off: What do you think about how Harpo broke the news of the shows end to employees?

Shut Down by the Publicist

Last night I was doing my usual nightly perusal of celebrities tweets on my twitter account when I stopped that Ryan Seacrest was at the New Moon premiere interviewing celebrities from the red carpet. Any tweet with the word 'premiere' or 'award show' I'm already interested so I stayed close by my computer to follow what was going on. A little while later Seacrest tweeted this:

@RyanSeacrest: Robert pattison is class act however the rep he was with yanked him off the air and off the mic when I asked him about kristen. Unreal!

Seacrest most have been immediately flooded with @replies, because minutes after he sent another tweet that he would have the video footage online in the morning as well as talk about it on his radio show. I was very eager for the video to drop the next morning, because I wanted to see if the publicist was really being out of control or if she was just doing her job. The next morning Seacrest posted the video of the interview on his website RyanSeacrest.com

Check out the video

After the video, I was shocked at how the publicist acted. From the moment she walked into the room you could tell she did not want Pattison to be doing the interview. She stood by the door and the whole time kept looking at the time and trying to tell Seacrest to wrap it up, even though they had only been talking for 1 minute at most. After complementing Pattison on his fame, Seacrest tried to ask him a natural question about if him and his costar Kristen Stewart were involved. Pattison began to laugh and did not seem uncomfortable until his publicist literally came over to him and yanked him from the interview (not before telling him to say thank you into the mic). Seacrest then says that it was the first time in his career that a guest has been yanked from an interview.

I understand that working the red carpet can be stressful, trying to deal with reporters, and lots of screaming fans, but this was pretty ridiculous behavior. If this is how this woman acts during an interview, I can't imagine how she handles crisis situations. It's the job of a publicist to make the celebrity look good, instead of calling attention to yourself? Just something to think about.

They said what?!

I'll admit I'm a self professed pop culture junk. I love celebrity scandals, outrage interviews, and of course the leaked nude photos or sex tape. While I read and watch all these things go down, I always think, "What is this persons public relations team doing right now?". Which made me think, how involved in a celebrities life should there publicity/public relations team be?

First let me give some examples of what I'm talking about. Last week Britney Spears twitter account was hacked. The hacker sent a few tweets saying like "Praise Satan!" as well as changed her account picture. Now even though it was very obvious to see that Spears' team did not tweet such things, they were quite slow on dealing with the matter. It was a few hours until the team realized what had happened and was able to get on the site and delete the tweets and apologize for the mishap. I know it's nearly impossible for celebrity public relation teams to be monitoring social media 24/7, but a star popular as Spears probably should have a team trying to do just that.

Besides just monitoring social media, how involved should publicist be with celebrities interviews? Yesterday I saw this interview with Miley Cyrus on YouTube. The interviewer asks Cyrus some questions about her chart topping hit "Party in the USA", and her response are less than desired for her publicity team I'm sure. She tells the interviewer not only does she not listen Pop Music but she only choice the song to help promote her clothing line. The interviewer tries to help Cyrus out but she continues to make herself sound ungrateful. Now she could have follow strict guidelines from her team on what to say in the interview but instead she chose to speak freely.

Which leads back to the question how involved should the stars publicity team be in their life/career?

I found this article online at PR Week about how having a publicist can help celebrities careers (in this case Tom Cruise).

Sound off: What do you think the involvement should be for publicists? And how should they go about monitoring social media?

Join Twitter and win free stuff?

I admit, I tweet too much. I have become quickly addicted to the social media site known as Twitter, only joining last winter. After learning in multiple communications classes how Twitter is a legitimate tool for Advertising and Public Relations, which makes me feel more justified about my addiction.

What I want to talk about today is the trend of using contests on social media sites to generate brand awareness. At least a few times a day I receive tweets from various people or companies about contests or giveaways for products, concert tickets, etc. Ellen DeGeneres frequently tweets about giving away concert or movie premiere passes. Orbitz had a contest where a few lucky people won free plane tickets by retweeting one of their messages. I think all of these contests and giveaway are an extremely smart new way of instilling branding to people. Who won't think highly of a company that gives them free plane tickets? Twitter has made companies seem more reachable and personalized by being able to follow them on a daily basis. I wonder if this trend will continue and if by doing so it will increase the use of Twitter.

Sound off: What do you think of companies using Twitter to bring in more business?

Do you vlog?

A vlog, as defined by Urban Dictionary, is a video log. It's a journalistic video documentation on the web of a person's life, thoughts, opinions, and interests. A vlog is more personal than a blog, along the viewer to be face to face with the vlogger instead of just reading text. When I worked in Disney World for a year, my roommate and I used vlogs to keep a diary of our time in Orlando and to keep in touch with those at home. For some reasons the idea of vlogs fascinate me to I decided to do some research to see if companies used vlogs as while. In an article by Gretchen Siegchrist she lists the benefits vlogs can have for companies. Among them are better customer communication, a more personalized image, and an increased presence on the web. The article also suggests using vlogs to talk about company updates, news about the industry, and instructional how to videos.

After reading this I decided to google "Business vlogs" and see what I found. I was surprised to see how many results I received. I wasn't aware that so many companies were using this type of social media. Many of the results were for tech businesses that gave online tutorials via vlogs but also talked about advances in the company. One of the more interesting results I found was this Video Blogging. This site not only lays out the benefits of vlogs for companies but actually will help them create their vlogs for a price of around $200.

I think vlogs are a great way for companies to become a more trusted brand with consumers. I think loyal customers will watch vlogs posted by their favorite companies. But what do you think? Sound off: Would you watch vlogs from companies?

Facebook- No longer a college student's haven

A trend I have noticed lately is every time I sign into my Facebook account I have a friend request from a relative, one of my parent's friends, or that babysitter I had when I was six. When I first joined Facebook it was only open to college students and they were testing allowing non-colligates to join. You had to be invited by a member to join and have a valid email address. As everyone knows, Facebook has made extreme changes since that time. Anyone can now join the social network site and the demographic as surely changed. Now, after further research I found out I am not the only who has noticed this demographic change.

PR News wrote an article called "friend or Foe? Leveraging Facebook to Turn Stakeholders Into Friends". The article gives the statistic from the 2009 Facebook Demographic Report that the 35-45 age group is the fastest growing demographic on the site. "A nod to business executives rapid adoption of the platform as a communication tool" the article states, and this is clearly true. Facebook is becoming one of the most popular social media tools that business are deciding to begin. However, some companies are weary of using Facebook to communicate. Where is the line between promotion and becoming to personal? I think companies should set a standard of using Fan Pages on Facebook instead of using personal accounts. Fan Pages are a great way to use the site without becoming to invading. Check out John Lasseter's (Pixar Studio's) Facebook Fan Page for a great example.

Sound off: What do you think about the new demographic of Facebook users?

Dozens of magical improvements...

In the past month Disney has made numerous media announcements about plans to improve/reimagine parts of the Walt Disney Company. The first big announcement came in late August with the reveal of the merge between the Walt Disney Company and Marvel Entertainment. Disney released a news release discussing the acquirement of Marvel Entertainment but did not specify about what the merge was going to mean for Disney Parks and Resorts or Disney entertainment studios. However the CEO of Marvel will stay on to help over see the transition.

Secondly, Disney has launched a YouTube account called DisneyParks, which showcases upcoming events at both the Walt Disney World Resort as well as the Disneyland Resort. Disney has really made an effort to bring social media into their public relations and advertising campaign. The company has also started using Twitter (DisneyParks)to get out new releases as well as post recent pictures and events happening at the parks. DisneyParks Twitter account was the first way they broke the news about the reimagination of Disney Worlds, Magic Kingdom Park. The news broke at Disney's first ever expo D23 (sort of like ComicCon) and then was tweeted immediately after the announcement.

As a Disney cast member I use these forms of social media to keep up on currently company news. I think it was a very smart decision for the company to began to use social media because it's making their outreach much greater and quicker access to information.


Disney Parks twitter account
Disney Parks YouTube account