For today’s class, you read Miller’s “Using Digital Storytelling for Promotion and Advertising” chapter. You’ve likely experienced or seen examples of the things that she discusses in this chapter. Use the beginning of class to write a summary of the reading and post it as a comment to this blog entry. We will discuss it briefly before continuing with Project 3 and Project 4.
3 thoughts on “Beginning of Class Writing: Chapter 13, Promotion and Advertising”
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When we think of advertising and promotion we think of a company trying to sell a product or get a buzz going about a book, game or movie. In recent years social media and interactive platforms have exploded with companies maximizing affordances to get ahead. The techniques are numerous but the use of media falls under promotion more than it does advertising. The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, twitter. Because I use it to frequently I often see “promoted” tweets in my timeline, I also see trending topics when I click the explore tab. Very often I’ll see promotional tweets for movies or TV shows that include a video or snippet of the show/movie with some incentive to check it out, a chance to win something usually. By using #hashtags and bait the promoters hope that they’ll get even 20% of the people who see it to be interested enough to tune into their content. These things sometimes make it to the trending screen and go viral, which means its flooded the platform with its presence and most all of the users on that app will be exposed to it in some form. Things like, placement, branding and recognition comes into play. People recognize logo, symbol or sound when it comes to companies so no matter where the content may trend the brand stands out, nationwide has their jingle that no matter what country its in is recognizable. Knowing this promoters make use of the affordances of video streaming and photo capabilities of social media. Public policy campaigns have also found a home on social media, for instance occupy wall street was birthed on social media and a majority of the movements communication took place on Tumblr and Twitter, which in turn allowed the millions of users on both platforms to take part and learn about the movement as well as access first hand accounts of what was going on. Lastly mobile apps was another big concept that I see being advertised within other apps, before you’re able to read articles in some apps a game ad pops up or a video plays for 10 seconds and techniques like these are all forms of social media marketing.
To: Professor Ellis
From: Mariah Rajah
Re: Chapter 13 Summary
Date 03/30/2016
In this chapter Miller ventured into advertising in digital storytelling which I think is a media outlet in which encompasses more storytelling than we are aware. Advertisements are like mini trailers to a larger product; these advertisements entice and engage users in wanting to learn more about the product, purchase the product, or simply make a comment about the product. Either way a consumer is still participating, engaging, and interacting with the story—and is this not some of the major characteristics of digital storytelling? In the chapter Miller mentions social marketing which is a specialized strategy or form of promotion that is designed to change the way people behave. It is used to influence or motivate them from harmful habits. We can see this type of advertising in for smokers or even in advocacy for the ASPCA. These commercials in about 30 seconds are revolting and instills both fear and empathy. Like social marketing, public advocacy sells ideas and not products. These are the advertisements that tell us how to invest our money, or about a certain natural disaster in which the Red Cross is asking the public to donate to. Many times these various advertisements whether we notice it or not become a building brand for the product. The M&M guys have become so popular that they have taken on a life of their own. They partake in various holidays and even cross over into other advertisements. They also have their own world in which they in some way have become a form of a transmedia digital story. We have followed their growth and we continue to participate in their story because of the gradual growth of it. With each new product the characters are reinvented and we become invested in them which makes us have a stronger connection to the product. I believe that this chapter was wrong to say that these are new forms of storytelling because I believe that the practice was always around but since we have become more involved with advertisements to tell a product more so than a referral or just by the general hype of a product that storytelling has become more of a tool to use to reach a wider audience.
To: Professor Ellis
Form: Pamela Drake
Subject: Digital Storytelling – Summary of Chapter 13
Using Digital Storytelling for Promotion and Advertising
Date: March 30, 2016
Chapter 13 of Digital Storytelling by Carolyn Handler Miller discusses how digital storytelling can be used for promotion and advertising. Miller says that in contrast to the methods of advertising of the past, we now have interactive digital media which offers an enormous variety of techniques to aid in advertising and promoting. Miller is clear to point out that while promotional activities are designed to attract favorable attention, advertising tries to encourage a purchase or commitment. However, both use of social media platforms to promote marketing strategies have been quite transformational. Some of the methods mentioned by Miller include branded content funded by an advertiser and incorporates promotional elements such as the Harry Potter website which promotes while inviting users to explore and interact. Another example of new forms of advertising and promoting is the campaign by Dove and which created a webisode, “Nighttime Classic”, that advertised its product while effectively telling a story.
Another form of marketing mentioned by Miller is social marketing which uses digital mediums to encourage users to participate in positive behavior such as wearing seatbelts or refrain from smoking. Similarly are the public advocacy campaigns to bring awareness to issues though the use of digital mediums such as highlighting the use of plastic bags and pollution. Miller also mentions gaming as a major vehicle of advertising which incorporates role play in promotion and advertising. For example, Miller points out games like “The Race to School Game”, by Reebox which includes a character running against a bus to get to school, and alternate reality games like “The lost Experience”.
Miller is right is saying that social media is used to promote products and organizations and while multimodalities are not new, digital media provide ever changing ways of promoting and advertising information.