Week 1 Practice: Business Structures

This post is a practice activity for my Media Entrepreneurship Online course.  The purpose of this activity was to research and compare the four different business types in order to set-up the type of legal system I will need for my entrepreneurial business.  Below you will find my mind meld where I did my comparison.

Week 1 Exploration: Web Designer & Serial Entrepreneur

Below you will find my Week 1 exploration video for my Media Entrepreneurship Online course.  This project's purpose was to read two case studies that were done on two different entrepreneurs.  I was to read both case studies and reflect on them both to answer three prompts about my own entrepreneur strategy.

Below you will find my video:

Week 3 Lynda.com Certification: Hernandez Documentary

The below post is to showcase my Lynda.com certificate for the documentary based on Richard Hernandez.  My objective was to watch the documentary and take away from someone else an experience or lesson to apply in my current and future career.

Week 2 Lynda.com Certification: Viral Marketing

Below is a post for my portfolio class to display my Lynda.com course Viral Marketing certificate of completion.  The objective is to complete a course on viral marketing and explain the portion that I found most useful.

The portion that sticks out to me the most is the section on triggers.  I had never really thought about the brilliance behind peanut butter and jelly.  But it is so true, for example when you want a ham sandwich (if you like cheese) most o the time you think of a ham and cheese sandwich.  There seems in so many things to be an "and" item.  I never really realized that it was a marketing tool until now.  It is a great piece of knowledge I now have.  Being able to find a trigger that would be associated with a brand will help with brand recognition as well as in a sense give free marketing.

MCPP Portfolio Project Submission: Levi Strauss Creative Brief for Ecojeans Product Line

The below post is a portfolio submission.  This submission is to obtain a star rating for a portfolio project.  This post will include the star rating I am seeking as well as a description of the project and feedback that I received.

Star Rating Sought:

 1-star

Project Description:

This document was a portion of our Client Branding week. This brief's objective was to develop the creative elements such as brand, marketing, design, and strategies to develop the idea or in this case product line I was introducing to my client.  I was very pleased with the how the colors, layout, strategy and the brand came together and presented a very well thought out plan on how to execute the product line Ecojeans.

Link to Deliverable:

 Creative Brief PDF file

Feedback Received:

 My instructor gave me a 100% on this assignment.  She said that I did very well and that the elements and strategies that I included were what she was looking for with this assignment.  My peers in my life outside of school were also very pleased with what I presented in this document.

Resources Utilized:

 I utilized my Mac Book Pro, Adobe Illustrator CS6, Microsoft Word, and Adobe CS6 Photoshop to create this document.

MCPP Portfolio Project Submission: Main Street Signs & Graphics Marketing Flier

This is a post is a portfolio submission.  Below I detail all of the information about my submission as well as the star rating I hope to achieve from this project.

Star Rating Sought:
2-star

Project Description:

I have been in collaboration for the past few months with my superiors to develop new marketing tools for the company I am currently employed with.  The project that is shown here is a flier that is to be utilized at shows and by our outside sales team to showcase some of our work for creating new patches and Maltese crosses that can be utilized by Emergency Responders.  The outcome was well recieved and my employers and superiors were pleased with the final design.  This was the second marketing item to be developed on the design elements.  We have since moved into other items to continue developing the new marketing tools.

Link to Project Images:

Front of Flier 

Back of Flier

Feedback Received:

The design was well received and understood by me fellow design team.  The colors and elements all were well liked.  Clients were pleased that their different patches, crosses and other brands were utilized in the filer. 

Resources Utilized:

I utilized Adobe Illustrator CS5 to create and design this flier and my Dell HP computer at my office.

Brand Journalism: The Good, The Bad, and The Basics

  As the technology, news, media, marketing and general information becomes more and more readily available a new trend has begun to emerge. This new trend is brand journalism. Brand journalism is corporate paid for report or article as a journalistic form of marketing. In other words journalist or content developers are contracted to investigate and sometimes provided with content to investigate and report about a company or brand to the general public.

 Brand journalism is born from more and more companies realizing that consumers are not as interested in traditional forms of advertising any longer. Now they want to research and discover if what companies are selling is actually all that they are saying it is. (Friedman, 2013) Companies of large and small scales have discovered creating content that reports facts and information about their product is what their consumers are looking for. They have now turned to hiring traditional journalist as the people to create that content. (Friedman, 2013)

 There are many who disagree with the idea that brand journalism is good for the consumer.  Some believe that if it is the company that is producing the product and then supplying reports and facts on said product that they can manipulate the information to be more positive than truly fact based information and tests. (Glaser,2011) In many ways this is a strong argument. For example when the film, Outfoxed:Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, was released it was discovered that Fox News had not been the unbiased and fair reporting agency that it claimed to be.  As described in the USFCA article, Media as the "FourthEstate" when there are people involved they are still people so opinions and biased viewpoints will be present.

 On the other hand there are some who defend brand journalism by stating that even though they may provide information to their hired journalist the facts have to be supported.  Andy Bull states in his article, “Of course, brand journalists will seek to influence your purchasing decisions. They’ll make claims about their own products. In the modern media world those claims are tested by the crowd. “ Some even believe that the best people to produce branded journalistic type information are the companies.  In the era of readily available information it is argued that consumers are much more savvy when it comes to information that has been

provided. (Sassen, 2011)

 Another side entirely is how journalists feel about this matter. Some journalists view branded journalism as true journalism just with directed path and information while others frown upon this form of journalism calling it a rebrand of PR. (Foremski, 2012) These journalists argue that journalism is ethically bound to be unbiased and transparent in reporting just the facts but that branded journalism is strictly one-­‐sided to the product or information that is being supplied.  (Gombita,2013)  These journalists believe that if a corporation or brand is providing information that it is tainted with opinions or all positive information instead of being completely forth coming with information. (Glaser, 2011)  

But on the other hand if a company wants to make sure their intended audience feels they can trust the information would they not also want to provide some negative to truly give the consumer the sense of true informative reports? Forbes staff member Lewis DVorkin  shared an email exchange with Annalisa Camarillo, NetApp’s senior manager of executive engagement programs, which stated, “We’re learning that we have to let go a little. Loosen up our collar a bit to reach our audience at their place and in a more conversational style that’s conducive to dialogue and engagement.”

Taking that argument into consideration is branded journalism truly open and honest with it’s reporting? Traditional journalism has a set of ethical rules and standards.  Journalism should be unbiased and transparent with reporting. In todays media driven society the public demands such transparency and if they feel that it is not present they turn to their own research to find the facts surrounding the presented topic or information. In his Tedx speech Tom Rosenstiel stated that no longer does our society just follow what we are told we are a “show me” society. (Tedx, 2013)  Utilizing this information as well as the previous argument that consumers are more inclined to do their own research most general public would say that branded journalism is in fact in line with traditional journalistic standards. Another positive for branded journalism is the journalists themselves. More and more companies are employing actual journalist to do their reporting. Jessica Bennett, former journalist for several publications, stated, “There is a lot of crap journalism out there, so sometimes it bothers me when people get all high and mighty about branded content. I really think it’s the story, not where it comes from.”

There are many sides to the brand journalism subject. To truly make a decision as to whether or not this is a true and just form of marketing or journalism all sides have to be presented.  For many journalists the sides are a bit blurry once you have all of the facts and information in front of you. The opinions and banter between journalist as well as corporate conglomerates can and is quite divided. In many articles it is stated this form of brand journalism is still “young” and its future sustainability is unclear at this juncture. Our society as well as journalism, journalistic marketing, and branding are evolving with each new development of shared information.

References:

Bull, Andy. (unknown) The companion website to the brand journalism text book.

Retrieved from: http://www.brand-­‐journalism.co.uk/introduction-­‐to-­‐the-­‐

subject/in-­‐defence-­‐of-­‐brand-­‐journalism/

Foremski, Tom. (2012). Can pr people become journalist? What is it?

Retrieved from:

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2012/10/can_pr_people_b.php

Friedman, Ann. (2013). Branded but independent media.

Retrieved from:

http://www.cjr.org/realtalk/rise_of_branded_but_independen.php?page=all