Blog #7: Ads and College Students

The college student... define him/her.  What is a college student?  How do you reach one?!  Well, that's the focus of today's topic, and I will address a few points.  For one, most college students are gonna be online and use the internet more than any other source today.  Exposure is one way to reach them of course, so multiple mediums, or forms of media can almost always guarantee a more successful response.  But then to draw them in, most are gonna need some form of humor!  After hours/days of tedious school work, and boring monotanous classes, they need spice... zest(fully clean).  Studies have shown that ads with a creative, humorous execuction are 40% more likely to get a response from college students or recent grads.  Another thing to keep in mind is thriftyness.  College students want free stuff, so sampling products is always a great idea to get 'em interested in a product!  Everywhere ya look, from campus fliers/newspapers, to local tv ads, to word of mouth and the internet, advertisements are focusing in on a target audience, and typically once someone picks a product they're comfortable, they're stuck for life, so my advice to advertisers: get 'em while they're young, dumb, and full of cum laude!

Blog #6: Music Makers

Music itself is possibly as diversified as the people who listen to it.  Since the first musical instruments, it has been ever evolving to the modern forms most of us are familiar with today.  With such a wide variety of topics to sing about, and the innumerable ways to to produce sound, there is without a doubt a type of music for everyone.  One of my favorites is rap/hip-hop music, and I'll tell ya why...
Hip-hop is fairly modern and more of an era defined music predominantly within the african-american culture.  Quite a few "rappers" today have gained a reputable status from their catchy beats and alliterated lyrics.  It seems to me that a substantial amount of their verbal content is based on a so-called "street life" and loosely based on drugs, sex, and violence.  Others, who find this genre of music appealing might of course share similar backgrounds or might find fulfillment in the motivational context of this music which rises from those who have "gone from nothing to something".  I always felt a strong sense of honor and dignity or possibly even entitlement for having worked hard, and I think I feel a similar message being portrayed by these "thugs" that I can relate to.  It has recently gained more main-stream media popularity due to a mass explosion into the market, with designer clothes, shoes, jewelry and more.  The beats can often be heard in movies, advertisments, and claims a huge portion of the Top 40 billboard tracks during the past decade.  In my opinion, most upcoming hip-hop artists are entrepreneurs and are more driven to promote their own success than those of others types of music who just have a pretty face or a discernible voice.

Blog #5: The Film that Shaped my World

Zeitgeist The Movie I'm not sure exactly who told me about this "film", but I do remember being in Germany and watching it alone.  Though it may be highly criticized by most, it was quite intriguing to me, to say the least.  I've seen a number of movies(The_Tree_of_Life) that could have possibly "shaped my world", but ultimately I picked this one, because it opened up my "eyes", it forced me to probe a little more, dig a lil deeper if you will... Some of the topics discussed were/are hard to accept by most, and the only thing I can say after all this time, is not one person I've come in contact with has been able to prove or disprove a large majority of most things we "know", so I will keep an open mind until someone does!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist:_The_Movie states- The film was screened on November 10, 2007 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of the 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival, where it won the Best Feature Award in the Artivist Spirit category for feature-length documentaries.  In September 2008, Zeitgeist, The Movie also received a Special Acknowledgment Award at Rutger Hauer's ICFILMS Film Festival in Milan, Italy

Blog #4: Reader's Choice

In a world of fashion and "faux", what's a guy supposed to read in a magazine?!  Good question, guess it depends on the guy... with anything from home repair, cycling, golfing, cars, "hot" women, watches, sailing, and hip-hop to name a few, the choices are endless.  Three of my favorites, which I've held subscriptions to on numerous occasions are Men's Health, Popular Science, and Playboy.  These are not just 3 random magazines, they're all quite tried and true with a good history and rapport.  Men's Health is the world's largest mens magazine brand, while Popular Science has been a monthly magazine since 1872, won over 58 awards and translated in over 30 languages.  And of course, good 'ole Huge Hefner started Playboy magazine(wiki) in 1953, to provide photographs of nude women to help digest their montly interviews with notable public figures and the long line of short stories, fiction, and journalism to give rise to one of the world's best known brands.

Blog #3: Today's News Source

Though I don't ever find myself sitting in front of the television set and "catchin the news", nor do I find the time to enjoy a "news"paper over the breakfast table, I do however try to stay up to date with the use of a couple different websites.  I can't say that I have one in particular as a daily newssource, but at least in logging into my Yahoo! messenger, I'm greeted with an ever-updating reel of current stories in circulation.  Through the use of Yahoo! News I'm able to have a well-formatted, easily accesible page to news from local and national to worldwide with good reliability.  And though still trailing behind msnbc.com as the top news source online, it's still ahead of CNN according to Nielsen/NetRatings.  There are other sources of news which are slighly more biased on what news they put more focus on but are gaining popularity and in some cases influence.  "America's Finest News Source" and Alex Jones INFOWARS are two of my favorites. 
In my opinion, there's too much news and if more time was spent honoring Jesus' 2nd commandment, according to Mark 12:31 and Matthew 22:39(aka, The Golden Rule), instead of concerning ourselves with affairs from afar, much more peace would be found internally-which is where it all starts.  ::Think-this lil' light of mine...::