Media Overload

I don't know if this ever happens to anyone else, but I feel like I have ODed on media over the last week. Between all of my class assignments (the 4 movies I had to watch, the 2 newspapers I had to read, the tv show I had to watch, the radio programs I had to listen to, the 125 pages in books and the blogs I had to read), and my personal media consumption choices (morning news, season premieres, daily NPR listening while driving, twitter, facebook, etc), my brain is overflowing. To be honest, I don't really feel like I am full of useful information, though. Just a random hodge-podge of pop-culture meets culture-study STUFF.

I feel like one of those people in the Bing Ads.

Has this ever happened to you?

Barbie Rocks

Listen, I think Barbie gets a bad rap. There are all kinds of books and articles and pundits out there yelling about how Barbie is a bad role model and causes young girls to have body issues. I seriously have to disagree with both of these points.

First, Barbie is not a bad role model (she can't be a good or a bad role model because she is a doll, not a human, but I digress). The first female doctor I ever saw was Barbie. She shows girls that there are careers out there for women, and she gives them something to strive for. In fact, a Barbie that came with a camera when I was a kid was probably what piqued my interest in photography. These days I do family portraits and weddings in my spare time, and am paid well for my skills. Barbie certainly wasn't a bad role model for me. 

As for body issues, give me a break. Little girls were comparing themselves to each other, and to their mothers and big sisters, long before Barbie ever came along. Do people really believe that no young woman ever wanted larger breasts before 1959? You mean to tell me that women weren't cinching their waists to look smaller for hundreds of years before Barbie, that she created a culture, all by herself that causes little girls to want to be shaped a certain way?

There are a lot of conversations that we can have around children's toys and how they effect their development, but can we please just let these arguments go the way of the corset?

All I wanna do is have some fun.

Things have been very stressful recently, and that makes me want to get out of the house, away from the computer, and off to something fun and awesome and adventurous. I've noticed, though, that my idea of fun is not what is perpetuated by television programming. If we go by the media, these are my options for weekend fun:

I could go the "Jersey Shore" route and get positively drunk out of my mind and go home with a random dude that will kick me out of bed 10 minutes after we "pound it out".


I could go the "Hangover" route and get myself dosed by a friend and have the most epic time ever, but not know what it was. 


I could go the "GRεεK" route and get really drunk at a frat party and spill a friends deepest secrets.


The list goes on and on. Obviously, if I want to be a cool kid like the people on TV, I need to get thoroughly wasted and do something I'll regret. I think I might go the boring route and head out to The Big E. I could go for a fried snickers right about now. Who's with me??

Say What?

Have you ever noticed that a lot of the time professional newscasters and other people not "in the know" tend to use the wrong words for things? Strangely enough, I recently saw it happen in reverse. Last week I was watching a news program and they had a special guest on the program to discus the growing trend of businesses using twitter to communicate with their customer base. Sounds like a reasonable news story, right? There was only one problem, the "Social Media Professional" continuously referred to the act of sharing a message on twitter as "twittering", the correct terminology of course being "tweeting". Now this wouldn't be a big deal except the person speaking was hired as an expert, and he clearly was not an expert if he couldn't even speak using the correct terminology.

The words we use to describe what we do are important, even when it comes to something that many people might consider trivial, like Twitter. If someone was to go into a job interview for a corporate communications position, and went on and on about twittering, while at the same time stating they were on top of internet media trends, they probably wouldn't get very far into the selection process. Just something to keep in mind.

"Penelope" VS The Bechtel Test

Last week I watched the movie "Penelope". From IMDB, Penelope is "A modern romantic tale about a young aristocratic heiress born under a curse that can only be broken when she finds true love with 'one who will love her faithfully'. Let's see how the movie performed against The Bechtel Test:

1. The movie must have at least two female characters: Check! There was Penelope, her mother, the matchmaker, and Penelope's friend. 
2. The female characters must speak to each other: Check! Penelope talked to everyone above, and most of them talked to each other.
3. The female characters must speak to each other about something other than a man: Check! They talked about beer, a scarf, a postcard, etc. 

The final Verdict? Penelope passed with flying colors! This is remarkable given that the movie was about a girl that needed to find a man to accept her and love her for who she was. And this wasn't a chicks-only movie. There were plenty men in the movie, and they talked to the women, as well. 

Great job by the producers and writers!

Michael McGinty Family Fun Day

I moved to Foxboro last January, and I have been really impressed by the sense of community here. That being said, I was surprised to find a carnival-like atmosphere on the common on Saturday. A carnival on the anniversary of 9/11 struck me as really odd. My husband and I walked over, and come to find out, it was Michael McGinty Family Fun Day. On 9/11, Mr. McGinty was killed while working at the World Trade Center, and a memorial scholarship was created in his honor. The event was partially to raise money for the scholarships, but also to remind people what remembering 9/11 is really about. It is about holding on to your patriotism, and keeping your loved ones close. Check out the video below for NECN's coverage of the event. You can also read about it here. I think it is great that NECN chose to cover such a wonderful event.

An Obsession With Stuff

George Carlin on "Stuff". He does curse a couple of times, so be careful where you watch this.






Our dearly departed George Carlin has such a good point. We are all obsessed with stuff. Not all of us are obsessed with the same stuff, but we all have stuff that we consider absolutely necessary to get through our lives. There are people in this world that are so obsessed with collecting stuff that they are diagnosed with a mental disorder known casually as hoarding. Those people have so much stuff they can't live without that their houses could be literally falling down around them, and yet they still can't part with any of their stuff.

I think there are two main points to make here. The first is that the advertising industry has found a way to dig deep into our primal gathering instincts to convince us that we need, no MUST, have more stuff. Even if we have some stuff that is kind of like the other stuff we already have (Seriously, who needs 8 bottles of body lotion?). Second, the fact that there are not one, but two television shows that air regularly about people with hoarding issues says something about our voyeuristic tendencies here in America. When the world of reality television collides with the world of mental health issues in a society that says we need more stuff, this is what we get: A television show telling incredibly anxious people that they have too much stuff.

Excuse me while I go through all of my stuff and donate some of it to charity. Lord knows they are te only ones that really need more stuff.

A Keeper of History

When I was about 12 years old I would wander around downtown Middleboro, MA. I lived only about a mile away, and I liked to explore and be with my thoughts. One day, I went to an antique store. There were all kinds of amazing things there, including a box of old photographs. I spent about an hour looking through them all. Near the back of the box there were some newspaper scraps from 1911 or so. I was absolutely enthralled, and bought them for 50 cents. I think the store owner thought I was nuts. Ever since that day, I have had a minor obsession with newspapers, and how important they can be as first-hand accounts of history.

Flash forward five years to September 11, 2001. Well, we all know what happened that day. I won't get too deep into my reactions, but suffice it to say it was life altering, and I became obsessed. The newspeople said to donate blood, but I couldn't donate blood because of medication I was taking. The newspeople said to send money, but I didn't have any. They called for volunteers, but I was too young to be of much help. So I did the only thing I could do. I called libraries and grocery stores, and I collected all of the newspapers from that day that I could, and I am saving them. Someday my children will ask me about that day, and I will pull out those papers. I bet they will be able to illustrate what happened better than a textbook ever could.

The Bechdel Test

I would like to start an ongoing project in this little blog. Ever since my friend Erica told me about it, I have been fascinated with The Bechdel Test. The test was popularized by Alison Bechdel's comic, "Dykes to Watch Out For" and was published in 1985. You can read more background about the comic strip in question here.

The Bechdel Test determines whether a movie is worth seeing based on 3 simple Rules:

1. The movie must have at least two female characters
2. The female characters must speak to each other
3. The female characters must speak to each other about something other than a man

These rules seem pretty easy to follow, but once you start thinking about it, you'll be shocked by how few movies actually pass. You can see the original comic strip below. Let me know what you think in the comments!

FaceTime for Everyone!

Yesterday Apple* released a gaggle of new gadgets, and that makes me very, very happy. Out of all the new features and all the newly designed devices the thing I am most excited about is, I'm sure you've guessed, FaceTime is now available on the iPod Touch! This is made possible buy the front-facing camera and the new version of iOS software. This is exciting to me for a few reasons, but mostly because it means that you don't have to buy an iPhone and sign a contract to participate in a FaceTime chat.

Over the last several years, video chat software like Skype, Google Video Chat and iChat have become essential for people who find themselves far away from their loved ones. With the economy the way it is, many people are unable to fly their family around to see people. I see mobile video chat becoming just as prolific as the software I mentioned above, and just as normal as sending an email. Just wait. It'll happen.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I work part time at the Apple Store.

Oh, hi there!

It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to write an introduction of sorts.

My name is Anna. You probably already know that based on the title of the blog, but it is worth mentioning. Although this blog was created as an assignment for a course, I have been thinking about creating one along these lines for a while now. I am an avid social media user, and love technology and the gadgets that go with it, so expect to read about those topics here. Additionally, I am very interested in customer relationship cultivation, and how media changes the customers' relationship with the corporation.

Please feel free to comment on my posts. I love a good discussion!

Would you like an App with that?

Target, McDonald's, Burger King and GAP. What do these companies have in common? Instant name recognition for sure, but they are also part of the ever-expanding group of companies with their own authorized iPhone App**. This new category of brand management is exciting and very interesting to me. 

Prior to the smartphone era, there were only a few specific ways that a company could communicate their branding. Let's use GAP as an example. They used television advertising, web ads, billboards and store window displays that reach everyone, but not necessarily their core customer, the person who already shops at GAP. Then came email marketing, which allowed the customer to ask for advertising in their inbox. I imagine this was a huge boon for the company, as now they could reach their core customer, and the customer could choose to forward the communication to a friend. By sending coupons along with their communication, GAP gave their customers a reason to open the email, and see the advertisement, not to mention an incentive to come to a store. Now GAP has an app, and it has the potential to take direct marketing to a whole new level.

The GAP application lets you pick out clothing, put it in your virtual closet, make purchases, find a store, and post your favorite looks onto facebook. That means that one person downloading this app, and sharing their favorite outfit has the potential of reaching an innumerable amount of like-minded consumers (the app owner's friends), and therefore helping GAP grow their brand with only a little extra effort on their part. Pretty cool, huh?

It will be really interesting to see how companies choose to use-or not use-this new tool in their arsenal. I expect the market to grow virtually exponentially over a short period of time. How well the App market helps brand a company remains to be seen, but it is certainly looking like a good investment to me.

**For the uninitiated, an "App" is an application that is created to run on a specific platform, like the iPhone. Its specific purpose may range from mindless entertainment to precise medical care, but it always has a purpose.