IMC Hawks Blog

Blog

  • Sprite commercial goes global

    Hip-Hop artist Drake stars in Sprite’s new campaign launch “Spark,” the company’s new updated logo.  This campaign is aimed at encouraging teens to express their creativity through music and film.  Spark is Sprite’s first ever global marketing campaign.

    The commercial is titled “Unleashed” and features the rapper in a recording studio with no inspiration.  As soon as he drinks the Sprite and his body begins to transform as the Sprite flows through his body.  As a result of the soda he is able to find inspiration and spits a famous ling line from his song “Forever”, “Last name ever/First name greatest.”

    Drake has yet to release his debut album so the worldwide publicity will hopefully be great for his career.  “We looked at a lot of artists for this campaign,” says Joe Tripodi, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer of the Coca-Cola Company. “It began with the core creative idea that Sprite is the spark of fresh thinking when you combine our brand of individuality and creativity with the sudden refreshment of lemon lime that comes together for the spark. As we filtered through, we realized we wanted someone with a breadth of interest across the globe — a new, fresh, young talent.”

    The “Spark” campaign is an integrated marketing tool that will allow people an outlet to record their own 45-second animated films.  “Unleashed” currently airs in four markets, United States, Philippines, Turkey, and South Africa.

    -Danielle Murray

  • Celebrity Blog Hall of Fame

    You friend, then you stalk.  You follow, they tweet and then you re-tweet their tweets.

    They blog.

    And surprisingly there are a number of blogs written by celebrities that are actually worth reading.  Alec Baldwin’s blog, hosted by The Huffington Post gives excellent insight into his life, his feelings, his views on current events, etc,.  It is very intriguing sometimes to see the “real” side of a famous person’s life.   The term “real” meaning: at least the online presence of the blog is sincere.

    So, with this in mind I would like to introduce Forbes Top Five Best Celebrity Blogs.

    #1—Wil Wheaton

    #2—Moby

    #3—William Gibson

    #4—Barbra Streisand

    #5—Dave Barry

    These may not be the mainstream celebrities that most would follow on Twitter or friend on Facebook; however, their blogs are intriguing, funny and make for a great read.

    ENJOY!

    Laura Ann Klinedinst

  • American Idol Contestants Delete Social Media Accounts

    Without any sort of explanation, American Idol has banned their 24 finalists from using social media (Mashable).  Finalists are no longer able to have their own personal Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace accounts.  Instead, they have consolidated their sites into one AI9Contestants username across all social networking.

    Recently, each of the 24 finalists sent out a message to their followers saying “Thanks so much for following me!  All my updates from now on will be on our Official AI9 Twitter page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants.”  The same sort of message was sent out across the other social networking sites.

    Speculation from The Wall Street Journal and USA Today say AI motives were to create more equality with the voting process.  Finalists’ use of social media sites may reveal early favorites, expose secretes and or influence America’s voting.

    Social media outlets could be used by finalists to increase popularity with fans and thus increase their votes to win the competition which may not be fair.  However, this shift may actually hinder contestants from developing a connection with their fan base which AI’s popularity relies on .It seems this change by American Idol is focusing on the fairness of the competition without embracing the positive influence social media has on the business side of the industry.

    Even though Idol’s efforts are designed to maintain the equality and secrecy of the show’s outcome, they cannot stop society’s use of social media to discuss the contestants and opinions of the show.

    -Taylor Diehl

  • The World of Twitter Welcomes Conan

    Not even a former evening talk show host can resist the glowing temptation of twitter.  After a recent controversy surrounding talk show hosts Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno, which resulted in the expulsion of O’Brien from appearing on the air, he decided to retain viewers elsewhere. On February 24, 2010, @ConanOBrien posted his first tweet stating: “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.” Within a half hour of his first tweet, he had up to 15,000 followers.

     Upon deciding what to do with his new source of popularity, O’Brien announced that he would be following one new person every week. He would essentially be retweeting and commenting on the chosen followers’ posts. His first choice was 19 year bride-to-be, Sarah Killen, who he was drawn to because of her love for peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. After being followed by O’Brien for one week, Killen’s life was flipped upside down. She gained 20,000 followers and is having her dream wedding planned for free, not to mention her all expenses paid honeymoon.  And how will the couple repay him? By asking him to be best man in the wedding, of course!

    As Conan continues to utilize social media as a tool to withhold his popularity and maintain support, he is also continuing to use social capital by building community strength. Sarah is just one individual who has received the benefits of marketing herself via twitter, however, thanks to O’Brien, she is using her new fame to help raise money for breast cancer awareness. So, until Conan is allowed back on the air, the only information he needs his followers to understand is this: “I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account.”

    Stephanie Saulsbury

  • Google AdWords

    Our favorite search engine Google has put on a competition for AdWords.  Most likely when you go to search something on the Internet you are going to go to the search engine Google, right? The fast and simple webpage seems to be most accurate and effective for what we are looking for. Imagine how many people search using Google, and imagine how much response you would get if your ad for your business were to show up on Google?

    To sum this up simply, Google AdWords is putting on a global competition for anyone to create their own ads to stick up on Google. Each team chooses a business to focus on and to create an ad for. Each team must have permission from the business in which they choose. For our case, we have recently been involved in a renaming project within our Professional Education branch for Communication Studies at UNCW. Using the information we gather from our pre-competition strategy paper and from our company we create AdWords that we believe encompass the purpose of the company and we place those into Google AdWords. Whoever receives the most response from their business AdWords wins the competition.

    Many things are important to do this job effectively. We had to learn much of the brand personality that our company is trying to portray to their public. Our challenge will be choosing words that work as a summary for the business, but also choosing appealing words that people will choose to search on Google. Our professor is challenging us to not only simulate real job projects, but placing us into situations where our group is team that relies on each other to “get the job done”. We are gaining true knowledge in what it is like to be within the IMC job market.

    Alissa Lockwood

  • CFCI 10th Anniversary Planning Project

    Our class group has assumed the responsibility of planning the event celebrating Cape Fear Center for Inquiry’s ten years of education. Upon meeting with representatives from the local charter school, we established a budget, a venue, food, supplies, and guest speakers. Our client’s motive is to provide a friendly atmosphere for the current students, alumni, and their families, thus a local arboretum on a Sunday afternoon in April seemed appropriate. Our next step was to make a decision about food. Taking budget into consideration and acknowledging that food is usually the single most expensive item at any event, we have begun asking for donations from local restaurants and establishments. Supplies will include tables, beverages, T-shirts, raffle prizes, seating, a tent and podium for guest speakers and special recognitions.

    Contacting the public and media is crucial in the planning of any event, so we have a media kit in the works. Our client would like for any and all alumni to attend and since most of them may not be in direct communication with the school, we are utilizing all of our resources through the local media as an outreach tool. Awards for the three founders will be presented that afternoon as well.

    We have planned to meet with our client exactly one month before the event to make sure all arrangements have been made, invitations and media kits sent, and that thank you letters for donations have been written.

    Mandy Baker

  • IMC Conference

    At the beginning of the semester, Dr. Persuit gave our class an outline foreshadowing our semester’s assignments.  As mentioned on Monday’s and Tuesday’s blog, we dove into a great book setting the framework for our perspective on social capital in relation to IMC and had the wonderful opportunity to learn the appropriate research and instruction to rebrand and rename an organization.  Although our first two assignments were interesting, informative and fun, we have all been anxiously awaiting our last and final assignment, which we are now getting into.

    The last two months of this semester are being devoted to three different projects taking place simultaneously distributed among three different groups of five students.  All of the projects aim to generate social capital and utilize IMC strategies to the fullest.  The next few blogs will be describing each project in detail starting today with the IMC Conference Due Diligence project.

    Conferences are a big part of the communication world.  They allow the opportunity for students, faculty and practitioners to come together to share the newest research and information regarding a specialized field in communication.  These fields can be as broad as general communication studies to the more specific area of integrated marketing communication.  Conferences typically last a few days with many panels and presentations taking place, generate the excuse to eat several meals, and a allow time to hear a great speaker elaborate on the theme related to the conference.  The IMC Conference group has the challenge to research the necessary areas behind the scenes (due diligence) of a potential IMC Conference to take place in the summer of 2011 at UNCW.

    The bulk of our research focuses on the logistics and beginning planning stages of the conference.  The research includes learning about similar conferences, possible conference themes, ideas for conference tangibles, IMC literature, appropriate outlets for promotion of the conference, graduate programs in IMC, a potential key-note speaker, and a reasonable location/size to then finalize the conference details (food, entertainment, etc.).  We will also learn the steps for writing the call for papers for the conference as well as begin the preliminary budget and conference development.

    At the end of the semester, our final exam will be in the form of a presentation, presenting the findings and proposal for our project.  Our clients who we will be pitching our information to are our instructor, Dr. Persuit, and our department chair, Dr. Olsen.

    We are currently in the largest research stage of our project as the majority of our assignment relies on information from other conferences and outlets.  All five of us working on the project are very excited to come together after spring break to sync our research and discover what we have found.  This assignment is definitely our biggest challenge to date, and we are excited to be a part of the ground work for a bi-annual conference at UNCW.  As the semester ends, we will keep you posted on project updates.

    If you have any ideas for what you may like to see at such a conference, feel free to leave a comment as we are open to suggestions!

    -Allyson Corbin