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Talk shows made their debut on television back in 1951 and hasn’t slowed down since then. The Tonight Show premiered in 1954 with host Steve Allen and is now the longest running talk show in the world. Nearly every celebrity has made at least one appearance on a talk show during their career, from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Not only do these shows allow celebrities to promote a new movie or book release, but it also lets them show their personality to the public. It’s a chance to see them outside of an acting role and be viewed as “real people.”

Look at Ellen DeGeneres; she uses her own show to strengthen her own brand image. She’s known for comedy, dancing, and acceptance. From her dancing routines with the audience at the beginning of each show, scaring her guests, and having adorable kids dance and sing on the show, Ellen is one of the most liked talk show hosts of our generation. She shows her generosity by giving guests giant checks on the shows and hosting the “12 Days of Giveaways” during the holiday season. Although she does discuss serious topics from time to time, she keeps the content lighthearted and encourages everyone to “be kind to one another.” Ellen is able to use her own talk show to create this fun and light-hearted personality that engages fans on various platforms, including Twitter and Instagram. Ellen has built up her brand image for years and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Some of you may remember or a least heard of the scandal Hugh Grant was involved in back in 1995. His career was just starting to take off as a charming, handsome British actor when he was caught with a prostitute in his car and was arrested for lewd conduct. This type of news may not be as big of a scandal now, but back then, this sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry. Hugh went on an apology tour on talks shows in what is now dubbed as one of the best PR campaign saves in history. His strategy: to look as ragged, apologetic, and pitiful as possible. Instead of demeaning his actions, he made the public feel bad for him. With his new movie Nine Months about to hit theaters, he used this apology tour to show remorse to the public while promoting his movie at the same time.

His most notable television appearance took place on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; Leno was very blatant by asking “What the hell were you thinking?” at the beginning of the interview, to which Grant responds, “You know in life what’s a good thing to do and a bad thing to do. I did a bad thing.” Grant’s appearance in the interview is also worth noting; he looks clean and put together, with a suit and tie, and is still able to charm his way out of the situation. He shows his remorse to his family and girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, by thanking them for their support through the scandal. Grant’s ability to take responsibility for his actions maintain his positive image on talk shows may have just saved his career.

While some need to use tv show appearances to repair their image, some use it to strengthen their brand. Take Amy Poehler, one of Hollywood’s funniest female comedians. Back in 2014 when her memoir, “Yes Please” was released, she did a press junket tour to promote the book on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Today Show, among others. She is already well-liked by the public and further strengthened her funny personality on these shows by joking with the hosts. She seemed more “down to earth” by discussing how her book and sharing behind-the-scene stories from Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation. When she made appearances with Tina Fey from Baby Mama and Sisters movie promotions, both Poehler and Fey were able to create a brand image of being strong female comedians. Their friendship is a namesake in Hollywood and they are known for being supportive to each other.

Not only do talk shows allow celebrities to promote their projects, but it also gives them a chance to create and show their brand identity. These identities help create a (hopefully) positive image in Hollywood and can even save their careers. Talk shows will surely be used for decades to come as a way of fostering the public’s needs to “get to know” their favorite celebrity.

-Amber Mangione

Fall is the season where fashion businesses begin to bring out their autumn and winter apparel and accessories. This is an important time for these companies to market and sell their ideas so they have a successful season. Some popular marketing strategies are collaborations and endorsements. Although there are many other ways to market fall fashion, these two techniques bring the companies a new audience and potential customers.

A major way for fashion businesses to market to their audience is by collaborations. This is when companies work with other companies to reach a new audience and combine different fashion elements. A mass market brand can work with and make collections with a high fashion brand. This fall, Vans had a collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel. He worked with Vans to come out with his own line of shoes and clothing. This brings two distinctive audiences together.

Another beneficial way for companies to market their fall fashion trends is by endorsements. A way to find a new audience to target is using celebrities to endorse products or a specific company. The fans of these celebrities love them and trust their opinions on everything, including fashion. The use of the celebrity is advertisement for the company and showcases their products to all the celebrity’s followers as well. Some examples of companies who have utilized this technique are Coach with Selena Gomez, Alexander Wang with Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger and Gigi Hadid, and Topshop with Beyoncé. These endorsements bring in interested customers who usually are not.

—Trevor Hayworth

With the rising success of the UNCW’s men’s basketball team, there is a greater challenge of keeping up with other North Carolina Universities. Whether it’s equipment or uniforms, most NC universities have much larger budgets than UNCW.

Over the past few years, the UNCW athletic department has struggled to increase their budget. There have been threats of cutting programs and pausing construction projects that led many students to start fundraising for athletic programs. After fundraising efforts and the success of our baseball and men’s basketball teams, the cutting of programs has stopped and the construction that was on pause was completed over the past couple years. From 2010-2015, UNCW has increased their athletic budget by 9.9%, which is the smallest increase from any Division I program in North Carolina. This small increase was due to a rise in student fees, smarter budgeting, and the success of our sports teams.

So what kind of budgets are we competing with? As of 2015, our athletic budget rose to 13 million. That may sound like a lot, but when you put it next to Chapel Hill’s 89 million, it’s almost nothing. While Chapel Hill does have a larger student population and much larger fan base than UNCW, most of their spending is met with higher student costs. While most of Chapel Hill’s athletic home games are free for students, they do have to pay for men’s basketball games. Given that that is one of the most popular athletic teams at their schools, many of their students will pay the cost to cheer on their teams. Meanwhile, UNCW allows students to attend home games for free and men’s home basketball games are free to the first 1,000 students. Although most of these games are free, our student section is usually fairly small and unenthused compared to Chapel Hill.

While fan size and student fees are small factors in the overall athletic budgets, UNCW saves money in many other areas. From 2010-2015, we increased our ticket sales, contributions, licensing, per-athlete spending, boosting our baseball budget, and coaches salaries. While UNCW landed close to last on many of these spendings lists but ranked 4th in student fees or the money that is taken out of our tuition. UNCW also saves a significant amount of money with our lack of a football team.

As we continue on with a good possibility of more success with our baseball and men’s basketball team, do you think that we should increase our athletic budget even more? Do you think that there is a positive correlation between Chapel Hill’s large athletic budget and their overall success in athletics? Is it worth our time to try to compete with larger university’s budgets or should we continue to save money where we can? Either way, we should continue to support our athletic teams especially seeing that about half of the athletic budget is funded by our tuition.

-Sam Ruark

Retail is an industry in which products need to be sold in creative, exciting ways. Clothing stores specifically have to think outside of the box to sell their clothes, and while the holidays are usually the most wonderful time of the year, they are the most stressful time of the year for those working in retail. With the seasons changing, even more pressure is placed on stores to get rid of their summer stuff and start pushing their new fall and winter products. Not only do employees have to work long shifts on the holidays and deal with high-stress shoppers that forget those in retail are also humans, but they have to think of innovative ways to market and put in extra hours to design and prepare the stores. Because the holiday season is such a big deal for retail stores, they must start selling and advertising for them months in advance.

Working at Altar’d State, I have experienced this firsthand and seen the variety of methods the store has come up with to get customers excited for the holidays, even in the heat of early October. Back in August, the company posted on their Instagram and Facebook accounts that they were accepting customers’ pictures of their favorite holiday memories to be displayed in their stores.

This clever kind of marketing is important for stores. It gets shoppers interested and involved, and it makes them feel special. However, it can come with some negative feedback.

Meanwhile, others are excited for the change and ready for the holidays to just get here already.

Altar’d State even went the extra mile to get their customers involved and pumped for the holiday season quickly approaching by hosting a window premiere party including hot chocolate, coupons, and new decorations all over the store.

These are just a few examples of the brilliant ways to promote the holidays. And since stores start early, they have to think of multiple ideas to get customers shopping in as early as September and October. So whether you’re ready or not for the upcoming holidays and hearing Christmas music nonstop the day after Halloween (or even earlier), it’s coming and will be at most stores soon! My advice: avoid Black Friday like the plague and get your shopping done early.

– Kelly Brown

When I think of fall fashion, I think of spending way too much money on clothes and shoes.

One of the dangers of fall fashion is that even before the season starts, companies are all making sure that you know their new and improved styles that will be “in” this autumn. You are being marketed to everywhere you go, walk, sit, look- you get the point. A lot of times this repetition subconsciously (or consciously) makes you think you need these new and fashionable items.

Even if the ads don’t make you want these newest styles, they may just get you thinking about more things you need and want with this change of season. Seeing the new styles everywhere and more of your favorite cozy styles from the year before just naturally makes you want to get new things- even when you don’t need them. That’s human nature!

Now, let’s backtrack a bit.

It’s September and the apparel marketplace is making it known that summer is over and a cool, breezy fall is upon us. Time to change up the look!

But……………before you say your final goodbyes to the sunny, hot days of summer, you might as well pick up some summer clothes for next year while they’re at record low prices!

And then, before you even start looking at the sweaters, pants, and jackets, you already have a pile of clothes in your cart.

I know this from personal experience. I love going shopping for summer clothes in September because that’s when you find the cheapest prices and best deals. But even though all of these items are at the lowest prices they will ever be, let me tell you…it adds up! I am always surprised at how much the total cost is. Then I remember that I need to save room in my budget for warmer clothes for the colder weather.

I know not everyone has the same experience as the one I just described, but I doubt that many people aren’t convinced or tempted by the advertisements and enticements to go out and get a little something new to wear to ring in the new season!

Just be careful once you get to the store not to get carried away like I do!

—Daley Reynolds