Hot Topic Blog

One of our course objectives is to become a better writer in a variety of styles. Lots of companies are promoting themselves with blogs these days (see the list on our class links page for some examples). In this assignment, you will write a blog over 10 weeks. we will set up blogger.com accounts. Email me your URL as soon as you're set up so I can add it to the list of topics below. We will start this the Monday of week 3 and end Friday of week 12; this arrangement gives us five weeks before break and five weeks after break.

There are lots of topics that are hot in the field of audience research/media planning these days. You will pick one from the list below and write about it several times a week. You should review trade journal and newspaper articles on your topic. You should talk about sites you find that are relevant. You can comment on posts from other people's blogs. This is your interpretation of the issue, your summary of the main points. It is important to notice - this is the kind of assignment an intern or new employee might get to show off their analysis skills. So show off.

Choose one from this list; pick something that you can stay interested in for the semester, that is in an area you want to have a career in, or that is something completely new to you that you'll pick to broaden your knowledge in the field a bit.

  • Engagement as the new audience measure
  • Video on demand - how do you use it to make money, for promotions, etc.
  • Media audience fragmentation
  • Who wants to watch TV on an ipod? or on the computer? - new trend of making shows available for download, google video
  • Broadcast and cable television advertising - cost, innovations, changes in who is doing it
  • Branded entertainment, advertainment
  • Advergames - are they right for all products, who is using them, consumer reactions to them
  • Word of mouth, buzz marketing, viral marketing, guerilla marketing - who's doing what, measurement, costs, results
  • Nielsen ratings problems, changes (dvr's, ppm's)
  • Social networking and it's role in promoting products (myspace, facebook, friendster, del.icio.us, etc.)
  • Possibilities of satellite radio (Sirius, XM)
  • New kinds of advertising on the web (beyond the banner ad) - bring in examples, reviews, descriptions of companie providing these kinds of ads
  • Role of advertising in building brand, legislation affecting advertising/marketing
  • Crisis public relations
The assignment is to look at the topic over time to document a variety of viewpoints, elements of any controversy, and connections between what the real world is talking about and class subjects. Who knows - it's out on the web and anyone could see it, including potential internship providers and employers. So write professionally. Spell check. Use punctuation. Go for good sources - and cite them. Use links back to blogs and news sources you use. Develop a comfortable blog writing style - conversational, informed, willing to share expertise. There is a list of blogs on the right hand side of the class resource page - they're good examples of style and pointers to news sources. They are also good places for you to comment, to connect to the bigger advertising/public relations/media planning world. You will be looking at a lot of trade journals for your other asisgnments - keep your eye out for articles or ideas or even ads that fit in with your topic - work smart.

This assignment is worth 100 points. You have to post at least 2 days a week (not 2 posts on 1 day). Think of this last post as a regular paper on a topic - write in a traditional academic style. However, do not just go thru one source after another. Organize your paragraphs by controversies, chronologically, etc. Find some way to pull the info together. End with a paragraph that talks about how your topic affects things we've talked about in class.

To get the full number of points: I expect at least 2 posts a week. Each post should be a couple of paragraphs. You can not count just a link to a news story as a post. You have to summarize it, comment on it. Write. That's the purpose of the assignment. Become an expert on your topic and share your expertise with the world (ok - with me and other people in class at least). Post comments on other people's blogs and talk about those blogs on your site - make it a conversation. Check out some of the blogs written by professionals in our field and leave intelligent comments - suggest a source to them, point out some other blog that is also talking about the topic, whatever. The blogosphere is a conversation - this is your chance to add to the conversation. Add thought-out, well-sourced content and comments. Each post should be about something relatively new/recent; a news story from 2004 does not count (even May 2006 is too old). You must include a link - to the news story, to the company web page, to someone else's blog. Have something engaging and important to say about the topic - just noticing that something exists is boring. People expect web writing to be spare - no extra words. So edit.

Here are some blogs from Spring 2006 for you to check out - the style, the writing tone, etc. They are not necessarily being maintained or updated. The assignment was a little different last semester but you can look at these as examples.