I often get hung up on what I am learning as a communications major/business minor in college and what I gain from interning at a marketing firm. I realize that in some cases experience is better than others, but honestly I wish my education in the classroom more than just scratched the surface with advertising. In class I often learned about the basics of topics like demographics, ethics, theories, behaviors, writing, and very basic Photoshop skills. I sometimes get frustrated because, in class I wish we went more in depth on topics and analyzed exactly how different types of medium and vehicles work in today’s market.

As an intern sometimes I feel like I am getting my lunch eaten because I don’t know how to do things or how something operates on a program or at the tech level. I often have to teach myself and just fight through it. Here at Yovia we often work on the internet and therefore use computers all day long even for our end results in advertisement. What frustrates me about this is that in school everything has to be tangent and in paper or on a poster. I mean yes I’ve made a video and done a couple radio spot for class but we never learned the brute skills of actually doing it. If we had an idea we would just make a poor version of our thoughts with out hardly any direction or help on setting it up. For example if we made a T.V. commercial we would make a three by three picture display of what would happen if it was an ad. In some ways I think this is good because we are being creative, but we are missing out on how the actual process works and how we can tweak the idea to make it better. We are missing out on working side by side with someone to share ideas and develop them into something even better using technology.

I understand that my internship might be a bit more involved with computers and the web, but I wish my school scratched the surface a little bit more in relationship with how advertisers use the web and different mediums to maximize their impact on their target audiences. There is a lot to learn about advertising especially within the internet.

By: Matt Hite
Intern
Yovia.com

I read an interesting article this past week about how social marketing is making more of interest in the marketing arena with advertisers. The article by Adage.com stated that, “While marketers may not be spending huge marketing dollars on social media yet, they know they should be using it to reach consumers.” Advertising Age also said a study, “found that 78% of marketers see social media as a way to gain a competitive edge, but fewer than 8% have budgets devoted to it.”After reading this I thought why and how this form of marketing still has not caught on. I think the biggest impact of this is because of the growing internet and the fresh social networks that are still developing. We as advertisers need to catch on to this aspect of marketing, because as things are changing within technology and the internet, the people around it are also changing. As advertisers we are always looking for the edge in advertising with being creative, but we also need to look at it as just simply engaging them in social networks.The article went on to talk about how it is an important way to build your brand, but people still aren’t sure how to use it properly. They states the question that, “Where should a marketer spend to reach its consumers — and how does a marketer know if its consumers use social media?” This is really the important focus of social marketing, because if you do it wrong you may never make a connection to your consumers and you could just be talking to the wrong people. Although, it is really important to get your feet wet with this form of marketing, social marketing can be highly effective. It engages the consumer, isn’t yelling, and it reaches them on an individual level.

By: Matt Hite

Yovia.com

Community Development Intern

Source article: http://adage.com/opinion?article_id=126828

It’s obvious, with the advancement of the computer, the way we communicate and the way we think is also adapting to the current times. It’s interesting to think about the people who run our world today and what the people of the future will be like. I have been thinking about this aspect in marketing and our society. Today people my age are constantly socializing. We are constantly plugged-in, communicating with all the technology we have been provided with, whether this is with our friends, family and acquaintances. It is known that humans are social creatures.

We want to hit the level of love and belongingness in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But, with the changing time, this niche in communication in our lives is, I think, growing. More importantly, it is growing in an interesting and sometimes different way. When we look at kids compared to adults, I think we could say that this difference is definitely present.

I read this week in an article from Economist.com that, “[a] psychologist at MIT who studies the nexus between people and gadgets, believes that the tools of mobility are leading to ‘the emergence of a new type of person’. In the distant, landline-dominated past, she says, people thought: ‘I have a feeling so I want to make a call.’ Young people today, including Ms. Turkle’s teenage daughter, seem to be thinking instead: ‘I want to have a feeling, so I need to make a call’.” So as advertisers we should want to understand and possibly intersect this. What could be more appropriate than social marketing? 

I have been thinking about how influential this is compared to other forms of advertisement. If the people of tomorrow are communicating differently and in different forms we should try to understand the importance in it and cater to it. If the people of tomorrow are thinking and using sentences that are structured differently we should try to understand this. And if advertising continues, don’t you think social marketing will eventually take a bigger piece of the pie in advertising? What do you think?

By: Matt Hite

Community Development Intern

Yovia.com

 Article Reference: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950487

At an AdTech Show, in San Francisco, last year.  I attended a session on content.  The gist of the session was that “content is STILL king.”   At the time, I thought that made sense.  The more I think about it now, the less that makes sense.  Content is STILL king implies that there was or will be a time when content is not the most important component of a site.  There is maybe one successful site I can think of where the actual content, isn’t the most important factor, CSSZenGarden.com.  The funny thing about CSS Zen Garden, is that it has an extremely strong value proposition.  The “content” which makes the site successful, is the purpose.  So, content can be either implicit or explicit.  Either way, it is vitally important.  It is easy to see from the natural progression, as sites have moved from basic text information sites to interactive content that engage the users with games or tools, that content has developed over the years.  This begs the question, “Will content always be king?”  Yes, of course it will.  Content will become MORE important.  It has become easier and easier to develop and build sites, and be a part of the internet. 

Anyone can create a site, and put some words on it.  Those people are competitors for your site, and the easier it becomes to build and develop a site, the more and more competition grows.  So, how is one to stand-out among the competition? Content.   Why would someone visit your site, if there is a better one  out there?   They shouldn’t.  Over time, they won’t.  The first rule, in the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is The Law of Leadership:  It’s better to be first than it is to be better.  False.  The transparency and low barriers to entry make the internet a proving ground, more than a first come first serve ticket window.  There are a number of case-studies on this.  Apple was not the first to introduce an mp3 player, but at the time the iPod was THE best.  Friendster opened the door for Facebook and Myspace to walk through, and improve.  Warren Buffet stresses the importance of the moat around a business as essential to it’s success.  This holds true online.  The moat online? Content.

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