my. attempt. at. an. ethics. journal.

Journal 2-3

my. attempt. at. an. ethics. journal.

I. In last week's blog I said that I would do some research on documentary making. After searching the internet, here is what I found:
the following website had some valuable information:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2002129_make-a-documentary.html

source: "How to Make a Documentary | eHow.com." eHow | How To Do Just About Everything! | How To Videos & Articles. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. http://www.ehow.com/how_2002129_make-a-documentary.html.

II. This week in class we finished watching "The Persuaders". It was a really interesting film with a lot of valuable information. For two class periods we watched brand analysis presentations. Among those were The North Face, Mizuno, Nike, Hershey's, Bloch, Puma, and Poptarts.We had to include our personal idea of what a brand is, a brand that we're loyal to, that brand's logo, the brand's controversial issues, and an advertisement for that brand. On Friday we had a substitute. We spent the class period working on a worksheet about fair use in documentary making.

source:

direct, p., & man, U. c. (n.d.). Welcome to United Gift Inc! A Unique Crystal Art Source Manufacturer You Have Never Seen in the US! Design, Manufacturing for Business to Business.. Welcome to United Gift Inc! A Unique Crystal Art Source Manufacturer You Have Never Seen in the US! Design, Manufacturing for Business to Business.. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from http://www.unitedgiftinc.com/index.html

I thought that "The persuaders" was a rather interesting film. There was one part that particularly interested me. An advertising expert put a bunch of people in a room and had them rate their feelings about an ad as it went along. He watched their combined ratings on a graph and took notice to where the interest level was the highest. From that, he was able to understand what key words and phrases catch the audience's attention, attracting them to the product. Based on his consumer testing results, he is able guide producers into making the most appealing adversitements. I thought that was pretty ingenious. I also thought it was pretty cool to hear the research my classmates did on their favorite brands. From my brand analysis I learned that there is a company called The South Butt in competition with The North Face. From Matt's analysis i learned that Poptarts got sued because someone's toaster caught on fire. From Arius's analysis I learned that the creator of Puma and the creator of Adidas are brothers.

source:

North Face v. South Butt « Pittsburgh Trademark Lawyer. (n.d.). Pittsburgh Trademark Lawyer. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from http://pittsburghtrademarklawyer.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/north-face-v-south-butt/

Something we didn't discuss in class that I think is worth discussing is how much of a bandwagon effect there is on some brand name products. There are at least fifteen brands that I'm loyal to simply because "everyone else is" or because "all the cool kids have it". Some examples would be Rainbow flipflops, North Face jackets, Ugg boots, Vera Bradley bags, and Chi hair straighteners. Sometimes all it takes for a product to gain popularity is one of the "cool kids" using it. Soon enough everyone is using it because it's the newest ticket to popularity. Basically, all it takes is for the right person to start using a product.


III. For next week's blog I want to do some research some brand comparisons. I want to take similar brands like Kelloggs and General Mills and compare the consumer rates for each. I'm interested to see which products have proved to be better than their ridiculously similar competition.