Online Marketing

Online Marketing encourages users to pass on and share marketing messages to create growth and exposure. The point of online marketing and advertising is to get users to do the influencing for them. Online marketing influences conversation and is an interactive way of letting users share information and opinions with friends. These messages get passed on and shared through the many channels of online communication. Some of those are social media, messaging, emailing, and blogging.

The difference between Online Marketing and Traditional Marketing is the fact that the users are the one doing the promoting and passing along. Traditional marketing does not require the use of the audience to do the work for them. That kind of marketing is not meant to be shared as much by others as it is meant to just be shown by the marketers. Online marketing is meant to be talked about.

So, what makes something go viral?

Well first of all, it has to gain interest. If something is not interesting enough to spread the word about, then the message will never go viral. The message needs to be accessible and publicly visible so that it doesn't make it difficult for a user to see the message or share the message. It must be engaging and interactive so that the message is something that is instilled into the user. Promotional giveaways are also messages that typically can go viral or even the promotion of a cause (think about the ice bucket challenge). It also must be a message that is not overly awkward or something that would be embarrassing to share. Shock value and strangeness are big selling qualities, but if something is extremely awkward, it won't ever be passed on.

In class I really liked the Avengers Online Marketing campaign with Samsung we watched. The Avengers virtual world really attracts Avengers fans and users that like gaming in general. The message was really engaging and used storytelling as their main tactic. The message also showed the product in use.

Fair Use & Transformative Use & "Girl Talk"

Fair use, in my own words, allows others to use a limited amount of someone else’s work that is copyrighted without having to be granted the permission to do so. Most of fair use, especially while we are in college, seems to revolve around citing our work in papers, quoting correctly, giving credit in presentations when needed, etc. Most of the time, fair use is a player when someone is making an argument using research, in reports, and when teaching or presenting material. For something to be considered fair use, it will all depend on the purpose, character, nature, effect of use, and sample of the work.

This definition has many fine lines and can be confusing to determine if something is truly considered fair use or not. Transformative use, to me, is a quotation where you have changed the context and have altered the original enough to make it something brand new. The work must be raw, have a different meaning, contain a different insight, and use different information that the original to have changed substantially enough.

When looking at the artist “Girl Talk,” it is very questionable as to if their music falls into the fair use category. I personally think that in general copyright has gotten a little too strict and over regulated. If the purpose of the copyright laws were originally to encourage creativity, then to me they have been over regulated. I also disagree with the fact that the money if someone is sued does not even go to the artist, as they mentioned in the documentary. If the point is to protect the artist then that is where the money should go. I just think it is slightly over the top according to the documentary. This does not mean I don’t believe their shouldn’t be any kind of laws protecting copyrighted material, I just believe is shouldn’t be quite as strict.

My personal opinion of “Girl Talk” is that it is okay in my eyes. I think that if he has been able to dodge all lawsuits up until this point, that people are allowing it to be considered as fair use. I do believe that the music is different from the original by a decent amount in most cases, though again that line is very fine and easy to cross. When we look at vine, remakes on videos, and photoshopped images, these are all facing the same questions. In class we looked at a video about copyright that used Disney characters to make an argument and it was completely different than the original work. To me, “Girl Talk” is the same composition as the Disney video. He is just taking different segments and making it into one completely new work.