The last blog

The first blog that I read was Jenn's blog , I found it really interesting to relate experiments to the world of athletics. It is a known fact that steroid use is on the rise, so I think that it is a good PR move for researchers to find new ways to enhance their endurance with legal products. This summer I got really into working out. I was constantly conducting experiments just like the one's that she talks about in her blog. I would try different work out routines, different diets, different website programs, different classes and so on.

I also like how she talked about athletes and the importance of crisis management. Athletes are constantly trying new things, (experiments), to enhance their skill in their particular sport. Their PR people always have to be aware of what they are doing, so in the case of an accident they can protect their clients. Experimenting with healthy products is fine and probably encouraged, but experimenting with steroids is just risky.

The next blog that I read was Kayla's blog, about the cause and effect of the fashion world. I found it really interesting about retail testing. I have never really thought about how stores go about seeing what will and will not be bought in a store. I think that is a really unique way of research. Sometimes I go into stores and see an item that I could not imagine anyone ever wearing. Then I notice that there are about 30 on the rack and it seems that they have not been touched. I'm curious if retail testing occurs that often and if I could point it out.

I also agree about incentives in fashion. Any fashionista will take any free item for an hour of their time. Although a gucci bag or shoes seem like a little much. I have been given make up, perfume or an accessory, but never a product THAT amazing. All in all, experimental research is extremely important in the fashion world.

FLASH MOBS !!

Last year my brother called me and told me to go on Facebook and check out what he had done that past weekend. He asked me if I had ever heard of a flash mob, it sounded like something I should know about, but I wasn't too familiar with it. I went on Facebook and saw a video of thousands of people dancing in a random place, he was one of them. It was definitely something that was right up my alley, but I still did not understand the point of it.

I started doing some research. A flash mob is defined as "a large group of people who assemble suddenly into a public place, perform and unusual and pointless act for a brief time, and then quickly disperse"(google)". Flash mobs are usually done to raise awareness about something by causing such a huge scene.Oprah did a flash mob to celebrate her 24th season of her show. It started as a concert being performed by the Black Eyed Peas and by the end of it had over 20,000 people dancing to the same exact routine! Many improvisation groups conduct flash mobs just for fun. I also found a few that occurred on college campuses, such as UNC Chapel Hill, this one caught my eye especially. This flash mob occurred during finals week. Hundreds of stressed out students posted up in the library, looking for any means of procrastination. A total of 3,000 students took 10 minutes out of their studying time to dance off the exhaustion and release the stress.

The unexpected factor of a flash mob is that it all started out as a social networking experiment.  A man named Bill decided to created an email called "themobproject@yahoo.com" and sent it to himself. He then sent it to about 40 of his friends, assuming that they would read it and think that their friend Bill found something cool and unique to do. Since Bill was living in NYC at the time he knew most people were always looking for the new big thing to partake in, especially in the arts community. The main point of Bill's experiment was to see how many people he could get to come a show expecting one thing, that would turn into something completely different, a flash mob. His idea is that the people themselves, would become the show.

Flash mobs now take place all over the world. Many people have followed Bill's idea and used them for other means, such a raising awareness of celebrating something significant. They can usually see the outcome just by observing the amount of people that show up to each practice (which normally take place on a football field, hockey rink, or another large area, depending on the amount of people). They can also observe the outcome by seeing how many people showed up to the actual event and by using content analysis to later review what the media, community or participants had to say about it.

How do we get hooked on TV?

Have you ever wondered what makes a TV show SO addicting? How do certain networks know how to target an audience, and hold onto them for soo long. Shows like HBO's Entourage and True Blood hit the target of college students and graduates. Students have been known to make a night out of "HBO Sunday's" specifically to watch these two shows. Then you have TV stations like MTV who have their annual "MTV Spring Break" every year. High school students become extremely attracted to this week of drinking and partying because they believe that their future college years may be just like that.

TV Stations don't just take a guess at who would enjoy their shows, they start with a hypothesis, like any other start to qualitative research. HBO takes a common approach by using Nielsen, an independent survey company that gives ratings to all popular TV shows. Nielsen finds out the viewers opinions on past and upcoming episodes for HBO. They also tell HBO what TV shows are in the running's on their station, who their competitors are and who their target audience seems to be.

MTV takes a slightly different approach. MTV joined with the Associated Press to gain a better understanding of the youth audience. They had a study conducted by Knowledge Networks Inc., another research company. Their study consisted of over 1,000 youths, aged 13-24, answering a survey. The survey was titled "Youth Happiness Poll" and asked questions about what everyday situations in life make you happy or unhappy. The respondents would have never known that they were taking a survey for MTV unless it said "MTV" across the top of the survey.

I find this survey a lot more interesting than HBO's tactics. It is really amazes me that MTV is more concerned about what makes their target audience happy so that they could implement those variables into different shows. This method of research may work better for the company not only because it is showing their interest in their viewers, but also because it helps build their reputation.