Month: October 2010

The first text message was sent on a personal computer in 1992. Now, texts are mostly sent or received on via mobile network services. The number of text messages are exponentially increasing yearly as they are simple ways to communicate in a short and efficient manner. All around the world, mobile phone users are texting, from elementary-aged children to senior citizens. My 8 year old brother sends text messages to tell my parents to pick him up. My mom forwards a ridiculous amount of inappropriate jokes during office meetings. In fact, she probably texts more than I do. Both of them reside in China, where texting is extremely cheap. In the year 2007, over 700 billion text messages were sent in the country.

These messages can be sent in any situation, such as between employees and employers, friends, and family. In this way, there can be conflicts between formalities, as some interpret messages differently compared to others. For example, there was a situation in Canada where an employee was terminated due to inappropriate text messaging. His message was unintentional in terms of its context. His intent was to send a quick message to convey a serious negotiation. However, the manner in which his message was sent was inappropriate, as the reader mistook his humour and information as informal and unprofessional. After further examination, more of his text messages were viewed and seen as inappropriate for the workspace and in turn, hurting the company’s name and reputation.

In a more positive light, businesses have been utilizing texting as a way to take advantage of new technology in order to seek competitive advantages. Texts are secure, reliable, fast, and confidential. They allow users to hide the emotions that may be seen in face-to-face meetings or heard through phone calls.

In conclusion: Texting = awesome.

GAP debuted a new logo on its website this week. (pictured above) It wanted to go from it’s classic blue box with white letters to something more “modern”, yet still keep its blue box in the picture somehow.  For some companies, logo changes have brought a fresh, new look and good reviews. See some of them here. The original GAP logo has been around for 20+ years. Is it about time for a logo change?

According to online users, it’s not. The comments posted by internet surfers on their blogs and other various social networking sets have not been as kind as GAP had expected.

Here are some that were posted on GAP’s facebook page:

In December of 2006, my grade 9 year, my friend introduced to me Facebook. At the time, I was only the second person in the entire school in my grad year to have it. I thought: “oh, it’s just another fad website, like Xanga or Nexopia.” Little did I know, four years later, I will have spent an extremely unhealthy amount of time on this website…browsing, posting, creeping. I’m quite certain that I’ve spent more time on Facebook than I have sleeping or studying.

In the last couple of years, Facebook and other social media websites, such as Twitter and YouTube, have been growing faster than ever, and have become an incredible tool for corporations and businesses. With such a huge number of users logging on every day, businesses are able to market to so many people that much faster. For me, businesses that utilize social media as a way to reach out to their customers seem so much more “trendy” and “hip”. They seem more in touch with the modern technological age we currently live in, which, as a consumer, tells me a lot about their social awareness. In fact, I attended a sale today that was advertised through an event on Facebook.

Without doubt, these social media sites are not going to go away anytime soon, if at all. It’s hard to imagine life without Facebook. Now that I think back over the last four years, I don’t know what it would have been like without all those event invites, tagged photos, relationship statuses, wall posts…I’m sure my friends would all say the same thing. I can state with 100% confidence that social media makes an enormous impact on our daily lives. And since the internet is open to everybody, especially with most of these social media services being completely free of charge, businesses have a ridiculous amount of potential in the field.

I was going to write this blog post the day we had our class on marketing, but obviously I put it off for a week 🙂 I guess I realized that it would look bad if I had 4 new blogs the night before our deadline….But anyways, I was really interested in this particular class and may possibly look into marketing as a major in 3rd year 🙂

In the beginning of our COMM101 class last Tuesday, we were told that we see over 3000 – 6000 marketing messages a day. When I first heard this, I was astounded. Then I looked around me, and I realized how true this was. Everywhere in the room, Apple Macbooks, NIKE Air Force Ones, Hollister tshirts…it was endless. Everything was an advertisement. Some were extremely obvious, with huge logos directly on the product. Some were more inconspicuous, yet still recognizable for those who already know the brand. A few examples include American Apparel hoodies with their white zippers (OMG apparently they’re going bankrupt, SALE SOON! hopefully.), Converse Chuck Taylors, or the ever obvious True Religion jeans to the small Tiffany key necklace. Even though these items did not have their company name sprawled across themselves, I still knew what they were from all the advertising and marketing surrounding them. It shows how successful these companies were in marketing their particular product.

Obviously, in a room full of social savvy Sauderites, the latest and greatest trends are represented. Which got me thinking: does buying all these brand name items make us materialistic? Easily sucked into marketing? Or just fashionable?