Month: March 2011

It is prudent to suggest that if you are an avid hockey fan or even just someone who turns the tele on during the playoffs to support your team, you have probably seen the NHL commercials, “History Will be Made.” The campaign was started last year as a way to not only promote the playoffs but also to praise the unforgettable moments that the stars of the NHL has given us. The effectiveness of the advertisements comes from the push/pull factor that the NHL implements. With reference to fellow class mate, Salim Visram’s Blog, he  discusses the idea that the “pull” factor is effective because, when one watches one of the advertisements they can connect, relate, and feel the pressure of what the advertisement is really trying to persuade or remind you of. For a more specific example, here is the same commercial that Salim posted.

However, after watching the advertisement, I would suggest that there is also a certain degree of “push” factor implemented. With reference to the title “Wish,” and the concept of the advertisement, there is speculation that the NHL is pushing the younger target audience. It would be nice to think that they are simply trying to promote a message that when your at that age if you wish for something and put in the hardwork, dreams can come true. Unfortunately, reality reminds us that no one has that good of intentions, at least not for the amount of money that these advertisements cost. A more identifiable but not necessarily obvious way to interpret the “push” aspect of this advertisement is that the NHL is in fact trying to target the younger audience while exploiting things like geographic or demographic (Canadian kid growing up and playing hockey). Could these ads lead to a potential increase in players in minor hockey leagues around the world?

Youtube has been hit by yet another viral teen video, however this particular video isn’t famous because of its quality… its more so famous for its lack their of.  The music video “Friday” starring 13-year old Anaheim native Rebecca Black was released on youtube on Friday, February 11th as her first ever attempt at recording a single, and it shows. Asides from the song being terrible, as demonstrated by lyrics such as “yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards” and “Kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back seat, gotta make my mind up which seat can I take?”, her voice is clearly not up to recording artist standard, as the song producers have auto-tuned practically every line she sings. So with that being said, how did Rebecca Black even get a single in the first place? Money. Black’s family paid the producing company Ark Music Factory (AMF) to make her daughter a single. AMF specializes in writing songs for young girls who don’t have material for themselves, and then they record the single for them, including producing a music video, promising instant stardom.

As stated above, this video premiered way back in February…so how come it is only going viral now? Simple. Black can thank publicity from social networks and word of mouth for her instant fame. Comedian Michael Jensen first tweeted about the video on March 11th, which ignited a chain of re-tweets, as well as facebook posts and shares. Additionally, Black’s song was mentioned in widely read music magazine Billboard Magazine, which has also contributed to her instant fame. Within 1 day the  number of viewers who had watched the video skyrocketed from below 400,000 to over 1.2 million, and now just 5 days later has reached an astounding  9.56 million views.

This is all just an evident example of how social media can be used in our generation to promote anything, and how large of an effect it has on the acceptance or rejection of a product, or in this case a song. As soon as people saw the hateful comments, and numerous jokes made about Black’s song, she became an instant laughing stock practically over night. If companies were able to use this technique to their advantage however, they could benefit tremendously. For example, if a company were to make a parody video surrounding one of their new products, all if would take would be a few twitter mentions and facebook posts to instantly create a huge amount of word of mouth surrounding their product, and if executed properly, a huge amount of interest for their product as well.

In the world of entertainment, the last two weeks have been completely seized by the great Charlie Sheen and his unorthodox antics. Charlie Sheen admitting to his Cocaine addiction hasn’t even been the most exciting headline, that goes to his new found love for #winning. By revealing to the public his particular situation, and through the means of the most bizarre come back story, it seems as though society has opened up to Sheen.

If one were to follow the activity of Sheen over the last two weeks they would know, he has not only become one of the faces of twitter, trending, on what seems to be a daily occurrence, but also has put out videos with certain products in them in what some are calling a marketing stint.

Could the man really be this smart, or just desperate. By publicly becoming the figurehead and leader of, the most out of control celebrities, he has been able to take over the social media world. By utilizing this luxury he has supposedly started his own marketing stint in which companies are paying him to promote their product. This is evident in the twitter photo that reveals Sheen promoting DIRECTV. Further more Sheen has started his own radio show. I tuned into the very first show last week and was not overly shocked when the first ten minutes were devoted to promoting sponsors and the rest of the show, discussing #winning. In some degree Charlie Sheen is #winning, he has successfully established his own brand, albeit it is on a very thin line that is seperating crazy from genius. Regardless it would be ignorant to ignore the fact that Sheen has started his own self employed marketing ploy that continues to see growth day after day.

It wasn’t more than a year ago when my friends and I started the acclimated Basement Knee MMA blog. All of us realized that our passion for the sport exceeded that of just watching the fights in a buddies basement. From this idea, Basement Knee was born.

There was an understanding that to start your own blog you didn’t necessarily need to have superior knowledge but just a desire to share your opinion. Five best friends pressed the “create” button and the site that many have come to know today was formed.

In the ever growing MMA world there are multiple websites and blogs that are trying to reach stardum comparable to the success that sites such as Bloody Elbow, MMA Fighting  or MMA Junkie have achieved. None of us expected high results from this blog, but rather used it as a way to keep in contact and share our ideas over a sport we loved, while we attended university in different regions. We quickly found out that people were willing to accept what we had to say and some opportunities arose. Quite rapidly our small blog was attracting views from North America as well as Europe. After attending last years UFC115 in Vancouver our staff became aligned with world renowned MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, and also managed to get a few moments with some of the fighters that headlined the card. From this opportunity we were able to establish an online interview with fighters Pat Barry and Rory MacDonald, which helped accredit our blog.

Ultimately, this blog has become something more than just an opinion on a fight. It is site we all look forward to browsing, and developing. Regardless of whether or not it ever reaches super stardom on the net, the staff of Basement Knee can be, and should be proud that they started something from nothing.

http://basementknee.blogspot.com/