Blonde Moments

I've been laughingly blaming little moments of forgetfulness on being blonde for most of my life, claiming a "blonde moment". It's one of the perks of the dumb blonde label. However, I don't think I had ever truly experienced a full blown "blonde moment" until ealier this year (I use the term year loosly as my sense of when a year ends and begins is perhapes permantly skewed between the caladar version and the school version, but what do you expect I'm blonde *laughs*).

My first true blonde moment occured while one of my closest friends was in town visiting during one of her breaks. She goes to grad school in Boston so she was trying to visit as many people as possible while in California and as a result was bouncing from house to house. I was driving her to the house she was currently staying at very late one night when we noticed cones and cop cars up ahead a block or so before the street we needed. At first niether of us could make out what was going on and unsure if I could get through I slowed down. Just before I was going to turn off to go around (I was acctually in the turn lane) we realized it was a drunk driving check. Since I had not had a single drop of alcohol I continued on to the check point instead of turning, mentaly kicking myself for looking like an idiot driver in front of the cops who probably now thought I was intoxicated. So I pull over at the check point, the cop comes up asked where we're going. I told him I was driving my friend home. He asked if we'd come from a party. I truthfully told him no niether of us had been at a party. He asked twice if I'd had anything to drink that night. The smartass in me wanted to say yes I had a glass of milk with dinner and a bottle of costco water about an hour ago, but knowing what he really ment I nobly refrained and answered no. He then asked to see my drivers license. I opened my purse, reached in and the blonde moment struck. My mind went suddenly and completely blank, I had no clue where I was or what I was doing. I had never before (or since) been that utterly blank. Stupidly, still in the clutches of the blonde moment, I pulled out my cell phone and stared at it. A minute or so past (not sure exactly how long, 'member I was pretty out of it at this point) then the cop's voice asking me in a polite sarcastic way what I was doing broke though the blonde moment. Startled, I jerked my head slightly and dropped the phone back in my purse franticly wondering what i had been doing and trying to think of a plausible excuse I quickly mumbled something about I thought it was ringing then proceeded to finally pull out my wallet, complete with license to show the cop. Now positive he was going to think I was drunk or high I waited in a state of extreme embarassment while he did the whole stare at the license thing. To my bewilderment and relief he merely told me to drive safely and let me go. Maybe that cop has a blonde in his family and had witnessed this phenomenon before.

assign. #4 Evil web ads

At useit.com I read the article "Most Hated Advertising Techniques". This article is about how people react to various forms of internet advertising and gives us data on this presented at the UserExperience 2004 conference. Yes, I completely agree with this article, I think anyone who has spent anytime on the internet would. Pop up ads come in as the most hated, with some other equaly vile techniquies as close runners up such as 'tricks you into clicking on it' and 'doesn't have a close button'. Theese horrible techniques were found to not only inspire a negative attitude toward the advertiser, but also towards the site. I was not particuarly suprised by this. I for one know that both myself and my friends will actively atempt to avoid sites that support lots of pop ups, and have installed anti spyware programs and/or pop up blockers to help keep ads at bay. The implications of this are that now that the advertisers finally have all this data in black and white they need to acctually listen. These types of advertisements, while they may give you a high click rate, do NOT inspire anyone to purchase and they typically kill any hopes for repeat customers. Get tricked into clicking once and you won't fall for that ad again. What I don't understand is what the advertisers responsible for these ads today were thinking? How could they be unaware of how much the internet using populace hates these types of ads? Have they simply never used the internet? And if they aren't internet users, then why are they involved with internet advertising?

assign. #3: Luke, I am your Father

The article I chose from clickz.com was "Lucas Raises Curtain on Early 'Sith' Promotions"
Summary: Lucas has partnered with Cingular and Moviephone for exclusive promotional items/content for Episode 3. Examples: Moviephone users got the full length trailer about one week ahead of everyone else and Cingular has exclusive downloadables for sale such as movie quotes, mobile games, screensavers and animated wallpapers.

Why did I choose this? Mostly because I love Star Wars, partly because I love special effects (and anything lucas does will be full of them) and finally because Star Wars is a marketing phenomenon. If you want to talk brand loyalty, talk Star Wars. There is no other brand out there that I know of where the fan base is expecting the next installment to be crap, but absolutely can't wait to go see it anyway.

What does it have to do with ecommerce? It is ecommerce. These companies have combined to sell certain things online. The types of items have all been available for a long time, but it's got a new content/context related spin, it's about Star Wars. Cingular and Moviephone made a smart move in hooking up with Lucas because of the tramendous brand loyalty associated with Star Wars and the huge wide ranging (demographically) fan base. Being able to provide exclusive Star Wars stuff gives them a one up in the constant struggle online for the next new and exciting thing. The exclusivity also means they don't have to worry about there competitors offering the same stuff the next day.

Assignment #2: MKTG 437 zappos

hurray! a semi shopping assignment :P

1. the shoe I chose for this assignment is the Magdesians Anna.

2. From reading the reviews I found out that theese shoes are supposed to be very comfortable, 5 out of 6 said that they were true to width (very important) and the size is either right on or runs a half a size smaller.

3. The review wouldn't have made any difference to me in a store where I could try it on, but on the internet I think it would make me more inclined to purchase. I have a horrible time getting shoes to fit and depending on the shoe I can range a whole size, so knowing from others that with this shoe I should perhapes order a half size bigger is very important. The review helps lower the risk of the hassal of returning items to an online store which means that I'm much more likely to buy it.

4. The advantage of reading the reviews is that you have a much better idea of what you are purchasing, since you can't see it in person or try it on.
5. The advantage to zappos.com of offering reviews, even though the shoe might recieve negative reviews making it harder to sell, is costomer service, costomer opinion of the site and PR in general. Having the reviews makes zappos seem friendlier to the consumer, makes it seem like they care, and want you to make the purchase "knowing" that you will be happy. It could also help them decide which shoes to carry in the future. Shoes lines getting lots of negative reviews will probably be dropped asap.

6.Hmmm... I don't know that it would matter one way or another if a site like kencole.com that only carries its own brand of shoes has reviews or not. It's not the same as a site like zappos. If your going to kencole.com you most likely already know about ken cole shoes, you've probably had some experience of them or at least a verbal recomendation from a friend. Basically most people buying at that site probably already know everything a review would tell them making it sort of redundent. It could make consumers feel more intouch with the brand/company/whatever, and would help anyone just browsing the internet for shoes. *shrugs* It wouldn't be a bad thing, but I think it is probably unnessicary.

Assignment #1

note: it's kind of sad that inorder for me to get around to making a blog it had to be a class assignment...now onto the assignment questions:

3) potential buisness uses of blogs:
-marketing, marketing, marketing (most other things on this list could probably fall under the category of marketing, so fair warning)
-advertising
-PR
-tech support
-consumer feedback
-customer service in general

4) no, i don't think blogs are a fad. Why? because to my way of thinking fads usually only last about 2 years tops. blogs have been around a lot longer than that and are still popular. Pogs were a fad. blogs will probably be around for as long as someone wants an easy way to post/publish their thoughts on the web. well at least as long as the blog is the best format. As long as they are around and popular they will have an impact on businesses, word of mouth is one of the best forms of advertising ,good or bad, and seems to travel the quickest. The other, more personal reason I don't think blogs are a fad? I'm not an early adopter, most fads tend to pass by before I more than vaguely know they exist, but I've been hearing about blogs for a long time now, have been reading and commenting on my friend's blog for awhile and now even have on eof my own.

5)hmmm...yes I think it would be interesting if the art department here had a blog. It could be very entertaining, knowing the convoluted minds of some artists. It could also be very informative. It'd be nice if some of the art proffs would blog about jobs of theirs outside teaching, give us students a chance to get some insight into the "real world". I know everyone has office hours where you can go talk, but sometimes there are a lot of people to see/things to do for a short amount of time and it doesn't always feel comfortable to be able to just go to essentially chat.