post-it note, 3/5/2009

The first day home on Spring Break and I was reading the magazine that I took from the plane and began to flip through the pages looking at the pictures. A story about a new participatory culture was featured in the magazine explained like this:

           

“Puling potential customers into contests and other forms of active participation is what Madison Avenue marketing calls experiential marketing. And it’s coming to a bar, mall, or rock concert near you.”

 

Called brand ambassadors, those who are paid to interact with potential customers, assist companies in programs that they believe boost sales because of the emotional attachment and memorability of “when you try, you buy.” To me, this is an additional cycle in the commodification of participatory culture. Now, giving potential consumers an opportunity to try new products makes the threat of illegal commodfication of creator’s original ideas less probable. Companies such as food and video game companies, especially Rock Band, initiate taste tests and game play through brand ambassadors. These people are hired and have already bought into the appreciation and fun of the food or game being offered, for example, but are also knowledgeable about the products that they ultimately endorse.

 

It seems as if learning about something makes it appear to be everywhere, and Claire brought participatory culture to my attention, I am very impressed by her interest in participatory culture and am also so happy that she was able to find an outlet for her interests in the Internet. A great example of the importance of the Internet, and a great response for my mother the next time she complains about the technicalities of the world wide web. Claire taught me so many new things about a culture that is invisible to me because I do not access the areas of the web that take me to pictures of rubber duckies dressed as Jack Sparrow, but seeing it makes me more interested in CMC as a major because it is truly all around us, as a magazine proved to me. I guess all we have to do is open our eyes.