Our group decided to look at the advertising blog, 5 Blogs Before Lunch. This blog is written by Dave Allen Ibsen who has worked in the marketing industry for 20 years, with companies such as Lexus and Microsoft. He created 5 Blog Before Lunch as a strategy consultancy and is trusted by more then 60 companies for solving strategic problems and accelerating change. His blog won the Webby Award for Best Bussiness Blog in 2006 and 2009. The idea of this blog is keep readers in the loop about modern marketing. Ibsen uses a combination of wit and wisdom in his writing and maintians a clear focus on the topic at hand. This blog is fairly formal, but subtle humor is used to ligthen the load of what is going on in this world. When looking at the blog we would like you to consider some of the following questions: Who does the author think his audience is? What type of people is he trying to appeal to? What do you think his overall meassage is based on his tone and topics he writes about? Is the blog effective? We hope you enjoy the blog!

The blog that our group chose is called, Why Advertising Sucks, and can be found at http://www.adssuck.blogspot.com/. By reading the title of the blog alone, you are able to tell what type of perspective the blog will take. This blog can be rather risqué at times, for example, the language and description of the ads use vulgar language and can be rather offensive. What kind of readers do you think the blog attracts? What kind of audience do you think the author is writing for? It is hard to find information about the author, but once we did we learn that the author is a guy in the advertising industry and he created the blog to share his ideas and experiences about advertising. The blog has a motto, “Stopping you just in time from killing someone since 2005.” The author says this is his motto because he wants to share why advertising has its bad side, but also why he loves doing it regardless. Make sure to look on the right side of the blog, and scroll down to see “Our Fans Favorite Rants.” This seems to be one of the more crude blogs we’ve looked at; however, it gives you a glimpse of how much is out there in terms of advertising blogs. Take note of the blogs appearance and author’s general stance and tone. Let us know what you think.

Group 3: AdFreak

Hey! The blog site that we found is called AdFreak. It is a blog that shows the best in advertising and some of the worst of advertising. They both praise and critique them. The contributors to the site are Tim Nudd, David Gianatasio, David Griner, David Kiefaber, T.L. Stanley, Rebecca Cullers, and Gabriel Beltrone. It is edited by Adweek's Tim Nudd. The contributors philosophies are all pretty similar. I believe that they are trying to, as I mentioned before, the best and worst in modern advertising. These writers try to invoke their beliefs into a lot of their posts through their many times dry and sarcastic. I also see that many of them put some of their humor into the posts, especially when they blog about some of the "worst" ads. So I believe that these authors are attempting to show some of the insanity of our modern ads through the humor in their posts. What do you guys think? How do the writers invoke their opinions, experiences, education in the posts? What community is this made for? Are the same philosophies used throughout the blogs? Enjoy!

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak

Group Two: AdPulp

Site Link: http://www.adpulp.com/

Hello, everyone! The blog we have chosen to do our presentation on is AdPulp. This blog is ran by three men named Shawn, Dan, and David. They are very interested in improving communication and that is why they "nit-pick" at advertisements, and a variety of them. The guys seem very respectable because they do not attack advertisement companies in a vigorous way. AdPulp claims to have never received any sort of spam comments (although, it seems as if there is hardly any at all) and that they have been quoted by the Wall Street Journal. They say what they feel and keep it short, sweet, and to the point. We hope you like the blog we have chosen and let us know what you think!

Copyranter-Meredith Wagner

In this blog the author seems to take an aggressive and almost negative view on all the advertising he is blogging about. Some posts seem to be sarcastic like the advertisement about the Twitter pen, and in the other posts the author voices his opinion strongly with foul and inappropriate language. I don't feel like he is forcing his opinions on the readers though. He says how he feels, but as I was reading the posts and looking at the advertiesments he is analyzing, I think he is trying to get us to think about the topics in a different light. Advertising that is posted on Copyranter involves a lot of sexual topics and sexual innuendos such as the advertisement for the "Bouncing Boobs Sell Earplugs" and "FEMEN protest corruption with cupcake boobies."In our society I think people tend to overlook these controversial topics because they are uncomfortable talking about them. The author is bringing these topics up to get people thinking and allow them to see how sexuality is commonly used in advertising and how sex sells. Also, some of the commercials that involve women include stereotypes and show that women are used for their sexuality to advertise. I believe this blog has an effect on people's knowledge and ideas about uncommon sexual topics. Like I have said, sex is something people are not always comfortable talking about and this blog really makes people think hard and question there views on sex used in advertisement.

Copyranter

This week we're looking at a blog called Copyranter. Here are some questions to start our discussion: What kinds of choices is the author making with his language? Why do you think he's making them? This blogger says he's a New York copywriter. What impulse do you think is driving his particular interest in global advertising? Who do you think are the people who comment on these posts? When Copyranter chimes into the conversation, what kind of relationship does he seem to be establishing with them? What do you think is the function of this blog? What is its intended purpose?