It’s uncomfortable. It’s energy draining. It’s not fun.
The funny thing is… avoiding conflict is uncomfortable, energy draining and not fun.
Hummmm…
While dealing with conflict may not be one of your favorite things to do, understanding your conflict style and how others deal with conflict can make it easier and more productive.
Would you like a little KTI with your conflict?
KTI is the acronym for the Kilmann-Thomas Conflict Mode Instrument. It’s a way of determining what your mode for dealing with conflict is.
Some of the earliest pictures my parents took of me have a television in the background.
So, television has been around as long as I have.
Well, in truth, the mechanics of TV has been around a lot longer than I have. I’m really a child of early television programming.
Sketch drawn by Philo T. Farnsworth for his chemistry teacher in 1922. You can learn more about Farnsworth and his battles with RCA at http://philointhehall.com/
The TV mechanism was actually invented by an Utah boy named Philo T. Farnsworth. He first sketched the idea of the vacuum tube in his high school chemistry class. He went on to develop the first electric television set in the 1920s.
The Great Depression and World War II supply shortages stalled the spread of television. The research continued but at a slower rate because materials and man-power were needed for the war effort.
I grew up in a house in the middle of a 10 acre cherry orchard. My parents were around 17 when they gave birth to me. So, when I turned 10, they were 27. They were my parents, but they were young people too.
That’s my sister in the center swinging her head to the Beatles. I’m the redhead to the right, behind my sister.
I tell you all this to explain why at all my slumber parties we were allowed to turn the stereo up to 10 and dance into the wee small hours in the morning. At my 40th high school reunion, they were still talking about those slumber parties.
Like you, music has played an important role in my life. I remember when we got the Beatles’ Hard Days Night album. In high school every dance had a Credence Clearwater Revival cover band playing. In college, I listened to Chicago, Peter Frampton and Boston.
When my son came along we couldn’t start the day without dancing to Heart of Rock-n-Roll by Hughie Lewis and the News, Every breath you take by The Police or Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. Continue reading A premature eulogy for the music business→
Chances are you were toddlers or younger. Heck! Some of you might not have been born yet.
I was in my Weber State University office working. My friend called and wanted to know if I started recording the news. When I asked why, she told me to get in front of a television set, now! I did. That’s when I saw the replay of the second plane crashing into the second tower.
The next 36 hours were filled with my news students gathering stories and putting together a newscast focused on how the terrorist attack impacted the university, the community and its people.
At the end of the day on 9-12, a student called me over to the computer and said, “Terri, you’ve got to look at this.” Here’s what the email he opened looked like.
Like Godzilla, there’s no way we can stop social media growth
Godzilla in a scene from the film ‘Godzilla VS. The Smog Monster’, 1971. Toho/Getty Images
As a child, I used to spend my Saturday afternoons watching Godzilla movies. Nothing could stop this monster. Not tanks. Not machine guns. Not weird green gas. Nothing. As I recall, the people of Earth never defeated Godzilla. He’d just get tired of all the destruction and mayhem and would quietly sink back into the ocean.
While pulling information for this blog I was overwhelmed with the growth of social media and how it’s infiltrated all aspects of our lives. It made me think of those old Godzilla movies. Like Godzilla, there’s nothing out there that can stop the growth of social media.
As a broadcaster, I immediately became aware of how social media democratized the spread of information. Now anybody can spread information about anything they want. Like in this video, Science of Godzilla, a young man expounds on the scientific flaws with the 2014 movie version of Godzilla.
When I say the word “dog” what image pops in your head?
This is the image that pops into my head. This is a my Cocker Spaniel, Roger.
He was afraid of vacuums, loved to toss watering cans, chased racket balls and always made friends with the little old ladies who lived on the other side of the fence.
When he was a pup we had to pay extra to have him groomed because he whined so loud it sounded as if the groomers were torturing him. It broke my heart when I had to leave him with my brother when we moved out of state.
Or perhaps it’s the image of my friend’s Great Dane. The dog was size of a small horse and ate a ton of food. My friend suffered from Post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a support dog, this Great Dane offered my friend a sense of security. My friend told me it felt as though someone had his back. The dog recently died. It’s going to take a really big dog to fill his paws.
Or is your image of Raven, my dad’s dog. She rode around the orchard on the back of my dad’s quad. If I happen to sit on Raven’s side of the seat on the back of the quad, she would reclaim her spot by pushing me over and, sometimes, off the quad. Yet, if I ever went into an orchard by myself, I would look over a couple of rows and see Raven tracking me. Like Lassie, I trusted Raven to run back and let my dad know if I were in some kind of danger. Continue reading Traveling grapes and bear cookies→
Experts researched how men and women communicate and found there are many differences between the genders. Now, these differences don’t apply to everyone but they do represents some generalities in the way each gender approaches communication.
Our friends from the TV show Friends give us an excellent example. (Watch the video. It’s only 1:02. It will make the rest of this blog easier to understand.)
As Phoebe, Rachel and Monica demonstrated, females tend to focus on details, the emotions, the thought process. As Chandler, Joey and Ross showed us, males tend to focus on facts. It’s just one of the many differences in gender communication styles.
One of my favorite movies is Love Actually. The movie begins with aging rocker, Billy Mack, bastardizing one of his former hits, Love is All Around Us to Christmas is All Around Us. The idea was to capitalize on holiday sales. In truth, Love is All Around was originally recorded back in the 60s by The Troggs.
The song came to mind as I mulled around what to write for this blog. Love IS all around. But I contend an even more prevalent force surrounding us is media.
According to a report issued by the San Diego Supercomputer Center at USC each of us consume over 15.5 hours of media each day… outside of work. Wow! That’s a lot of media. We’ve developed into a multitasking society where we have a television show on, while using social media on our computers and sending text or Tweets on our smart phones. So, it is possible for a person to consume more than 24 hours of media within a 24 hour period.
Product placement is where a brand is incorporated into the scenery of a movie or television show. And it’s big. Really BIG. In 2017, product placement represented $8.78 Billion in spending.
A little product placement history
One of the first product placements I remember is Reese’s Pieces in the movie E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
Yes, originally Spielberg wanted to use M&Ms, but Mars turned him down. So, the producers went to Hershey’s and they gladly gave permission to use their little known candy. The deal struck between Hershey’s and the movie producers involved a Hershey promise to spend $1,000,000 to promote the movie. In exchange, Hershey’s could use E.T. in their ads. After the movie’s premier, sales of Reece’s pieces increased by 65 percent.
When they re-released E.T. in 2002, Hershey’s struck a similar deal (as this commercial demonstrates.)
There are four types of product placement.
One is the deal like Reese’s Pieces.
A second type involves the company providing the movie producers big ticket items such as cars, appliances, technology equipment for free. Almost half of all product placement is based on this type of deal.
The third type is “straight fee.” This is where the advertiser pays to have the product included in the film or television show.
The fourth type is “organic.” The product becomes part of the storyline without any goods, services or money being exchanged. This can be a bit risky if the product is being used in a negative or derogatory manner.
The product isn’t just sitting on the table; now it’s part of the story line
In this digital age, advertisers are too aware of how fast forward on the remote impacts a commercial’s effectiveness. Smaller audiences television audiences means advertisers are looking for means, other than a 30 second spot, to get their product into the hands of consumers. In fact, product placement has kept some television shows on the air. Spend 5 minutes and watch the very clever Stephen Colbert explain how this works. 🙂 (Video is back from the Colbert Report days. Classic!)
Like those horrible soap opera scenes, product placement has reached a new level. The product becomes a part of the story. For example, one of the great scenes from Wayne’s World involves Wayne and Garth (not) hawking various products.
Rampant Product Placement
Sometimes product placement is incredibly obvious. The Internshipwith Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn and was pretty much a 24/7 product placement for Google, right down to the movie’s logo.
Other times, the product placement is seamlessly incorporated into the script. In the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away a Wilson volleyball becomes a main character. And an unopened FedEx box provided a plot twist.
A really well integrated product placement happened in the first season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. It centered around Eleven’s obsession with Eggo Waffles.
Eggos became an “organic” part of the storyline. (Organic means Eggos didn’t pay to be part of the show.)
On Seinfeld, Kramer drops a Junior Mint into a man’s chest during surgery.
M&Ms and Livesavers turned down Seinfeld’s request to use their candies. Junior Mints didn’t pay for the product placement, yet this episode, which inadvertently credits Junior Mints for saving a man’s life, increased Junior Mints viability.
Trivia – When Kramer slips and the Junior Mint flies through the air and into the patient, the Seinfeld crew actually used a York Peppermint Patty. Junior Mints were too small to follow on camera.
In a tongue-in-cheek style,30 Rockincorporated produce placement gags for Snapple in several different episodes.
I used to watch the television series Bones (2005-2017). I’ll admit I stopped watching when I saw some extremely blatant product placement. Toyota provides the cars and, when the lead character uses parking assist, navigation or other vehicle feature, it becomes part of the script. You can almost hear the script stopping, the product placement run, and the script picking up again.
And this is just one example of how the series incorporated product placement into the script.
Even video games have some sometimes product placement, including the use of billboards in the Burnout Paradise driver game for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign! (It’s about 1:20 in the video)
And just when I thought I saw it all…I did some research and found this. One of the main characters in Final Fantasy XV wears a Nissin Cup Noodles on his head. Apparently, one of the quests in the game is to look for toppings to make the already delicious Cup Noodles taste even better. I’m not a gamer. I don’t get it. But it must be working.
Even sneakier… digital product placement
Now, product placement has gone digital. Advertisers don’t even have to provide a product while the show or movie is being shot. It can be digitally inserted long after the television show or movie has been edited and aired. This 5:30 minute Slate video shows you how.
The technology is so good, they say it won’t be long before you’ll watch a movie where they digitally place chicken or beef products in a kitchen scene. Your vegan friend could be watching the same movie in another room and they would digitally replace the meat with fruits and veggies in the same scene.
Your assignment
Product placement is all around us. For this assignment you’ll have to do some research into production placement. Go to Blog:Product Placement for assignment details.
