Learning Business through Media

By Juan Pablo Ramirez

One of the business professors here at JP Catholic has decided to allow the students to create video adaptations of the curriculum we are assigned to read. We can take any chapter of our Marketing book and develop it into an in-depth video on the contents of that chapter. As any of you might guess, the media students were excited to hear this. However, we must know the content in the chapter inside and out. It is also counted as extra credit. I guess I should start on mine as soon as possible. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

What We Have Learned from Our New Media Activism (Part 2 of 4)

By Steve Marshall

Lesson 2: Phantom ads

We made a 60 second spot with a "child predator" character and submitted him to the Sarah's Law video contest. The campaign liked it, and my fellow student Matt Connors became a 'poster child' for Prop 4, which is a parental notification act for minors seeking an abortion. They put it front and center on their website, and one afternoon, I got a call from a politician in Sacramento. He had been discussing the current presidential advertising campaigns with Jim Holman (one of the main drivers behind Prop 4), and wanted to know if we could help them execute a "phantom ad."

Apparently, both campaigns had used this tactic quite successfully. This is how it works: you make a new commercial, buy airtime on a TV station in some remote, tiny and cheap market, and call a huge press conference. Of course with presidential campaigns, everyone who's anyone shows up, and they get an 'exclusive viewing' of the commercial, with the statement that "it has now started running in select markets." If the ad is good enough, the reporters go back to their newspapers and television stations and do a feature on it, with a link to an online version. Just like that: you've got your commercial on all the major news sources you can reach, and all you had to pay for was $300 of commercial time in rural Nevada.

We used this tactic for two of our videos (Predator and the "Bubble ad spoof). The first night they ran on TV, we sent out a huge press release (from the offices of Jim Holman, who owns 3 newspapers). The Predator video was already being watched about 200 times a day, but spiked to 1400 views the day after the press release. The bubble ad wasn't posted until it ran on TV, but it immediately jumped to 400 views in the first day, and climbed steadily from there.

As of now, the Bubble has 15k views, and the Predator has 25k (including our original version). We also posted an ad featuring Eduardo Verastegui (the actor from the movie Bella) on the same YouTube channel with the same basic keywords, and we even ran it on more than 10 TV stations. It only got 7k viewers. Even with the "star power behind it. So we were able to more than double the viewing of our YouTube ads by making them in TV-sized chunks (30 or 60 seconds), and sending out press releases that they are "now running in select markets.

What We Have Learned from Our New Media Activism? (Part 1)

By Steve Marshall

Elections are in a week and a half! Working on these videos has been a heck of a roller coaster ride, but now our filmmaking efforts are drawing to a close. Our cutoff point for new material is next Tuesday. What we have done by then will have a week to circulate, make whatever impact it's going to make, then the decisions will be made. I tell ya, there's absolutely nothing like putting your foot into a job, to teach you what works and what doesn't. These are some of the lessons I've picked up along the way:

Lesson 1: Cross-platform videos

About a year ago, a web series came out called Quarterlife. Episodes were 8-10 minutes long, broadcast on Myspace twice a week. It gathered a few million viewers. This seems decently successful, right? They sold to NBC, who turned it into an hour-long TV show and broadcast it during prime time. It cataclysmically failed. But the concept is: create content that can gather an audience online, and then be used in a different medium without too much hassle. Normally the target medium is television.

The biggest asset we had in developing these ads was Professor Dunn. He's worked on TV commercials for longer than I've been going to school. Not just college, we're talking grade school. He's also won two Telly awards for his work. He was our creative oversight, helped generate ideas, and reviewed pretty much everything before it went online. He made sure that every YouTube video was either 30 seconds or a minute long, which is the length of a television commercial. One reason for that is: we're already trained to digest information in pieces that size. Another is that they are instantly reusable, if someone likes what they see. More on that later...

Status Check: We're making an impact!

By Steve Marshall

As I was waiting for one of the TV stations to finish copying our tape (see last post), I picked up a copy of the Union Tribune. The front page article was about how much money had gone into the ballot issues this year: Click Here

Both of our 'customers' were specifically mentioned! Sarah's Law has raised $7.6 M (the total money spent on both sides), and Prop 8 has become the most expensive social issue in the country, with a total of $48 M. It was really cool to see the news coverage on it, and know that we're a part of making something happen in such a high-profile arena.

Right under it was a 'human interest' article about how a huge number of 'regular Joes' were donating $20, $50, or $100 to Prop 8: Click Here

These are people who had never been involved in anything political before, but felt strongly enough about the issue that they wanted to do something. That's what we're doing too! And the coolest thing is: it's working. Our "4 Men in Black" video has been viewed by 20,000 people. Our Sarah's Law videos have been seen on broadcast TV 13 times, and they're looking at putting us in the LA market at the end of next week! To top it all off, if you look at the polls, we're ahead!

Sarah's Law has 49% in favor, 41% opposed (it's narrow, but we're ahead): Click Here

Prop 8 just jumped in support (we're now 47% to 42%), due to a new ad they put out: Click Here

What a Day! JP Catholic’s Sarah’s Law Ad Runs on TV

By Steve Marshall

As most everyone knows, the presidential debates ran on Tuesday night. Sarah's Law purchased some ad time right before the debates on a little independent station in San Diego. They really liked the Predator ad, and had asked Professor Dunn to make a BetaCam tape to send in to the station (beta is the 'professional' format). Since they were just in our backyard, my job was to borrow a car and run the tape over to the station first thing in the morning. I was on cloud nine! 2 years ago, I was a Boy Scout running around in the woods of Missouri; now, I'm delivering one of our projects to a TV station!

When I got back to my desk, I had 3 messages marked VERY URGENT. Apparently, just that morning, they had made a last minute purchase of 3 one-minute segments on the ABC, CBS and Fox channels in San Diego. Each spot cost several thousand dollars, and each station needed a copy of the tape in the next 4 hours. That definitely got the adrenaline flowing. We used our only blank beta tape on the spot I just dropped off, and they don't exactly sell them at Albersons. Also, the only digital copy of the video was on Professor Dunn's portable hard drive that he takes home with him each day. Professor was completely out of the picture because a family member had died, and he was at the funeral up in Orange County. The car that I had borrowed was gone, and the clock was ticking.

What ended up happening was: Dr. Connolly himself drove me around from station to station. We started at the indie studio, and managed to get our copy of the tape back (they had already loaded it into their system). From there, we took it to the next studio, ran it in, had their editors make a copy of it, and give us the tape back. That morning, I was thrilled to see the inside of a tiny independent TV channel. By the end of the day, I had been to the broadcasting citadels of three major conglomerates, and had been on the phone in negotiations with all three of them for a good portion of the day.

JPCU Halloween Movie Contest

By Juan Pablo Ramirez

Time is almost up for the JPCU Halloween Movie Contest. Many groups have already finished scripts, scouted for locations, shot their films, and are on the post production stage. Last time I counted, there were 4 groups making films. My group has hit a snag. Our script seems to be too ambitious and it requires prepared sequences in graveyards and other locations in which we need permits/permission to shoot. Our group is struggling to shorten the script and simplify the movie but it is more difficult than imagined. Also, we are busy doing school work or jobs which restricts our time even more. Hopefully we can get something done but I'm not sure if it’s possible. Everyone reading this remember to let prudence curb ambition. Lastly, pray for my group and our film, we need it.

Applying Creative Advertising

By Steve Marshall

We did a Creative Advertising class this past summer. It was a fascinating overview, but we had the whole subject in only one quarter, so it was pretty much just a 'table of contents' approach. I was pretty sure nothing in would actually stick. You learn the pieces, you’re able to talk about them for awhile and pass the tests, but since none of us are looking at a career in advertising, we'll never actually use this information, right?

So, that's what I thought, until I was getting back from school the other day and saw the cover of a pizza box. Pizza Hut. Not too scary, right? It had a flyer on top about new pasta dishes they're making. An advertisement.

It was very much a moment of "What has college done to me?" My first thought upon seeing it was: "Oh, they're advertising a differentiated approach because it's a mature industry!" (Disclaimer: that may have been my second thought, right after "mmmm, pizza..." but it's hard to tell). There was one class about the connection between an industry's life cycle and the advertising strategy for each stage. The fact that it had sunk that deep into my brain was pretty darn cool, if you ask me. It was kinda like 'Porter's 5 Forces,' which we studied in the Business Launchpad class. Just another way of looking at an industry, just a structure to hang information on, but it's amazing just how much easier it is understand how businesses interact with each other. I had no clue about it 3 months ago. Eh, I guess there is something to this whole 'business degree' thing.

JP Catholic sweeps video competition!

By Steve Marshall

Sarah's Law, a pro-life legislative campaign in California, put up cash prizes for a youtube video competition. The results were announced today.

Drumroll please............

Honorable mention $250:

Patrick Lyon - Holly's Story AND Mollie O'Hare - Bubble Spoof<

Second prize $500:

Matt Salisbury - Control Freaks

He put a lot of time into making that one, I'm glad it won. Stop motion is so labor-intensive...

First prize $1,000:

Child Predator by Professor Dunn, featuring the one and only Matt Connors!

This video has now been turned into a banner ad, showing Matt's face and some of the lines of dialogue. It is also being edited down to 1 minute right now, so that it can start showing on cable TV. They're buying time slots in the Palm Springs market first, and if it does well there, it's "to the moon!"

There was also a third prize awarded and two more honorable mentions, but we don't know much about them. 4 out of 7 prizes went straight to JP Catholic, though. Not a bad showing for the school, eh? Hehe, and that's $1,000 more floating around in the student's pockets. Just for making films. Talk about your economic stimulus. :)

A Business Student Tries Her Hand at Producing Film (Part #1)

By Tasha Freeman

What you are about to read is a scathing tale of a business student at JP Catholic who got sucked into the crazy world of film producing. About the middle of my freshman year, JP Catholic put on a small student film contest that generated a lot of student excitement. Being a business student I couldn't care less, so I made an off-hand remark to Steve and Tim, the two upperclassmen in charge of the contest, that if anybody was allowed to make a film, why not me? (To be honest I had no interest in any kind of media, and I hardly ever kept up with new movies or anything of the sort.) The guys looked at each other then stared at me. They called me on it and challenged me to produce an entry.

"You have got to be kidding! You really want me to be a producer for a film crew?" These were the first thoughts that flew through my mind. They weren't kidding. As a business person I decided to find a way to market my lack of knowledge and collected a crew of business students and we made our film. It was pretty epic… "a man wakes up in the woods, with nothing but an axe."

Sadly we didn't win anything but the "BBB" (Better Business Bunch, our team name) will come back with vengeance next time. So I thought that would end my Producing career but once again I find myself filling in shoes I never imagined I would. Okay so maybe it's not shoes as much as a title. This time it started when my roommate turned to me the other night and asked ever so nicely if I would produce a film for her. As usual I have nothing to do with these cameras, lights, cords and what's it called… lavalieres? Once again as it turns out producing is mostly connecting people and resources and being very, very good on the phone. So my producing legacy continues.

Meet the Student Bloggers

Tasha Freeman
Sophomore
Business Student

Steve Marshall
Junior
Business Student