By this week, our project was running fairly smoothly; we had content for our site, we were able to effectively connect it with other online platforms such as facebook, tumblr and twitter and we also started marketing our project. My role in the project, in providing theoretical research for our project, was also going ok. The only issue I had to address was simply to filter through all the information, particularly all the academic information on celebrity culture and decide which content to use which would best convey the main points of our project. The three main theoretical areas of our project, that we discussed in our final report, were the concept of celebrity and celebrity culture, the effects of globalisation in developing the internet celebrity (which was discussed in our pitch) and the use of celebrities in marketing and advertising. Our individual roles in the group were each on track and our only group issue at this time was how to present our presentation in an innovative way. It was decided that since we are creating a fiscally viable marketing tool, that we should present our presentation in the form of a media kit. This media kit would roughly consist of brochures, our posters and business cards which were our examples of our offline marketing and a promotional video, which hopefully, would effectively present our project.

I missed the Week 9 Pitch presentations but I did see the final research presentations in Week 13, which were all really interesting. It was great to see a wide variety of topics and the depth of theoretical research of these projects, considering that many of the topics were on relatively new phenomenon. It was interesting to see the Xbox Live group presentation presented over a chat room, which was really different and innovative compared with usual presentations. I also really liked the amount of research done from the Youtube group, especially into Youtube’s concerns and issues as a business which provided an alternative perspective rather than the perspective of Youtube as just a cultural icon which has revolutionised the way we view video content. The Globama presentation was also really interesting, especially the historical timeline of US presidential campaigns and their use of the media. I liked the conclusion that Obama has combined many previously used methods, which contrasts with the view portrayed in the media of Obama being the only president who has utilised new media technologies in his campaign. Overall, all the presentations were really interesting in addressing different issues of globalisation.   

Wasn’t sure if we had to do a blog post for these weeks, but I guess I should cover these topics briefly just in case.

Week 8- Glocalisation

Found this topic really interesting as it debunked the utopian ideal of the internet as being a medium that unifies people in a mass homogenised culture which transcends traditional hierarchical structures. This topic became a central point in our group’s project as it is one effect of globalisation that is developing the internet celebrity. The reading by Miller and Slater (2000) on Trinidad and the Internet was also really interesting, documenting the extent of which the internet has penetrated Trinidadian society and how it has as yet, only reinforced traditional hierachical structures rather than breaking them down.

Week 10- Globama Case Study

This topic was also really interesting in documenting the use of a variety of new media by Barack Obama in his presidential campaign. Despite the innovative use of new media in this way and the debate over whether it was effective in shaping election results, the main point I took away from this lecture was the fact that his campaign was marketed globally rather than nationally. This to me highlighted somewhat the extent of globalisation in weakening the power of nation states and emphasising the power of a globalised collective.

Week 11- Google Case Study

The documentary on google was also very interesting. Again I found it especially interesting in that it portrayed a business perspective on Google, discussing its business risks, successes and failures, rather than simply its cultural influence.

Greenpeace International’s Cool IT Challenge

What’s the message- The Greenpeace Cool IT Challenge has created a leaderboard of large international IT companies that scores them according to how much they are doing to help tackle climate change. Scoring is based on criteria such as a company’s efforts to reduce their own emissions, creating solutions to climate change that can be implemented in business strategies and political advocacy. In particular, this campaign aims to pressure IT companies to lobby against industry at the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit this December, where politicians will meet to create a successor to the Kyoto protocol.  

The target/who is being spoken to- The target is towards large international IT companies who are seen as influential in enacting change within their industry and in politics. The campaign also targets the general public to help pressure specific IT companies in addressing climate change. 

The ask- The major ask for this campaign is to sign the Cool IT Challenge petition. Other listed actions that are encouraged for the campaign on their website include:

• Using your network: Share the Cool IT link on Facebook with your friends, or Share it on LinkedIn with people you know from work.
• After you’ve signed the petition, try writing directly to Google, IBM and Microsoft in particular.
• Blog about the campaign, and anything related you know about top IT company bosses (e.g. google for things they’ve said about climate change, leadership, and corporate social responsibility). The more that Cool IT turns up on their radar, the more likely they are to get the message.
• If you use tags with your blog, include “coolit” and “greenpeacebuzz” for your post to appear on our Bloggers’ Centre page.
• Add http://www.greenpeace.org/coolit to your del.icio.us, furl or other social bookmarking sites such as Digg or Mixx.
• Add information and links about this campaign to relevant Wikipedia entries.
• Create a video or a game about the campaign.
• Change your email signature to link here: http://www.greenpeace.org/coolit
• Do you work in IT? Grab these graphics, print them, and stick them up in your office: Cartoon image, Executive job ad image.

What are they being offered membership of- Similar to a membership, anyone can choose to sign up to email updates, follow the campaign on Twitter or subscribe to the campaign’s blog RSS feed.

What’s the design- The design of the campaign is based around the campaign’s website which follows a journalistic format, to effectively show large amounts of written content. It also displays some images of ice, a polar bear and a laptop computer to visually play on the word’s of the campaign’s title.    

Interactivity- The website is fairly interactive in encouraging online action and participation in the campaign with many links to internal and external information.

Scale/scope- The campaign is international, targeted to international companies to address a global issue. However, in targeting international companies, Greenpeace hopes that they will influence other smaller companies at a national and local level in the future.

Just as a little aside, I found this campaign really interesting as it consisted of some elements of our globalisation course. In why it is targeting the IT industry, Greenpeace acknowledges the shift towards intangible/knowledge economies and the influence and power of the IT industry in today’s globalised economy and politics. It also interestingly, aims to set up a somewhat ‘battle’ between the IT industry (intangible) and the ‘dirty’ industry of coal, oil, car and power companies (tangible) for influence over governments at the December Copenhagen climate conference.

References

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it-challenge

Who-  Ownership/Management/Employees

In 1993, Getty Images chairman Mark Getty and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Klein founded Getty Investments LLC, which today is the principal shareholder of Getty Images. In 1995 they founded Getty Communications, a stock photography business which in 1997, merged with the company PhotoDisc Inc. (a publisher of digital stock photography) to form Getty Images. Getty Images has since expanded through various acquisitions to become a global digital media company that has roughly 1900 employees worldwide. The major positions involved in the management of Getty Images are shown in the following table.

Name/Position

Mark Getty Co-Founder and Chairman

Jonathan Klein Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Nick Evans-Lombe Chief Operating Officer

Lisa Calvert Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Facilities

Jeff Dunn Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Jim Gurke Senior Vice President, Marketing

Steve Heck Senior Vice President, Technology

John Lapham Senior Vice President, General Counsel

Lee Martin Senior Vice President, Sales Europe

Adrian Murrell Senior Vice President, Editorial Imagery

Craig Peters Senior Vice President, Business Development 

Michael Teaster Senior Vice President, Sales, North America and Asia Pacific

Kelly Thompson Chief Operating Officer, iStockphoto 

What- Business/Major Assets/Revenues

Getty Images is a media content company that create, own and distribute a broad range of digital media collections (photographs, news, sport, entertainment and archival imagery, music, footage, etc) mainly to advertisers, newspapers, feature film and television producers and others involved in traditional or digital media communications. They are also a provider of imagery and multimedia related products and services such as licensing models, digital asset management, rights services and digital media management tools. Getty Images position themselves as pioneers who brought the stock photography business to the digital age by being the first to licence imagery online.

Getty Images’ revenue for 2006 was estimated to have been roughly 807million.

Since its inception in 1995, Getty Images has successfully acquired and integrated more than 70 collections and companies of stock photography worldwide. Other than its merging with PhotoDisc, these include Kodak’s Image Bank collection, Stone (formerly Tony Stone Images), the Visual Communications Group, the sports photography agency Allsport, the journalistic specialists Liaison Agency, digital news photo agency Newsmakers, Online USA, a celebrity photograph website, the Hulton Picture Library which was the former archive of the British photojournalistic magazine Picture Post, Redferns Music Picture Library the London-based music photography collection and large competitor Archive Photos of New York, which was the combination of two leading U.S photographic agencies, Pictorial Parade and Frederick Lewis Stock Photos.

Getty Images has further consolidated its position in the digital media market by also acquiring the micropayment site iStockphoto, the online art seller Art.com, stock audio and video with the acquisition of EyeWire and Energy Film Library, image.net an online publicity distribution service, major competitors MediaVast which also owned WireImage (Entertainment, creative, and sports photography), FilmMagic (fashion and red carpet photography) and Contour Photos (portrait and studio photography), and Jupitermedia’s online images division, Jupiterimages which also included the sites stock.xchng and StockXpert.

When- Recent History

Previously independent, in 2008, Getty Images was acquired by Hellman & Friedman LLC, a private equity investment firm that focuses on investing in business franchises and participating in the management of select industries including media and marketing services, financial services, professional services, information services, healthcare and energy.

Where- Location/Geography

Getty Images is based in Seattle, USA but also has 20 offices worldwide in cities such as Chicago, Sydney, Munich, London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo. Their products and services are available in more than 100 countries and they also offer localized image data and contextual search capabilities in eight local languages.

Why- Political Influence

I couldn’t find much on whether Getty Images or its management had political biases. However, Getty Images does provide services in supplying media content for particular political media campaigns and messages. Whether this is deemed political influence or just another profitable service for the company is debatable.

Future- SWOT analysis

Strengths

• Industry leader
• Broad customer base
• Strong top-line growth and cash flow

Weaknesses

• Weak internal controls

Opportunities

• Corporate initiatives
• Addition of video service
• International expansion

Threats

• Copyright infringements
• Online operations 
• Highly competitive industry

For full SWOT Analysis report on Getty Images

References

http://company.gettyimages.com/

http://www.gettyimagesjobs.com/

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/september/nf70917b.htm

http://company.gettyimages.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=179&isource=corporate_website_ind_press_release

http://imagery.gettyimages.com/political/index.html

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=139705

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/getty-images

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Images#cite_note-9

What: Graphic Designer

Role: Graphic and Web Designers, and Illustrators design information for visual and audio communication, publications and display using print, film, electronic, digital and other forms of visual and audio media.

Where: Pretty much anywhere internationally and locally, generally in or near urban cities due to their employer’s location.

Salary: The average weekly wage for Australian graphic designers is $923 (before tax) which is roughly $48,000 annually. For American designers it is roughly $46,750 annually.

Contract: Couldn’t find much about contracts but many are involved in full time and part-time work so I’d assume that some would be involved.

Employer/advertiser: Graphic designers can work for advertising agencies, graphic design houses, commercial art studios, computer games developers, retail stores, printing firms, book and newspaper publishers, marketing and public relations firms or are involved in freelance work. Vacancies are advertised through many areas, general job vacancy websites, employer company websites, design magazines and websites, local/national newspapers, design forums/expos, etc.

Career: from the top down

In-House Design Department Terms

Art Department, Art and Design Department, Art Services Department, Design Department, Design Services Department, Creative Services Department, Creative Group

Design Management Job Titles

Creative Director, Design Director, Corporate Art Director, Creative Services Manager, Design Manager

Creative/Design Level Job Titles

Senior Designer, Designer, Senior Art Director, Art Director, Graphics Editor

Support Level Job Titles

Junior Designer, Assistant Designer, Deputy Art Director, Associate, Art Director, Assistant Art Director, Production Artist, Art Associate

Entry Level Design Job Titles

Assistant Designer, Junior Designer, Intern

There were more internships and work experience programs available to entry level graphic designers rather than jobs. However, I did find an interesting entry level job in Sydney which also combines my interest in movies.

Junior Graphic Designer

We seek a talented Junior Graphic Designer to join an agency with a strong dedication to the film/entertainment industry. With a commitment to innovation and fresh concepts their offering includes POS, packaging, trade and retail marketing, instore theatre and marketing campaign development for this exciting and dynamic industry.

To be successful in this role you must be degree qualified and have a small amount of experience under your belt (i.e. internship or work experience). You must have an excellent working knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign (CS3/4), plus some web knowledge or training (Flash and Dreamweaver). This role will see you working within provided templates and style guides, so an excellent eye for detail, design and layout, and a passion for typography is a must. An interest in film and TV is important too!

Please include a sample portfolio with your application.

Salary $35K + Super

http://jobview.careerone.com.au/GetJob.aspx?JobID=83034556

http://joboutlook.gov.au/pages/occupation.aspx?search=&tab=overview&cluster=&code=2324

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes271024.htm

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/02/05/ready-for-a-career-in-design/

http://www.agda.com.au/

http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5050&ASCO=253313A#QuickFacts