For your editing pleasure

Please, copy the following text to a text editor (such as Google Docs) and edit as needed. Your group can edit content, grammar, vocabulary or whatever you think is needed. Complete it before class on Tuesday. You can SHARE it with me, send it to me by e-mail, or print it out and give it to me in class.

Topic: Choose one advertising medium and explain why it is better than other media.

The Strengths of Newspaper Advertising

A wide range of people start their day off by having breakfast and reading their community newspaper as part of their daily routine. As a local retail or national based company using newspapers to advertise is one of the most convenient and effective ways to reach their target audience.
More people read the newspaper at a time that is pleasurable for them than any other medium, making them more susceptible to the advertisements within.
Newspaper advertising generates some of the highest amounts of “frequency” out of all types of advertising. In the advertising industry “frequency” is one of the two key elements strived for when marketing a product. Most homes get a newspaper delivered to their house for free or by subscription either daily or weekly. Inside the household a newspaper can be read numerous times by different members of the family as it is referred back to during the week, increasing the frequency. This is a strong point for the newspaper medium because the more times an individual sees an ad greatly increases the chance of a sale which makes for a successful campaign.
“Reach” is the other key element to consider when advertising. A newspaper’s circulation is audited by the government and has proves the audience’s socio-economic, lifestyle and psychographic group information. Companies looking to advertise to a specific target audience knowing this information can be very helpful for an effective campaign.
Smaller companies normally start out with newspaper advertising and there are a lot of advantages to this. It is the cheapest way to advertise. A smaller company can try advertising for the first time with newspapers only to watch their company grow and then proceed to advertising with other mediums. Usually still combined with newspaper advertisements because it is so effective. It is safe for a smaller company to advertise with newspapers because not much money will be lost if the campaign is unsuccessful.
Newspapers have a huge advantage over other mediums such as television and magazines when it comes to short lead-time. This means that a company can purchase an ad in a newspaper the day prior and have it printed in the next edition. Television and magazines have long lead-time averaging 3 weeks to a month and is very expensive. In a competitive market newspaper advertising because of the short lead-time is substantially rewarding. For example, when there’s a snowstorm in the local forecast a hardware store could issue an ad for snow blowers, perfectly timed for when the storm hits. Newspaper advertising also allows for companies to stay competitive with other stores. If another store is having a weekend sale a rival store can quickly issue an ad to stay completive.
Newspapers allow a company to advertise with extensive detail in their long copy. This is where a company can explain using many words and pictures explaining delicate details about their product. Long copy can include legalities or information on how to use the product. By doing this companies are increasing the chance of a sale by making the product more familiar to the consumer.
As a new retail, or established company newspapers remain to be one of the best ways to advertise because of its significant advantages over other mediums. Newspapers are a major part of many people’s everyday lifestyle and are incorporated into their lives as leisure daily. As a company advertising newspapers are the best way to get the greatest reach and frequency hitting your specific target audience with great detail quickly and effectively.

Thursday's class

Review
Today, everyone signed up for debate slots. If you were absent, please e-mail me, and I'll send you the sign-up sheet. I'll post the debate schedule here by Saturday.

Then we looked at the robbery descriptions. (My own version is here.) A few things I pointed out were:

1. Stay consistent with your tense (it can be past or present, but don't jump between them).
2. Organise your description logically.
   
3. Avoid fancy vocabulary (like brandish) when you're not sure what it means. Either look it up, or use a simpler word.
4. Watch out for sentence fragments ("frag"; more info and exercises here, here, or here)
5. Also watch out for subject-verb agreement errors ("SVA"; see here, here, or here)
6. Finally, make sure you've got your apostrophes in the right places.

Homework

• Follow the instructions in this post.
• Next Thursday, we'll be debating college tuition costs. In preparation, check out the Rae Report pp 18-24, with a focus on the last two pages. Also, have a look at a number of relevant links from the website of the Canadian Federation of Students.

Robbery Discription

The following is a description of a video of a convenience store robbery in which a man with a gun directs two store employees to an area off camera, takes something from them, and then presumably leaves the store.

The robber is black, about the same height as the taller of the two employees. He’s wearing a black baseball cap with a silver or light-coloured decal on the front. The cap is being worn over the hood of a gray zip-up sweatshirt. Also over the sweatshirt, he has a dark-brown or black bomber-style leather jacket. The drawstring of the sweatshirt hangs out below the jacket. He’s wearing blue-jeans and black shoes. In his left hand, he carries a pistol, perhaps a revolver.

As the video begins, the robber, who seems calm throughout, directs one of the employees into the cash area. Following the employee, he puts a long, thin, white object, likely a cigarette, into his mouth with his right hand. He pauses at the entrance to the cash area and waits for the second employee to come from another part of the store. In a few seconds, the second employee enters the cash area followed by the robber. As he enters, the employee turns toward the cash register in the foreground of the scene, but the robber indicates that he should join the other employee, who has moved off-screen to the right, away from the two visible cash registers. The employee complies and the robber follows him, ignoring the two cash registers.

After standing at the right edge of the screen for about 20 seconds, the robber heads back towards the exit, putting something that might be cash into his right front pocket. He leaves the cash area and exits at the bottom of the screen, heading to the right of the screen. Once he is gone, the employees reach under the counter. One picks up a phone and dials it. The entire incident lasts about a minute and a half.

-Brett

Sending stuff by e-mail

Whenever you send something to me by e-mail:

1. Assume I have not received it unless you get a reply from me.
2. Send your writing in the body of an e-mail, not as an attached document. I have trouble opening some documents, especially from the most recent version of Windows Office.
3. Include COMM 200 in the subject line of your e-mail.

Thanks!

Week of Jan 14th

Here's the grammar portion of the class, a powerpoint about parts of speech (nouns & verbs).

In class, watch the following video and take notes. Then write up your rough notes in paragraph format. Your description will be used in court instead of the video, which cannot be shown for some strange reason. Be as detailed and clear as you can.

For homework, use the Gmail/Hmail document sharing capability to work together to edit your descriptions. When it's as good as you can make it, share the file with me: .

Homework for Monday

Please, write about 200 words explaining what you'd like to get out of this class. You can write it on paper or e-mail it to me at . Don't worry too much about writing style. Just focus on the content.

Forwarding HMail

If you don't check HMail regularly, you can set it to forward to another mail address. The instructions are here.