Short Essay 1_ZHU Jingxian (1155222154)

Today's class starts with the typical revenue model. The typical revenue model is crucial to new media business activities as it outlines how a subject, such as a company, plans to generate its income, to manage its operating strategies, to allocate resources and thus to stay in the game.

Advertising matters more gradually as the public are frequently exposed to visual or textual banners online (especially when people are using mobile devices). Specific group of people in the industry, like ads managers, are actively engaged in observing the data and adjusting the promotion tactics as the ads-related performance shows consumer behavior and measures the effectiveness of campaigns. Now there are numerous tools for display advertisement, ranging from promoting to managing. I once worked as the ads manager for a tech start-up for six months and often applied Tiktok ads manager platform which focuses on feed backing the data of advertisement we released. For videos that have better exposure and performance, we were more inclined to invest more in order to get better user growth.

Display advertising also helps in building and improving brand image. For enterprises, the corporate image casts defining influences on consumers’ choices as whether to purchase or not. To improve brand awareness and trust, visual design and brand names where efforts are devoted to. A case that impresses me is that many enterprises spent much on improving performance of visual brand image but ended up no big change, like how Xiaomi, the technology giant, paid Kenya Hara, a Japanese graphic designer, millions of dollars to redesign their logo. In some cases, the redesigned logo does leave a more lasting or deeper impression on people. But to a certain extent, the “redesigning action” itself, as a matter, serves as an advertisement since it gets great exposure and triggers discussion among the public.

From the perspective of a consumer, the corporate image does represent a kind of self-identity. Consumers buy products or services, under some circumstances, are out of the mind that they are paying for a certain type of lifestyle or attitude. Just like the case in class about car brands, in which consumers have varied impressions of Benz or BMW owners, the “stereotyped impression” may exactly be what people are pursuing. And enterprises, in return, are always interested in reinforcing these society-created images if they find it profitable. Volvo, as an example, keeps shaping its image as a reliable and safe company in recent years and successfully attracts a great amount of its target buyers like families. 

Co-brand in B2B is also common as it may effectively amplify the influences. The Apple and MasterCard case shows that the two-brand cooperation helps stable the leading role of both brands in the market. But meanwhile, risks come along as the image crisis of one enterprise or divergence in identities of two brands may lead to huge backlash from consumers. Thus, choosing the appropriate partner who has the matching image or identity and is able to undertake risks to a certain extent is a must before any co-branding activity.