I'm Really Proud of this One: My Research Proposal!

Ashley Johnson

Final Research Project First Draft

April 10, 2008

COMM 3320

Ishida

 

Advertising and MySpace:

 Advertising strategies on MySpace and the effects on user youth.

 

Social network utilities play an enormous role in social development and have become an essential part of communication for youth today. MySpace in particular has become a hub for advertising that is streamlined and directly target towards the youth majority of MySpace users. The study aims to look at the advertising strategies used within the MySpace website and to predict possible effects that these strategies may have on users ages thirteen to twenty-one.

 

The rationale behind this research stems from the obviously large reach that MySpace.com has developed and the attention this has received from advertisers. Advertisers have discovered that MySpace holds a specific audience, one of a common target audience age, in a way that allows for “HyperTargeting” (Shields) and connections with popular television. Because of the extent to which MySpace offers room for advertising and the scale of audience to which these advertisements reach, it is no wonder that a question as to the effects that this may have on the younger, target audience aged, users has arose.

 

The scope of this research on advertising and social utilities has been narrowed to specifically MySpace.com, which seems to have a larger arena and invitation for advertisements. This study will be specific towards the advertising strategies that seem to aim at MySpace user youth, the target audience of thirteen to twenty-one.

 

Some background information on this subject stems from articles like Advertising to Get More Social: New ad platforms unveiled by Facebook and MySpace draw buyer rave; will users sign on? by Mike Shields in Media Week, MySpace Gives Advertisers HyperTargeting Capability by Mike Shields in Media Week, and TMZ Finds MySpace by Paige Albiniak in Broadcasting & Cable.

In Advertising to Get More Social, Mike Shields discusses the impact of new advertising initiatives amongst these social networks and the extent to which advertising on these sites could grow. Shields explains that although these buyers “were divided on the sheer magnitude of the new advertising initiative announced last week” by Facebook and Myspace, “…most agreed that these new products will propel social networking closer to reaching its most untapped targeting and viral potential” (Shields, Advertising to Get More Social). Shields also uses this article to discuss how users will adapt to these advertisements, some of which have started to allow for advertisers to create brand interaction that now reaches a much larger audience. Shields also touches on MySpace’s ad initiative known as HyperTargeting.

My next article informs the previous one. MySpace Gives Advertisers HyperTargeting Capability, again by Mike Shields, introduces the move that MySpace has made to allow “advertisers a way of targeting users based on all that personal information they supply about themselves”(Shields, MySpace Gives Advertisers HyperTargeting Capability).  A company that had been recently acquired by MySpace developed the technology that this ad platform employs to use user information to target certain audiences. This information in particular is a great example of how new media uses synergy to further expand the advertising reach.

Another article I found that inspired this research was TMZ Finds MySpace by Paige Albiniak, which explains how the tabloid television show, TMZ, has now made its own special spot on MySpace.com. “The channel is entirely advertising-supported, and both Warner Bros. and News Corp.-owned MySpace will share in the revenue”(Albiniak, TMZ Finds MySpace). Not only does this deal pertain to my research because of it huge advertisement backing but because it has been stated that TMZ itself is “[t]argeted precisely at MySpace’s youth demographic,” “…TMZ offers up clips of celebrities behaving badly, exiting plastic surgery clinics with ice packs on their faces, getting stopped by the cops, and punching paparazzi—just the sort of thing people love to forward to each other, chat about and maybe even mash up on their own”(Albiniak, TMZ Finds MySpace).

 

It is from these articles (mainly) and more that my research questions and research hypothesis emerged. Some questions I want to look at include:

RQ1: What is the extent to which the advertising on MySpace reaches?

RQ2: What are some advertising strategies used on MySpace?

RQ3: Is there evidence that these advertising strategies target youth?

RQ4: What possible effects could advertising strategies targeted at MySpace user      youth have?

 

As I have stated earlier, this study aims to look at the advertising strategies used within the MySpace website and to predict possible effects that these strategies may have on users ages thirteen to twenty-one. My research hypothesis is:

H1: Advertising on MySpace uses advertising strategies that target MySpace user youth.

H2: The advertising strategies aimed at user youth on MySpace.com will affect future consumer habits and opinions.

The method of this research will be that of a content analysis, the subject of which will be MySpace.com. The research will include an in-depth analysis of the website itself and will include background information about the advertising strategies used found in scholarly articles.  The research will also include brief interviews with some users of MySpace who are within the ages of thirteen to twenty-one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Albiniak, Paige. "TMZ Finds MySpace." Broadcasting & Cable (2008). EBSCO. 10 Apr. 2008

 

Shields, Mike. "Advertising to Get More Social." MediaWeek 17 (2007): 4-5. EBSCO. 10 Apr. 2008

 

Shields, Mike. "MySpace Gives Advertisers HyperTargeting Capability." MediaWeek 17 (2007): 4. EBSCO. 10 Apr. 2008.