This week, I spent the majority of my time conducting research and getting comfortable with my topic. On the first day, I worked on writing interview questions for potential interviewees (people that work in the advertising industry). For example:

-“How do you stay inspired when you’re being asked to churn out creativity all the time?”

-“Could you tell me a little bit about the process of creating an advertisement? How does an ad go from an idea to a reality? ” 

Once I was done writing the interview questions I worked on outlining my paper. This involved creating an organized structure (introduction, body paragraphs, etc) to which I could then begin researching. I read other opinion papers online along with some I have written in the past to get a general refresher of the flow of the writing. I spent the remainder of the day reading articles about the advertising industry. Specifically, the ways in which marketing and branding have changed throughout the years. I stumbled across some really interesting articles that got me very inspired to write. One article I read was published by vox and is titled “Brands once used elitism to market themselves. Now inclusion sells.”

The article focused on how businesses are beginning to change the way they market to Generation Z. This change includes embracing a sense of inclusion and authenticity where the product markets to a diverse range of people, not just white cis-gendered people. Fenty Beauty and Thirdlove (which the article talks about) are prime examples of 21st-century brands that are embracing inclusion in an authentic way. Their representation of people of color and women of different body sizes is not an act of tokenism and or do they do so to promote their brand image. They [Fenty beauty among others] are grassroots marketing or guerilla marketing. In this case, they’ve built their brand off of a powerful message from the get go. 

This Vox article was truly the catalyst for the rest of the research I conducted throughout the week. I was really intrigued by this idea of inclusion as a selling point in my generation and wanted to dig deeper. I came up with lists of innovative brands that I believe market not only a product but a positive message. I was able to think of many from skincare and beauty company Glossier to Parade underwear. With these brands in mind, I began to do some image researching. I tried to find advertisements of companies that I believe promote inclusion and are taking a step forward in advertising a meaningful message to the people. Here are some of the advertisements that I believe resonate with this idea.

I currently have roughly 3 pages of research and am feeling confident about where I am. I also just wanted to write that Noodletools has really helped me track my thoughts while making sure that I track the various online sources I have found. Next week I will focus on conducting interviews and reaching out to potential interviewees.