Diving deep into my analytical framework

BCM215

For my DA I am studying games examining their role of marketing and the financial benefits a celebrity would be receiving from having created a game. My DA strictly examines celebrity games suitable for mobile devices, personally I am using my iPhone to play these games.

15 Problems Only Kim Kardashian: Hollywood Addicts Understand — Glu Games & Kim Kardashain 2014

Marketing is 1 of the 4 main business functions. A celebrity brand is crucial for their continued growth in the industry and in a digital age, many celebrities have turned to the mobile gaming industry to expand upon their brand. The marketing of a game will help sell itself if done correctly (Bouveng 2018, meaning social media and influencers can and have aided in selling the game to users. 62% of the mobile phone gamers are women in the US, understanding this statistic makes marketing Kim Kardashian Hollywood much simpler (Alegre, 2018) as mainly women follow her on her social media platforms who she can easily market her products to to generate downloads and eventually sales.

When thinking of marketing, often I think about the appearance and coherence of the advertisement and brand. Does it mesh well with one another? Does it evoke any of my senses? Does it make me want what’s been sold? In essence, the ad needs to be aesthetically appealing and more specifically should target your senses. A good game’s marketing will do this and will continue as you play the game because of its game aesthetics. Game aesthetics can make or break a game.

Finance is yet another 1 of the 4 main business functions. Okay so the celebrity has marketed their game and gained downloads, what’s next? Simple in-app purchases or the purchase of the mobile game itself. As it’s name suggests, in-app purchases refer to the selling and purchases found within a mobile application (Chen, 2020). These in app purchases can be pesky or extremely useful to you and let’s be real to the celebrity and game developer. Often, these in-app purchases provide you with exclusive access to temporary game features or permanent features of the game that can assist you with your game experience.

The easiest way to ensure a celebrity and their game developers are happy in the success rate of the game is from seeing the downloads but also seeing sales of premium game features. In-app purchases are by far the simplest way to monetise a game (Karnes, 2019). Many celebrity games follow the freemium model, a free to download game with in-app purchases. Although many gaming companies use this model it has proven that in the long run generates more sales than releasing a premium game, a game that must be paid for before its download.

With these areas in mind, I feel confident that my DA has a solid foundation of previous research I can use to frame my research into the gaming industry and more specifically understanding the importance of marketing and finance in celebrity mobile gaming.

References

Alegre, M 2018, ‘Council Post: Why Mobile Games Are More Important To Your Brand Than You Thought’, Forbes, 5 September, viewed 16 September 2021, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/09/05/why-mobile-games-are-more-important-to-your-brand-than-you-thought/?sh=6d37dea11522>.

Bouveng, A 2018, Perhaps you are a marketer reading this, or a game developer that has embarked on a journey to build your f…, Linkedin.com, LinkedIn, viewed 16 September 2021, <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-reasons-why-you-should-involve-marketing-your-game-anna-bouveng>.

Chen, H 2020, Benefits of In-App Purchases Feature In Your Mobile Application, Syncoria Inc., viewed 16 September 2021, <https://www.syncoria.com/blog/benefits-of-in-app-purchases/>.

Karnes, K 2019, What Does In-App Purchase Mean? | CleverTap, CleverTap, viewed 17 September 2021, <https://clevertap.com/blog/what-does-in-app-purchase-mean/>.

Analyse with me- Epiphanies Edition

BCM241

Last weeks epiphanies for me were my light bulb moments. This week those light bulbs were replaced with even brighter LED style bulbs. So let me expand on them.

My first epiphany, surrounds my niche and their relationship to the “eras” Ariana Grande (AG) has released. All fans of AG have a specific time from AGs discography that they love. The preferred “era” has an emotional connection to the fan. For me personally, my favourite era is the Thank U, Next era. Why? Simply because the music released and promoted during this era(November 2018 – 2019 December) resonates with me. This time in my life was extremely difficult for me mentally and the music in this album also had a sense of struggle and pain to it that allowed me to connect to it. The connection music has to a fan has been linked to evoking our brains, limbic system among other parts of our brains (Pharm, 2021). In a study by Finnish scientists, the “Limbic areas of the brain, known to be associated with emotions, were found to be involved in rhythm and tonality processing”. This means that a listener our brains are processing the music and bringing up the emotions we have associated to the music from the tone and rhythm of the song. Each AG fan has their own story and their reasons to connect to each song, album or era and it’s become very interesting to learn about from observing other content creators.

“You got me all up in my feels”

Nasty (2020), Ariana Grande

All of Ariana Grande's Albums, Ranked From Worst to Best — (Ahlgrim 2021)

TikTok is a platform with its sole purpose of showing each user new content and creators. Due to this, I’ve found it to be difficult to identify if the content I am creating is reaching my desired audience. Checking through my posts, it can be seen that I am trying to mould my content to fit within the current trends of the platform also utilising niche specific hashtags and trending hashtags to try to reach my audience as this is how the platform has been built (Abidin 2020). At this time, this has not been as successful as I had hoped. Pushing me to try to rethink my content style. TikTok is unlike other social media platforms as it does not need to have a consistent aesthetic or style for your content to go viral (Abidin 2020).

My third epiphany was about the identification of content styles and personas which have led me to the development of my persona. As I identified above, my content is not receiving the engagement I would have aspired to have had. From my analytics, I can see that I have to rework my content and persona as a potential way to reach a larger audience. The different use of music and a more emphasised use on transitions or challenges (Literat 2021) may help me reach my niche audience and the for you page on the platform better than before. This may be more beneficial than I had anticipated and is an area I hope to educate myself in to further my DA’s progress.

References

Abidin, C 2020, ‘Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours’, Cultural Science Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 77–103, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://culturalscience.org/articles/10.5334/csci.140/print/>.

Ahlgrim, C 2021, All of Ariana Grande’s albums, ranked from worst to best, Insider, Insider, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://www.insider.com/ariana-grande-albums-ranked-best-worst>.

Alluri, V, Toiviainen, P, Jääskeläinen, IP, Glerean, E, Sams, M & Brattico, E 2012, ‘Large-scale brain networks emerge from dynamic processing of musical timbre, key and rhythm’, NeuroImage, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 3677–3689, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1053811911013000>.

ArianaGrandeVevo 2020, Ariana Grande – nasty (audio), YouTube, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3BuLzTvo0o>.

Literat, I 2021, ‘“Teachers Act Like We’re Robots”: TikTok as a Window Into Youth Experiences of Online Learning During COVID-19’, AERA Open, vol. 7, p. 233285842199553, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858421995537>.

Pharm, J 2021, What Are the Major Functions of the Limbic System?, MedicineNet, MedicineNet, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_major_functions_of_the_limbic_system/article.htm>.

ARIANA GRANDE – BCM241 PITCH

Ariana Grande- DA Pitch, BCM241

My previous blog posts explored my media niche and my field map for this project. Having previously identified my media niche, I was able to then narrow down and determine which area of study I will be analysing this semester as part of my DA.

Identifying my media niche is a great first step, but it’s important for me to identify if there are any problems that may affect my DA and its progress. The main area of concern is recognising that my audience may not agree with my decisions/choices and that my potential audience may not actually enjoy listening to Ariana Grande related content. To combat this, I will be aiming to filter my content and target it towards Arianators as I will be identifying the different personas with the community to assist me identify how I fit in.

My Plan to Success

To stay accountable, I have created a checklist to be able to work through this DA step by step. As I complete my tasks, I will highlight the box green or red to indicate if I successfully completed or failed the task for that week. My plan is to gather the research weekly from my posts and my external research and make progress with each of my assignments weekly to reduce my stress as things become due.

The notes I will gather and present will be written and in video formats to be able to show my data and DA findings.

Ensuring my research remains ethical, I will be discussing my personal observations and discussing my own thoughts to ensure that I do not share any confidential information or research without correctly giving recognition to the creator/author.

To gain a better understanding of how I will be conducting my DA, my pitch video has been linked below!

-Olivia

Delving into Ariana Grande- Field Site Mapping

BCM241

In my previous blog post, I had identified my media niche to be based on my love and interest for Ariana Grande with my main focus on identifying what type of Arianator or tiny elephant I am. This week was all about determining our field sites and discussing how we were thinking of conducting our DAs.

After some careful consideration, I’ve decided that the best method for my research around my Ariana Grande DA is to use the method of auto-ethnography and participant observation to determine my place within the community.

Auto-ethnography is qualitative research method that allows the author to write in a highly personalised style, drawing on their experience to extend understanding about a societal phenomenon (Wall, 2006) while participant observation is defined as Participant observation is the process enabling researchers to learn about the activities of the people under study in the natural setting through observing and participating in those activities. It provides the context for development of sampling guidelines and interview guides (DeWALT & DeWALT, 2002).

Through conducting my research in this method, I am able to share my passion and love for Grande’s music and the love and respect I have for her as a person with other fans but I will also be able to interact with others from the content I produce. I’ll be using my personal experience to talk about what her music has done to help me. To conduct my research, I will be posting on my TikTok page and observing other fans and their videos to gain an understanding into where I fit in as a fan of hers.

This past week we looked at mapping our field site. Below is the image which is further explained in the video below.

References

DeWalt, Kathleen M. & DeWalt, Billie R. (2002). Participant observation: a guide for fieldworkers. Chapter 1, p1-4, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://books.google.com.au/books?id=p1wcO3UNXQ4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

Wall, Sarah (2006) An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/3037105/mod_resource/content/1/Wall%20S%202006%20An%20Autoethnography%20on%20Learning%20about%20Autoethnography.pdf>

BCM110- FAN CLASS ACTIVITY

BCM110

THE REASONS I LOVE KYLIE COSMETICS AND WHY YOU SHOULD TOO!

The famous lip kits that broke the internet in late 2015 early 2016, have an amazing formula and super comfortable to wear!
Those famous lip kits are now made in 3 different formulas! (I love all 3!)
The famous signature Kylie lip can easily be recreated with either “Kylie” or “Candy K” lip kits!
The packaging to all her products are too cute to miss, making them photogenic for those Insta pics!
The Skin concealers are high coverage and perfect for concealing those bags under your eyes or redness around your nose.
Her makeup brushes (I’ve bought a few sets) are super soft and blend my eyeshadow seamlessly!
Her Kylighters make your cheek bones pop and the colour selection is awesome for any skin tone! Cotton Candy Cream is my favourite!
The eyeshadow palettes have always had well thought our colour schemes that keep MUAs and beginners happy!
Kylie Cosmetics has free shipping for domestic overs over $40 or over $60 for international which is super easy to do!
Her products make the perfect gifts!

Below is my collection! I decided to upload it to Youtube because it was doing well an hour after I uploaded it! Give my TikTok a follow- oliviajlopez AND don’t forget to subscribe to my channel to keep up to date with me and my life!

Fan Studies

BCM110

Fan Studies is a field of research that places a focus on media fans and fan cultures (Oxford Bibliographies).

So, what are you (Olivia) a fan of?

Me admitting this may sound ridiculous. I’m 18 and should ‘grow up’ but I’m a die-hard fan of…. Ariana Grande! I have loved her since her Victorious days and have grown up listening to her music and watching her career blossom into doing a clothing line with Lipsy London in 2015, her merchandise, perfumes, her MAC cosmetic line and of course her concerts.

What can the study of fans tell us about audiences, and their relationship with media content?

I’ve always seen a fan as a person who participates in activities and shows support to a person/s, TV show or movie etc. By studying fans, we learn that there are two aspects to fandoms. One element, the social aspect, refers to fans coming together in formal or informal groups to share their mutual interest with one another (Sullivan, 2019 p. 195). The second element that focuses on fandoms is fans as interpreters and producers of media content also known as the interpretive aspect. These fans like to recreate in some form to show their appreciation of their TV show, movie, artist etc (Sullivan, 2019 p.195).

Fans of Ariana Grande communicate and support her by creating fan pages, and even meeting each other before concerts. I once had a fan page where I reposted pictures she posted. Through this page I met a bunch of other girls who I became friends with. I would also make sure that I went to her concerts and supported her by buying products of hers. I once asked the manager of a Priceline store if I could have the signage from her first perfume launch and she did! I still have all those items till this day!

How might this represent a change from earlier studies models?

Although fans now have the internet and social media to connect with one another, it has not changed the fact that fans interact with one another and have been doing so prior to the internet. In 1995, Harrington and Beilby conducted a study surrounding fans of soap operas, surveying 706 TV soap opera fans asking questions in relation to the social element of being a fan. 96% of those surveyed had said that they talked to other fans on a regular basis and with 37% of those said they spoke to 4 or more other fans about their favourite soap operas. (Sullivan 2019, p. 195)

Now days, with the internet we are able to connect to fans from all over the world without having to leave our homes. Now, all you need is a hashtag or a quick simple google search to find other fans, fan accounts, blogs and forums. Before the internet, fans would have to come together and meet at conventions or concerts or physically leave their homes to meet in person. This hasn’t changed much since I still meet people in person when I go to Ariana’s concerts.

References

Jenkins, H., 2019, “Fan Studies”, Oxford Bibliographies, 18th of June, [online], Viewed 20th of April 2020, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0027.xml

Lamerichs, N., 2018, “Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures” Chapter 7:Conclusion Prospects of Fan Studies, Amsterdam University Press, [online], viewed 20th of April 2020, https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/stable/j.ctv65svxz.15?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=fan&searchText=studies&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfan%2Bstudies%26amp%3Bfilter%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5152%2Ftest&refreqid=search%3Ab7a0d710aa869f40aceb6755c380d2c0&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Sullivan, L, J., 2019, ” Media Audiences, Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power” (ed 2), Media Fandoms and Audience Subculture p.189-210, Sage Publications.