Erin Swearingen

In today's world, we can not survive without our phones. It is a simple fact. We use them constantly to stay in the loop through texting, phone calls, Snapchat, Facetime, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; and those are only the basics that everyone uses. Even people of an older generation are getting on the bandwagon of smartphones so they can stay in the loop through social media with their children and grandchildren. All of this revolves around our ability to use our phones and the speed that they can pull up the information that you are seeking, whether it be text messages, emails, or social media. We want it fast and we want it now. This comes with having fast internet speeds with our cell phone provider.  According to WirelessWeek , 82% of the cellphone market is smartphones. The highest saturation is between the ages of 18-24, however, the fastest grown age group is 55+; which ties into what I said earlier about the older generation getting into the loop. As these numbers conti...

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear "United Airlines"? Well if you are like most of the United States, you think of them pulling people off of planes or bad customer service. Things like this aren't the only bad customer service United Airlines has a bad reputation for. Apparently, they have a history since 2008, according to this case. The band, Sons of Maxwell was headed to Nashville, Tennessee, and had a layover in Chicago. This is where things turned bad for United Airlines. The lead singer of the band, Dave Caroll, witnessed their guitars being mishandled by employees of United Airlines. Dave was so appalled, that he talked to three different United Airlines employees and they either told him that he needed to talk to someone above them or that they weren't liable because he signed a waiver, when in fact he never did. This showed a complete lack of human understanding or even compassion.  After his guitars were treated badly by Unit...

We all make mistakes. Whether it be personal relationships or even work relationships, we all make mistakes, they are what make us human. Some result in lawsuits, others result in agreements that don't harm nor help both parties. In this weeks cases study, this is exactly what happened. The music group, OK Go partnered with S7 Airlines and recorded the first zero-gravity music video called "Upside Down and Inside Out". Though this seemed like a fun idea at first, there are always issues when partnering with other companies. In this case, there must have been no previous agreement about who can post what where, because the main point in this case study was that S7 Airlines posted the music video to YouTube and the music group OK Go wouldn't be able to reap any of the benefits when it came to working with YouTube. The issue with this was that YouTube had recently released a new policy on how YouTube shared its monetary rewards. With this policy change, Ok Go decided...

WOW. That is all I can think of after reading about this case study and watching this commercial. When the creative team for this company was thinking about the outcomes and responses to this commercial, I truly wonder how they didn't see it becoming negative. The event of 9/11 touched and ruined many lives and has changed how we live our lives today. I know that I am personally being affected by it, as my boyfriend is being deployed to go fight overseas because of the events and terrorism that have evolved from the horrible occurrence of 9/11. The case study for this week is about a Mattress Store in Texas that closed after a commercial they released promoting their sale on 9/11, otherwise known as one of the worst days in American and world history. I am baffled at how they can try and bring humor into something like this? If anything, they should have done a commercial saying that they thank the men and women that fight for our country and that they will never forget, not ta...