After exploring a little bit about building an argument, I feel like I'm ready to construct my own. A friend (Brittany) from high school has been making "Plug Mittens" which are knitted "mittens" to go over gauged earlobes (the Facebook page is here, there are also photos of the product there too).
Wysocki and Lynch (the authors of the reading from class) posed a question that has really driven my thought process for an argument: Why are we communicating? What do we want to achieve here? First of all, even though I do not have gauged ears myself, Plug Mittens look really cool, and there isn't anything else like it out there. People with stretched earlobes have found that their ears get really cold, and these mittens keep their ears warm in a stylish way. The business has had local success, but Brittany has told me that they are just breaking even. I think if they marketed the Plug Mittens, and got the word out to other people that they could grow the business, and probably even make a profit. I know that she also has some great social views (I believe she was a vegetarian in highschool, and I remember her passing out pamphlets about animal abuse), and if her business were to gain more followers, she could also promote some of her social views and make an actual change in the world. To sum this up: If Plug Mittens was better marketed, Brittany could profit off of something she loves, and also make a positive difference in her community.
Our target audience will be primarily those with larger plugs, or those who have friends/family with larger plugs. I believe this is generally a younger audience as well, which is why I believe Tumblr is the best digital medium to use. Tumblr not only is used by a younger audience, but you also do not need to be a member of Tumblr to view other Tumblr sites. Brittany was also concerned about usability, and Tumblr is incredibly easy to use compared to creating our own website and finding a script that would act as a blog for the site. Tumblr also allows the user to create more pages than just the main blog, so we could still have pages with contact information, about us, etc. I just would like to see more people find out about Plug Mittens so they could expand their business if they wanted to.
Promoting businesses is a great idea! I believe someone else in class is doing the same kind of project.
ReplyDeleteLinks to the Facebook page when you do your tumblr would be helpful. Photos of some of their gauge creations would be awesome!
The painting on clothing idea is awesome, too! Another tumblr page?
For both of these, be sure to address the appropriate audience... of course. Also make sure the audience can relate to the layout.