Saturday, November 19, 2011

“We can’t repel Social Media of this magnitude!”


"Social media is changing the way we communicate - if you're caught up in the argument of 'Is a blogger a journalist?' then you've missed the boat."

Among the many media outlets available in modern day advertising, a strategy is key to ensure consistent branding and maximum exposure.  Lucasfilm has adapted their strategies over the years to take advantage of emerging media and maintaining a strong presence among their target audiences.


While many brands have trusted media platforms like newspapers, magazines, and television, Lucasfilm has strived in concentrating a majority of their strategies on the Internet and more specifically social media.

For example, many of the press releases sent out from the company can be found in the Lucasfilm pressroom. Here journalists, competitors, and fans can find the latest news and updates from the company. If one was to look for past news releases the pressroom also features an online archive of all their news stories.

Author Deirdre Breckenridge discusses the changing times and how it affects Public Relations for companies. She emphasizes that not only is the use of an online newsroom important, but companies/brands need to be fast-paced and keep up with journalists needs. However what she does not discuss is the fact that many fans are now seen as journalists themselves.

In Digital Strategies For Powerful Corporate Communications, the authors stress just that. “The voice of ordinary people is increasingly as loud as that of mainstream media. Now everyone has the potential to influence a company’s reputation,” (pg. 75). This means that even though someone is not a writer for the New York Times, through social media platforms like Twitter one person has the ability to reach the masses, thus they have the power to either make or break a reputation of a company.

As mentioned in the previous blog, Lucasfilm does not have a Twitter page itself, but the company has several Twitter/Facebook pages for its divisions such as Industrial Light & Magic and STAR WARS. The benefit of these individual Twitter accounts is that they focus on the specific target audience. A fan of STAR WARS is able to get the latest news on the STAR WARS franchise without having to look through updates about Industrial Light & Magic special effects. STAR WARS also looks to fans to help the brand by promoting their own personal fan sites. Through their uses of social media, they show their fans and competition that they are always adapting and moving with the technologies of the time – just like STAR WARS was a film that was ahead of its time in the cinema industry.


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4 comments:

  1. TomNovember 21, 2011 at 12:20 PM

    The Adidas ad is great. Star Wars is so iconic that other brands use those images and likenesses that everyone knows about in order to gain exposure for their products. What's funny is something like that will generally be met with a positive response from Star Wars fans, but official movies and items licensed by George Lucas are not.

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  2. yepezf@sacredheart.eduNovember 21, 2011 at 6:04 PM

    Very well done Lacey! Star Wars is the perfect PR model to examine. We must look into the future of inter-galactic social media technology.

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  3. UnknownNovember 21, 2011 at 6:57 PM

    Snoop Dogg, OG Jedi. I love it...

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  4. Lacey_GilleranNovember 22, 2011 at 11:03 AM

    Tom - It's true that STAR WARS is quite iconic. I don't know another franchise that has the ability to be known by all. That is an interesting point you make about the responses to licensed items versus ones made by fans. It is completely true. I feel that a lot of STAR WARS popularity come from internet jokes or memes. EX: IT'S A TRAP!

    Yepez - I think STAR WARS is the future inter-galactic social media technology.

    Jocelyne - Snoop Dogg is in everything!

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