These samples of writing show my ability to observe and understand the arts of advertising and intercultural communcation
Writing Samples
Progressive Insurance is one of the top brands in the nation controlling a fair majority of the insurance industry. Much success comes from techniques used to gain the public’s attention when dealing with campaigns for products such as insurance, and one major tool in media for all insurance agencies is commercials. Advertising is a crucial and important factor for success with so much competition throughout the market that surrounds Progressive. They are currently competing alongside a handful of major brands, such as Geico, State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide. These different insurance companies have their own style of advertising, from spokesperson to jingles, all benefiting their brands in a different way from one another. As for Progressive, Flo has been the face of their insurance campaign since early 2008.
Progressive has used Flo as the face of their campaign for about five years now, and after seeing how the market played out for different companies after certain campaigns were launched, I feel it’s time for something fresh. I think the new campaign that Progressive has come up with is not only heartwarming, but does a great job at emotionally connecting with people and their everyday lives. Flo was a great way to boost up the Progressive brand through a very recognizable spokesperson, but I feel she has considerably over stayed her welcome. Her role as Flo will forever be remembered with the brand name, but in this case it is time for change, and change can most definitely be good for Progressive. The company knew that Flo was a hit once the costume outbreak happened, and they now sell her costume on their website which I feel does show her impact and the role she has played within Progressive’s entire ad campaign. All its competitors have changed their advertising style in a more fashionable timeline, yet none have managed to continue with success the way Flo was able to. Their new campaign, “The Thread,” is an introduction to consumers about the real, hard working class and company behind its apron icon.
Culture shock is the way someone may feel from the change of their environment, and the way they react to traveling or moving to a new place. I find culture shock to be a very interesting topic because it is a universal challenge that all people could potentially face at any time in their life. Culture shock is typically from an unfamiliar way of life in a new culture, and most commonly comes from foreign encounters. There are four stages of culture shock: the honeymoon stage, negotiation stage, adjustment stage, and mastery stage (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2012). There are many common problems, but many solutions to the harsh reality of culture shock. I feel culture shock is a healthy experience that everyone should opportunistically approach sometime throughout their short, unpredictable life.
There are many different customs, cues, and norms that surround our culture that we may only be familiar with. Many other cultures have their different customs and habits that we may not be familiar with at all, and this is where culture shock can really kick in. Our daily lives here in the United States consists of shaking hands when meeting someone, blessing someone when they sneeze, or even opening the doors for ladies; however this may be far out of cue for many other cultures. Different cues such as words, gestures, facial expressions, customs or norms are all acquired individually from the culture we are most familiar with (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2012). We all depend on our peace of mind, and have all unconsciously acquired hundreds of different cues from the language we speak, and the culture we live in. This can cause you to fall into a phase of culture shock, regression, where home environment suddenly assumes a great importance, and everything becomes unreasonably adored (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2012).