More Unobtrusive Research

               As a beginner blogger, we are subject to make a few mistakes.  Therefore, in order to be a successful blogger, one must resort to others for guidance.  This is exactly what we were expected to do this week.  Our assignment was to read other classmates blogs and comment on them.  Although my blog has recently featured stories on the President and the bad PR he has been receiving, this week I will be looking at a few blogs that look at other aspects of Public Relations.

            Unobtrusive research as we have been discussing the past few weeks in class, is a way of measuring data without those participating even knowing they are being studied.  In Whitney’s blog, she focused on how unobtrusive research and advertising can be closely linked.  She looked at an article that featured a study dealing with how often television viewers actually watched ads on tv.  To do this, they used a censor to follow the eye of the viewer, without them knowing.  “They saw that the eye sensor measures an attention span, and due to its scarcity, is something very important to understand. They found it to be troubling, because now a days more and more people seem to ignore ads, but it seems that more and more companies are paying millions of dollars to get their ads on television.”  In my opinion, this is completely true.  I know I find myself not paying attention to television ads, therefore, are television ads really successful or a waste of money?

            On another note, I looked at Kayla’s blog  on fashion PR.  While I like fashion and enjoy buying new trends, I can’t say I am the most aware of the new haves this winter.  However according to Kayla, one can tell just by looking at the most recent fashion shows.  Through unobtrusive research, “top trends can be observed by sitting in the front row of New York Fashion Week. What color was worn the most? Did models walk out with jeans or skirts? What outfit was photographed and given the most attention.”  While these are things that I myself would probably over look, it seems pretty believable.  Especially after looking at the article she used from ELLE magazine. 

            In my opinion, unobtrusive research can occur at any time.  Sometimes the most common things are even taken for granted and therefore one can miss out on useful information.