Q1. What should Sony do about the JK Wedding Dance video on Youtube? Jive, Sony Entertainment label owned the rights to the songs Forever by Chris Brown which was used in the JK wedding dance video. According to us we choose option 2 which says that the company should not take any action against this and mentioned below are the points in its support. In Feb 8, 2009, Chris Brown was booked for domestic violence which hindered his image and withdrawal of his performance in awards, forfeiting of his contracts etc. So if the company take ups the issue to have a contract or profit sharing agreement it would lead to hamper in the goodwill of o f the company. This is because Chris Brown was under the scanner for negative publicity due to the violent act, so if the company propagates through this video it would mean that they are ok with promoting the person who is accused with a violent crime. It would also mean that it is trying to cash up on this opportunity which would ag ain impact the image of the company. Another reason to choose this option is, as mentioned in the case after his violent act his music career was affected. Agencies related to him or campaigns he was associated wi th were withdrawing their contract as they did not want to be associated with any negative publicity which the actor was going through. Having this song in the video and with the viral effect it will just increase the visibility of the song by Chris Brown where he was being put to a back bench in the music industry. So the option 1 is way out of the picture, where option 2 will just benefit in bringing back his music to people after a downfall. So the company should not do anything but rather stay low, sit back and benefit in any additional form of attention it is getting from the song. Q.2 If yes, it was natural process how do you account for its popularity? Are the attributes of videos or attributes of the early stages of diffusion that can be used to predict their success early in the process? When we see the idea behind the video it is said that the bride Jill said, that she grew up dancing till college, and she loved the way dance is a form to express oneself to share joys and that is the reason she chose this for her wedding. Another reason to say that it is natural is that the wedding actually happened, and the reason for the upload was because she wanted her family to see the wedding who could not be a part of the The video is one of a kind, a normal wedding is slow procession into the church and down the aisle, but they broke the tradition and did this with the people in the wedding breaking in a jubilant, hiphop- modified dance.
Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. There are four main elements that i nfluence the spread of a new idea: the innovation, communication channels, time, and a social system. Here Jill and Kevin idea of a dance routine for the wedding was the innovation in a wedding routine, then they posted their video on YouTube to make it available for viewing to people so their communication channel was clear and could be easily accessible to people. And it is a happy wedding seen so people are more inclined to like and share it with people. So these were the diffusion of innovation, as no one ever has done this type of a wedding so it attracted the people to view. People who heard or even sees the name of video they will have the curiosity to know about the newness in this idea as it was unexpected form with an old tradition, this became a reason for their early success. Q3. What do you learn from the diffusion model from the case? Do you think this kind of activity is ethical for any firm to rebuild the image of the star? Diffusion Model It is a process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. It refers to a simple process of how new products are accepted in the market. The model presents a basis of how current adopters and potential adopters of a new product interact. The basic premise of the model is that adopters can be classified as innovators or as imitators and the speed and timing of adoption depends on their degree of innovativeness and the degree of imitation among adopters. Innovators – jill and kevin From a normal ritual of a catholic wedding procession to a creative enthusiastic dance. They were the innovators to start this entrance dance, and thus there were m any followers who did the same and meme also were created. Communication channel
The couple chose you tube as the main medium of communication channel then followed by the other medium as social venues like Technorai, Delicious, Reddit, Digg etc
Timing of the adoption th
Jk wedding happened on June 20
2009.
Within 48 hours – 3.5 million views
Less than 2 weeks – 15 million views (11 days 13 million like)
During the summer of 2009 it reached a per day view of 1,00,000
Jk divorce happened on July 29 (a month after th original video)
3 million views that summer initially and by end of year it reached to 6 million views.
Immitators
There were many imitators and also the JK divorce meme (one example would be - On April 15, 2011, T-Mobile uploaded a video parody of the JK Wedding Entrance Dance portraying the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton weeks before the actual Royal Wedding)
Do you think this kind of activity is ethical for the firm to rebuilt the image of the star
While we select the 2 option that says doing nothing the credibility of the firm
doesn’t come in
picture thus if Jive wants to rebuild the image of Chris brown then it should be left publically as to decide if they want to support the star or no. The company should not take this video as an advantage and cash upon it. Rather it should start an initiative on its own to improve the image of its client. Only when the option 3 comes into picture which talks about profit sharing agreements then it can be considered as the firm is going against the ethical issue and supporting the star who was accused of domestic violence, and only wants revenue from the song played on air.
