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Abstract for Final Project

I decided I would try my hand at the Alfred J. Seaman award that our professor told us about this semester. The reward made the contest seem well worth it to me, so I figured it was a smart thing to do.  Let me start by saying I hated advertising before this course. I figured I was enrolled as an advertising major to put something on a piece of paper that would pay for my bachelor pad in the post-grad years. I guess it was a mixture of corporate disgust and being really annoyed that I had to sit through commercials while watching the new Breaking Bad episodes.  This class has shown us the true nature of advertising. I've never seen so many anti-advertising industry movies, or movies calling out something that the ad industry is doing wrong. At first, it more or less confirmed what I already knew about advertising. Before I got even more sick of it, I thought about advertising from a different perspective and thought about important things regarding advertising I'd been overlooking.  This paper is an outline of the ideas that changed my view on advertising. The paper has a flow to it that echoes my train of thought. I hope you enjoy reading it, and consider the musings as you go into your careers. I think the message is something worth considering in this day and age.  Thanks,  Connor LINK: http://www.pdfhost.net/index.php?Action=Download&File=4b37180853b607cbbe050fb00f275c3d

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Racism in advertising: My Thoughts Today

So today, while watching the video on racism and racist tendencies in advertising I couldn't help but be reminded of consumer segmentation techniques that I learned about last semester in advertising 275.  I feel like demographic segmentation of society based on race is perpetuating racism. When companies try to target the asian-american, african-american, or latino markets they include elements that are specific to that culture to try and get them to purchase their products. Oftentimes these are very stereotypical assumptions about these subcultures, and anyone not in the subculture continues to assume that the represented subculture is characterized by the elements in the ad. 

 I think it'd be interesting to see how many people from these target markets actually purchase products that have culturally specific advertising. 

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Remembered this commercial from a while back. Apologies for the video quality, I couldn't find the actual commercial (presumably due to copyright reasons), but you get the point. Although this isn't advertising to children, it's advertising using children and their mannerisms to attract  families. It's very interesting how this has very little to do with a phone plan .... 

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Essay of Analysis: Killing Us Softly

Advertising has been sexualizing people since not long after advertising began as a concept. As long as human are fascinated by sex they will be sold things they may or may not need through that medium. In the documentary Killing Us Softly featuring Jean Kilbourne explores the themes of the process of sexualizing and misogyny in Advertising.

The focus of this video is meant to bring awareness to the increase in using the human body as a means to manipulate motives and emotions into contributing to a capitalistic society through purchases. Ms. Kilbourne focuses heavily on the use and misrepresentation of the female body in advertising. She uses data in her argument such as celebrity testimonials (Kate Winslett), examples of advertisements that are blatantly sexual and blatantly use sexualizing to their advantage, and citing various studies to make her point. This is as effective as a misogynistic ad, because it plays on the emotions and reason of the audience. This in it self is a conclusion/hypothesis tactic, because her data speaks for itself. The way she speaks and presents with personality makes her come across way more eloquently, in turn making her data more valid.

Women are not the only objects of discussion for Kilbourne. She talks about men being sexualized, and a certain body image being forced on them as well. To prove her point she once again uses various ads from places like Abercrombie, Hollister, and other outlet-mall-ready-stores that show men in abnormally awesome physical condition acting somewhat promiscuously.

Kilbourne is quick to make the conclusion that there needs to be more regulation of sexualizing in advertising, and that there needs to be less focus on what society says you should be, and more focus on what you want to be. She says that the diversity of the human body should be represented just as much, if not more than the representation of good, “sexy”, healthy bodies. To support this claim, she cites examples of magazines using untouched photos of women, using average women as models (the word “average” carrying a positive or neutral connotation), and people making ads directly addressing the negative trend of sexualizing in advertising.

I would have liked to see her address more opposition in this video. I would have liked to see Kilbourne address the reality of the criticisms of her work, and come up with solutions to cancel out those criticisms. I feel as though she addressed the criticisms with an adamant demeanor, and just kind of insisted that the opposition was incorrect or not worth spending any time thinking about. She could have addressed the adverse effects of what she suggests is the proper way to advertise, such as people being TOO comfortable with having an unhealthy body type. She also doesn’t discuss parental intervention and teaching media literacy. I feel like those are lynchpins to closing this discussion off from any disagreement.

I would just like to get to know the commentator as a person. I feel as though that knowing someone is the best way to understand his or her perspective on an

empathetic level. If I had to ask her one thing, I would ask her if she feels as though fighting sexualizing people is worth it or not. Advertising is changing so much, and mediums aren’t remaining constant. I believe that there might not even be room for the excess ego stroking, grooming, and priming and sexualizing in the new wave of advertising. I would ask her if she believes that this will be a lasting trend in advertising or if it will eventually die out.

All in all I really enjoyed this documentary. It serves as an affirmation of what we as a society already know about advertising. It’s very much like remaining quiet about racism. We know its there, but we choose not to acknowledge it because it’s such a hurdle. People are such complicated beings that when it comes to dealing with those beings that have money and a commercial force over your average citizen, years of work, headaches, and struggle with emotional battles are sure to follow any type of attempt at a paradigm shift. I hope Kilbourne continues to give talks and make documentaries like this. If someone doesn’t say it, who will? 

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Big Tobacco

This guy sounds too much like Joe Rogan. 

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Connor Mehren Informal Letter To Class

To my classmates,  I'm excited to see that you're all enjoying the class as much as I am. I think the way it is taught is pretty dang different, and unlike other classes it's the interesting topics and assignments that keep me on my toes rather than a torrential downpour of assignments, deadlines, group projects, etc.  I have to admit that I have not been very excited about being an advertising major. I am of the proportion of students who is kinda-sorta distrustful of advertising, and I hold the societal values that advertisers often portray as normal in contempt. I mean, we're all victims of it their messages to some extent. It doesn't even have to be that we bought a product we saw advertised somewhere, or that we voted for one candidate over another, or that we donated money to injured animals over sick children (although I'm sure we have done some of those things).  The one thing about this class that really has me fascinated is that there's so much depth in each advertisement. We pick up on messages that are placed in commercials the same way we do in real life. We pick up on what's cool to wear and what's not in virtually every advertisement. Even body language in commercials sets societal norms in telling us how to act and respond to certain situations. Commercials are simultaneously a reflection of who we are as a society, and a projection of what we would like to be as a society. That, in my opinion, is the everlasting and transparent truth in advertising. That is the one thing that we're all victim to. Following this notion, all of the documentaries we've watched in class about advertising different things and to different target markets have implied that there is a capitalistic advantage to playing on this uncertainty of who we are and what we are. Once we are grown, we have been conditioned to distract ourselves from the weight of those questions. Advertising, from this perspective is like a drug. It helps perpetuate a system that alleviates the hundreds of thousands of stresses of the human condition through satisfying created needs.  For instance, creating needs is one of the key components of the advertising created by pharmaceutical companies. Using methods like medicalizing, people end up believing that they're broken and NEED to be fixed. How do they get fixed? Take some prozac, and it will all be better with a couple of side effects BUT WHO CARES?! You'll be better! You won't NEED to be fixed anymore! We're trained as children to have these needs. Children start off with wants. They want things. They respond to sensory input because that's what their brains crave for growth. One of the most important things about the documentary about advertising to children was how these wants are transformed into needs. A child can see a commercial for a water park and want to go there, but as time goes on you're an outsider if you haven't been to this park. Children end up feeling a lot more horrible about this than an adult would, and end up needing to go for their happiness. They don't have the knowledge to process this process, and end up becoming certified consumers like the rest of us.  With the above taken into consideration, I'm very glad I decided to take this class. It was this class, or ADV 330 (which if you've taken it, you'll know why I dropped it right away). This class has comforted my cynicism, and turned it into a passion. I wouldn't say I'm glad I'm an advertising major. I still see deceit, manipulation, and superflous spending on campaigns that encourage superflous spending on products that contribute to someones superfluous paycheck. However, because of this class I now see more than that. I see the opportunity for change, and room for ethical and moral growth in advertising. I see the opportunity to enlighten people and encourage them to be true to themselves, shed their egos, raise their awareness and become happy with what they have rather than worried about what they might need. As a result, being an advertising major isn't so bad.  Sincerely,  Connor James Mehren 

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This is a pretty cool read. It shows that there are some companies out there that are serious about keeping the relationship between children, corporations, and advertising clean. The statistics at the bottom are a nice touch too.  However, it's hard to not read this and think they're keeping it civil for the sake of keeping kids healthy so that they can keep buying stuff. It's cyclical.  I'd like to see more studies done like this! 

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I think that Huxley, first, would say I told you so. It's pretty amazing how accurately he was able to predict things that may become true for our society.  Furthermore, I think Huxley would warn us a little bit more. I don't think he's an oracle or some all seeing prophet or anything. He's just very aware of societal patterns and their repercussions. I think he'd be very concerned with the ways in which we choose to distract ourselves from the thousands of truths that we do battle with every day. I say battle, because a lot of times the truth is hard to handle. I think he'd say we're doing a good job at hiding, and a terrible job at seeking.  

What would Huxley say today?

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Not sure what his accent was, don't judge!

Just realized that this guy might not even be Australian. He just sounded like it for a minute. "This Guy" is named Jhally, too. I just thought I'd credit him rather than calling him "some australian guy"... He's a smart dude!

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In response to Advertising At The End Of The World

This movie is crazy. I firmly believe what this movie is saying, and I have for a while. Advertising is literally everywhere in the United States. I think what the Australian guy (didn't get his name) was saying about understanding the culture being about advertising is absolutely correct. I don't think it applies to just the united states either. I think it applies to everywhere that has been westernized. Actually, it applies to everywhere.  The sad part, is that competition drives the negative messages. There's not enough positivity in advertising, or advertising the right things for the right reason. Advertising teaches ego, and status, and reputation and it teaches that those things will lead to happiness. It preaches a normalcy that if you don't align with in certain ways, you'll feel alienated.  Very interesting movie though! 

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These guidelines are good, but I feel like they're not good enough, or they get really manipulated when advertisements are actually put together. I mean teaching gambling to kids now is as easy as developing a web app, or game for a smartphone. It's like a rescaled version of adult gambling. It's almost a primal concept - the manipulation of wants and beliefs - that when applied to children is like taking candy from babies.  However, I do feel as though there is a healthy side to the marketing of gambling to children. It teaches them loss as well. It teaches that if you're not careful you can lose everything because of gambling. They don't emphasize this as much as they should, but it's still there. 

These are tips from CARU (Children’s Advertising Review Unit) and industry lawyers regarding general advertising to children.

Make clear in the commercial what is and what is not included in the product

Show the product in a way that a young child would use the product

Be accurate when you...