My eyes have been stripped of their innocence.

What a revealing semester this has been. My baby virgin eyes have been revealed to the world of spotting fallacies and seeing beneath the skin of advertising. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch television, go grocery shopping, attend a music festival, etc with the same innocent, uncritical eyes that I inadvertently had. I imagine that I'll share a smirk with a fellow critical-thinking alumni whenever we happen to pass by a faulty or obvious marketing strategy ad that deserves disparaging or praise. Hypothetically, this class has built me the holographic computer that Iron Man uses while doing some mad thinking, but specially designed to spot and identify market strategies while walking through ad populated world.

 Now I think that is some pretty cool stuff. I'm appreciative that I've been opened up to this world of understanding; it makes me a more well-rounded, smarter person. Unfortunately and inevitably, much of this semester's learning will fall into the deep abyss called the forgotten. But knowing the names of every fallacy and rationalization isn't necessarily imperative. So long the gest of being aware and tentative to the media world around us upheld, the semester counts as a payoff. I don't see this being a problem in my future.
Furthermore, the constant, and rather weary, practice of media blogs has demonstrated a new meaning of media to me. As this is the conclusion blog, I needed to revisit my introduction blog. In it, I limited media to social media, newspapers, commercials, advertisements. In it, I failed to recognize the essential image of a brand as media. Who knew a Kid Cuisine box could count as media with an intent to persuade. However, my overall understanding of media's intent was pretty solid, and has been reinforced through these assignments.
I mentioned early that media and I are acquaintances. We still remain acquaintances, except I'm just a little more aware of the bs that it throws me. Nonetheless, I'll continue to supply McDonald's money so long they keep the coupons flowing.

The Advertising at a Reggae Music Festival

Last weekend, I attended the California Roots Music Festival, a massive gathering for reggae admirers and people alike. While I was there for 2 days, I made sure to pay attention to the use of advertising around me while jamming out to some bomb artists.

If it's not too hard to believe, the content that was highly touted was rather stoney. By this, I mean that the marijuana industry was a big presence at the festival. This should be no big surprise, as for marijuana is iconically associated with the roots of reggae. Anyhow, let's take a look at some of the things I saw.

 Behind the dread-locked, beanie wearing man is one of the main stages at the festival. The screen graphic seen in the photo is what everyone sees while waiting for the artist to preform. Take note at who "presents" the Cali Roots Stage. Yup, the main stage of the festival is sponsored by "weedmaps", a website that beholds a marijuana community and features marijuana dispensaries. They also had their logo at every water filling station at the festival. They got the most exposure out of any company/brand that I saw.

You know those booths at events where you can get free stuff if you listen to the person there trying to sell you things; they were at this festival too. However, these booths purveyed smoking apparatus and similar type products. One of the booths was advertising a marijuana e-cigarrette. They had a line of people going on for 15 feet out of their booth. Did all these people, including me and my buddies, want the e-cigarrete? No, I was in line waiting for the free cotton candy they were giving out. But inevitably, their groovy looking sales people tried to get people in line to check out their product, and some did. I thought this was great; get a bunch people to wait at your booth and sell them things.

Of course, all the vendors, sponsors, and advertisements out at the festival weren't marijuana related, but the majority was. This "high" presence of weed related products at the reggae festival was no accident. What happened here was bringing the right stuff to the right market. While marijuana is part of the culture of reggae, you can expect a bunch of weed-loving people to attend a reggae festival. So,  the marijuana industry takes advantage of the opportunity and presents things/products that a lot of people want to see. It's genius.

The act of marketers advertising to people that they would most appeal to is a phenomenon that we explored earlier in class this semester. It's just like broadcasting a Bernie Sanders ad campaign to a liberal leaning city; except this festival broadcasted marijuana products to reggae listening, herb smokers.

Follow up on "Miss Representation"

I've known that women have been plagued by injustices and have the problem of being objectified, but MissRepresentation truly proved how extensive and true this stark reality is. The documentary makes an effective argument that media demoralizes women with the mentality that their self-worth lies within their beauty, and makes men superior. They explain how this dilemma creates an absence of women in positions of power. Their assertions were well accepted by including many statistical facts to support, and by employing both men and female to explain the situation. These two tactics made the argument undeniably applicable to our society. However, I can't help but wonder what a person who doesn't recognize women injustice would think if they watched this documentary. Perhaps including this other perspective in the documentary would make their argument more effective.

Of course, I, in addition to the rest of the class, received the film's message well, having came from similar mentalities and being educated upon media's tainting affects. Thus being, the issues raised in the film should get better in the future, as we are the future. However, many kids don't come from backgrounds like us HISPers and remain ignorant to societal problems like this. Their childhood conditioning to objectify women, done by disney movies and social media, lays sneakily present in their minds. Unfortunately, some of these people are unchangeable. That's why the film points importance on teaching kids when their young not to be "emotionally illiterate," which ultimately will help hamper out the prejudice on women that is done by media.

In this day and age, I think better circumstance for women are finally being recognized, and a brighter future lays ahead. Other prejudices in our society, like against sexual orientation or skin color, have been seen to take improved matters through time. Women's rights and representation is not much different from other injustices our society has battled through. While this dilemma has been raised out of social media, which is a domineering force in our lives and the effects are currently immense, the path to eradicating the negative mindset might take a while; but it is inevitable in my eyes.

Does "Lucy" Fit the Fighting F**k Toy Archetype, and Other Reveletions...

Stunning Scarlet Johannson plays the heroine of this action-packed, sci-fi film, but does her role fit the "fighting f**k toy archetype" described in class last week? 

The documentary we watched in class, Miss Representation, said this in regards to the fighting f**k toy (FFT) archetype: 

"Women appear to be empowered. They are carrying the story, they're the action hero. But when you peel back a layer or two, you discover it's not really about their agency... Because even though she is doing things supposably on her own terms, she very much is objectified and exists for the male viewer."

After watching Miss Representation in class, I asked two female classmates whether they thought the movie Lucy resembled the FFT archetype, and we didn't share similar thoughts upon the answer. They both pointed to the idea that she's made to look sexy and badass for guys, and is thus another one of those movies. But despite her role being both beautiful and kickass in the film, I don't think she embodies that hollywood archetype. In fact, I think the archetype itself is a bit complicated to understand.

When I asked my two friends if by the sense that Lucy fits the FFT archetype, isn't Thor one too. I mean, Chris Helmsworths has got to be doing something with those dreamy arms and raging pectorals. But they said no, as for he isn't revealing enough and people don't watch Thor because he is attractive. Now I'm confused.

It seems that classifying a FFT archetype seems a bit arbitrary. One has to conclude that a character is made with a purpose of being attractive to the other gender and is objectified by doing so. I suppose judging a characters clothing can be used to conclude this. But what others might consider as objectifying could be different from what I think? Lucy has casual wear, which I think is aesthetically nice but not overly attractive. However, my female friends thought that she displayed the intention of being sexually attracting to men. This disparity leads me to believe that gender perspective plays a role in whether we see someone as a provocative being or FFT. How else is it that one person finds attractive Lucy as a FFT, but attractive Thor isn't one. 

While I like the name, I don't really care for the FFT archetype. While it is undoubtably present in some movies, considering someone as provocative is gender and personally biased. Furthermore, I think the archetype puts a negative aspect on some people. It essentially tells one that if they wear something that might be considered sexy, that they are being objectified. 

Ads in Every Avenue

About a month or two ago, I saw some peculiar advertising down Land Park Drive. Nay, not a bus ad or road side billboard, but a billboard truck. I don't know what exactly to call it, but I found a picture of one online.

 

The evasion of ads is truly here. They're mobilized on our phones and now on our streets. This truck has the soul purpose of driving around and parading an ad.  I can't help but question weather this is beneficial to a company or not. I understand that a company wants to get their image/message out as much as possible, and that by putting that image on a moving truck they will attract more attention, like the plane billboard I blogged about earlier. I just have a hard time believing that spending $500-800 a day for one of these will bring in more customers. I just don't see how a brief passing of this truck could convince/compel me to buy whatever is advertised. I feel a possible customer needs a little bit more time to absorb the content. More people might see it, but not necessarily fully process it. 

I'm not completly poo-pooing the idea of the billboard truck, there is genius behind this type of mobile ad. An odd looking truck is head turning and draws lots of attention. Also, ads that are well received in certain areas can be sent directly to that area by this truck. They could also be useful for advertising a local/special event, which would then make sense to display a temporary billboard.

Overall, ads are evolving and finding more ways to be recognized in our lives. 

I'll Take my Food with Fun, Please.

I hope I'm not the only one who loved to get my hands on one of these bad boys for dinner.                                

What kid wouldn't want a Kid Cuisine? The box is so colorful, theres a penguin throwing sprinkles on the pudding, and its made for kids. I know past me would want to play with that. I would leave a cold shoulder to my mom's comments about how gross they were; Kid Cuisine looked to fun to pass by in the store. 

Kid Cuisine has made a market on kids, or rather parents begged by their kids, by appealing to their desire for fun and creativity. Kids are always trying to have fun, and I think they can be easily convinced to buy Kid Cuisine when a bright and colorful box stands out amidst other foods in the freezer aisle. The boxes of Kid Cuisines take on different themes as well, such as a pop star or basketball player, that insists that Kid Cuisine is more about food, its about fun and imagination. 

While on the topic of lame boxed foods marketed for kids, lets take a look at Lunchables. While their box certainly isn't as colorful and fun as Kid Cuisine, their commercials certainly are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrWtXvI1kaU

While the Luchable Kabobbles food advertised in this commercial looks disgusting (Its chicken and cheese kabob-ed on a pretzel stick), the commercial attempts to make a fun factor on kids. The commercial displays a funny situation by funny looking characters and throws in a Lunchable at the end. "Get your hands on the box and get in on the fun," the narrator lastly states. The commercial attempts to persuade kids to get Lunchables on the basis of fun. 

In the end, kids don't really care if their lunch is mediocre to low-quality food served on a plastic tray.  But with the special ingredient of fun, kids will be begging for it. 

The McDonalds App: an Advertising Angel

A common struggle of many hungry teenagers; what do I want to eat? A common dialogue between my brother and I is as follows:
"I think I want some fast-food, should we get McDonalds or Burger King?"
"Well they're both equally garbage, I don't care."
"I got a fire coupon for a buy-one-get-one-free Big Mac on my phone, we're getting Mickey D's"

And thus McDonalds has won over the business of two hungry teenagers, not by offering better food but by offering a better deal. It's clear that businesses are always competing to offer better deals and thus allure greater sales, and companies have mobilized deals and coupons to persuade buyers. Of course mail coupons have been a greatly utilized technique to make make this happen, but I've noticed a rise in a new technique: mobile applications and streams of text messages made by a company that gives a constant feed of deals and coupons to customers. I've fallen participant in one of these by downloading the McDonalds app (yes, it exists). I was captured by a McDonalds ad in twitter that promised me a free BigMac if I downloaded their app; how could I turn that down. So I got the app, got my free burger, and realized this app is a money saving angel sent to me by the McD gods. Every week, new coupons are presented to me in notifications. Ohh, a free small fries with any purchase, I should use this before it expires. While it is beneficial to me, it's also beneficial to McDonalds, who just persuaded me to buy a burger.


This is a highly potent advertising technique done by companies; utilizing bribery and time pressure in a manner that is able to be highly received or viewed by potential customers. I've seen the same technique of compelling people to subscribe to a constant feed of coupons by Subway, who promised a free 6-inch sub if you text this number. I texted the number, got my free sub, and now get offers from them every week. It's obvious this tactic is effective since numerous food chains have been using it. I quite like it, and its a win-win; I save money and they get my money. Well played McDonalds, well played.