Will you marry me?

I chose an advertisement for a cell phone company, NOKIA. The type of this advertisement is drama. It uses a romantic situation in which a man proposes to a woman. Proposing is one of the most romantic situations in life. Although this situation is unrelated to cell phones, this company chose it to make a pleasant image so that the audience will buy this company’s cell phone. The music is also romantic. I like this ad because it has a surprising and happy ending. This advertisement appeals to any kind of market except lawyers for divorce. I think this advertisement is excellent. 
NOKIA Ad

Hiro

The Effects of Advertising on Children

            Nowadays, advertising is ubiguitous. We cannot escape from it; we see it every minute, and it influences the way we consume in everyday life. However, the medium that has the most powerful effect on our consumption habits is television. Advertisements make adults buy things that they do not necessarily need, and it is even worse in the case of young children and teenagers. They are the perfect target for any advertising agency, and commereisls affect them in many different ways.

            Many studies show that young children under the age of eight are unable to understand television advertisements.[1] Children tend to believe and accept commercials as truthful and accurate messages. That is why they are the perfect target.  For example, I remember myself when I was little; I bought the NESQUIK chocolate milk because of the bunny. I believed it would come out of the box and be alive.

In 2000, the American Psychological Association (APA), found that advertising agencies spent an estimated twelve billion dollars per year, on advertising messages aimed at the youth market.[2] In addition, children on average watch more than 40,000 television commercials per year. With this number, we can imagine the indirect influence that can lead to unhealthy eating habits if they are shown sugary, unhealthy or fast food commercials, or the change in behaviors if shown video games and toy commercials.

It is difficult to reduce the effect of these ads on our children. The APA made some moves to make such ads restricted, especially those aimed at children aged eight and under who lack the ability to recognize the purpose of the ad content.[3] The lack of parental supervision these days is another concern. Parents should reduce the hours of watching TV to  two hours a day no more.[4] With the growing number of the children watching TV and accessing the Internet in their own bedrooms, there is no one to explain and clear the ads content, so they are able to distinguish commercial from noncommercial content.

Advertising has changed in the past decade. It has stepped up targeting  youngsters to increase selling products without thinking of children’s physical and mental health. With this huge power we should be aware of its influence on our children, and we should always supervise them and make sure the content of ads doesn’t harm them. 

MALAK ALTAIS

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[1]  http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/protecting.html

[2]  http://www.youngmedia.org.au/mediachildren/03_advertising.htm

[3] http://www.apa.org/releases/childrenads.html

[4] http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;95/2/295.pdf

L'AZURDE

This week, we learned that classical conditioning can be used in advertisements. This strategy is used to cause a change in the behavior or the feeling of the consumer toward the product that is being sold. For example, in the L'AZURDE commercial, this major jewelry company  associates a famous beautiful singer to their different designs of jewelry. In this advertisement, they show that despite her beauty and sex appeal she is unhappy, confused and nothing satisfies her. Something is missing to complete this beauty.  Then she figures out what is missing: jewelry.  In this one-minute scene, the theme is luxur; a short monolog is used, and the background music is one of her best songs of the year. In my opinion, this commercial is really powerful for L'AZURDE because of the song and the sexy- looking singer. Consumers will relate the company’s name to her, and they will increase the company’s sales by buying jewelry. Overall, it was a good commercial and I’m one of her fans.
L'AZURDE

Malak Altais

Cancer Foundation

This is an advertisement that appeals to people. The little boy has cancer, which is why he lost all his hair. Probably the little girl, his little sister, doesn't know what happened to her brother. All she knows is he will lose his hair, and she wants to give him a gift at least. In her own naive way, the little girl is willing to share what she has with her brother -- her hair. Obviously, this is a very emotional advertisement. The producer attempts to stimulate audience’s sympathy by displaying the little girl’s naïve thinking and behavior.

The technique this advertisement uses is mystery. In the beginning, the audience does know why the little girl cuts her hair, and then her parents come home with her brother wearing a hat.  When the little girl gives her hair to her brother, he takes off his hat.  At that moment, the audience discovers the boy has lost all his hair.  Everyone is touched by the lines spoken at the end: “We do not ask more than you can give.”

The Cancer Foundation

Chun

Scent Advertisements

Advertisement plays an essential part of bussiness. Companies build bridges between themselves and customers by marketing in order to introduce and promote their products. There are numerous ways to advertise: visual ads like TV, magazines, newspapers. It is impossible people be unaffected by advertisement.  Currently, there is a new way to advertise products; by using the sense of smell, called scent advertisement.This is an innovation to stimulate people’s desire to purchase or change people’s shopping behavior.

Scent marketing, is a method that takes advantage of scent to market products; the best known is scenting the environment of the retail store in order to keep the customers longer. For example, it is no secret for real estate agents to put the aroma of baked bread or chocolate chip cookies in an apartment or house to keep the customer longer and enhance their opportunity. Victoria’s Secret has created a certain formula for their brand and pump it into their retail stores to attract female customers.

Why has scent marketing become popular? Why have businesses started to do this kind of marketing? In the past, advertisers and marketers were facing a problem: 80% of all brand communication was audio or visual. For most brands and products, taste and touch did not even apply. That left scent, the only sense we cannot block out permanently. The average adult breathes 18,000- 30,000 times a day. So why not we use scent marketing?

Nowadays, this method of advertisement has become more and more popular. Not only is the scent pumped into the store, many businesses also spend a great deal of money to hire a scent company to help them create and develop a brand scent. They believe that adding scent to a brand’s image can create a deeper connection with the consumers. Singapore Airlines has gone so far as to patent the scent of lotus flowers and bamboo forests. Notes of mandarin origin, vanilla and cedar are what Sony has spent some times to infuse their store.  [1]

Scent marketing seems useful and amazing. Businesses might hire a scent marketing institute or divide a team inside a market or have departments develop a scent which fits their brand image. Samsung is working on a “technological” aroma to create a seductive electronics environment for its customers. They figured out that the technology aroma was orange and vanilla. They pump this formula into the Samsung experience concept store. Customers claim, this scent gives them a vivid and energetic image. For the Plaza Athenee, which is an upscale hotel on the upper East Side of Manhattan, the lobby is infused with a fougere scent- lavender with citrus notes on like a men’s cologne[2]. It’s a scent that Gilbirt, who is behind the Scent Marketing Institute wants guests to associate with a fancy membership club.

There is another way to play scent marketing, and it’s to create a scent package. For instance, shampoo or body-wash companies create the scent container, so customers don't have to open the bottle in the store to determine if they like its scent. This is a significant marketing tool since many people determine which shampoo to purchase based on smell. This type of marketing often happens in Europe.

Scents include sea breeze for calm, lavender fields for relaxation, green tea for introspection, pine for energizing, or jasmine for sensuality. It seems everywhere our turn–our home, our car, our work, our place of worship, our supermarket and shopping mall–scents are being strategically placed to entertain and seduce the nose. Scents provide a pleasant shopping environment for most people. It is no doubt that we will enter into a new age of Scent Advertisement.

Chun

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[1] Tara Weiss, Market Milk (Forbes.com), 12/01/06

[2] http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/branding/scent-marketing-leading-consumers-by-the-nose/2006/04/30/

The Detrimental Effect of Advertising On Teenagers

 Noor Al Moataz

            There is more than one definition of to the word “population.” One definition is “the total number of people inhabiting a country, city, or any area.”[1] Another is “the number or body of inhabitants of a particular race or class in a place.”[2] In summary, numerous meanings are applicable to this word, but in this statement I plan on tackling only one of them. My own interpretation of the word population is today’s generation, explicitly the youth. There is a solid link between today’s youth and advertising, which has a huge impact on adolescents causing them to undertake actions that benefit them negatively.

            “Advertisement is a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television”.[3] Most of the time, ads sell more than the product presented; by extension, the company is selling the image that surrounds the product. The images portrayed are mostly unrealistic, pressuring vulnerable teenagers to feel the need to change themselves physically and mentally to fit the new standard introduced in their minds. Because advertisements in the media play such striking roles in the everyday actions, these advertisements are responsible for the demise of our youthful populous.

            An example of this negative influence would be the advertisements in magazines such as Vogue and Elle. A woman that resembles a stick figure or a muscular man areselling jeans. However, the commercial emphasizes sexual images rather than the jeans themselves. Hence this distorts the youth’s view. Therefore, they succumb to buying the pair of jeans, which implies the sale of sexuality as well. It is important to realize that these advertisements are not only selling sexuality, for when consumers purchase the product, they are attempting to buy the image, too. From food to fashion, a man or woman who are both more appealing to the human eye than the product itself represent the product, making it seem less important than the purpose of the advertisement. This kind of statement is shown multiple times. Youth already struggle enough during awkward stages of their life such as puberty. Having these physical expectations put into their minds at this age by ads  burdens them with the constant need to fill a void.

            More commonly, these images often encourage anorexia or bulimia. Those two conditions affect both the mind and body, encouraging teenagers, to transform themselves into the super-human portrayed by multinational companies. Some advertising campaigns can even lead to the destruction of a family, meaning the concern and care parents have for their children, who are trying to lose weight or buff up in unconventional ways in order to resemble some of the models in these advertisements.

In conclusion, however advertising campaign managers and companies should attemt to avoid affering false hopes in their campaigns, it is understandable and a technique of marketing that these promotional photographs are simply used to facilitate consumerism. Consumerism has become embedded in our genetic code; nevertheless, it has become a strain on our lifestyles. We work to make money to spend on mechandise that can deliver the false hope and dreams, which are paid for dearly in the physical and mental currency.

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[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Population

[2] http://www.investorwords.com/3738/population.html

[3] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=advertisement

De Beers Diamonds

I chose to research jewelry advertisements, especially those were mentioned in our reading book. I found an advertisement for DeBeers diamonds. Most of them have the same background music, which is "palladio" by Karl Jerkins. The one that I chose depends mainly on action and the background music is great; I love it. I like the actress's way of walking and using her eyes because they are elegant. The things that attract me most after the music are the shadow and light effects. When I looked for public opinion about DeBeers ads, some people liked them and so did I. On the other hand, some people didn't like them because they give the idea that women are shallow and materialistic.

 Diamonds Are Forever

Sarah Bahammam

Advertisements

Sarah Bahammam

Advertisements all around the globe attempt to lure consumers to buy products. They are ubiquitous; we can find them everywhere in magazine, newspaper, and on billboards. According to a study, an average American sees over 5000 advertisements a day. After this introduction, some questions and thoughts come to mind , such as, “Is advertising deceptive? Does it create insecurity in order to sell goods? Does it cause people to buy thing that they really don’t need?” Over all view on the advertisements, we realize that advertisers use specific methods to target consumers, but these methods are not always successful or ethical. They are trying to increase sales in order to increase the efficiency of the economy.

There are several strategies that the advertisers use. The first one is to make the consumers feel insecure so they overcome it by buying. The second one is by exhibiting perfect individuals wearing the new styles and looking good; therefore, consumers go out and buy products in hopes to reaching perfection. The third one is to show that their product will let the consumer be very popular; for example, a person using deodorant and being recognized as popular, ass we all want to become popular and well-known.

When thinking of advertisements, we realize that there are different sides. On the advertiser’s side, they think they are simply informative. They show change in their ads because they know consumers want to try to fulfill their needs. However, on the public’s side, they think they are persuasive; for example, advertisers connect products with preferred emotions, such as happiness and popularity. One of these products is beer. These commercials often show a man after a hard day’s work enjoying an ice-cold beer to relax him. So, it is a controversial issue.

Some advertisements have negative effects, for example, the negative effects on women. These types of advertisements focus on the women's bodies and represent them as objects. Therefore, men may find easy to abuse or assault them.

Advertisements that are sent through the media are mixed, such as women’s magazines covers telling how to lose weight, and also how to make the perfect ice cream pie. Although many people think that advertisements have a bad effect on the public and influence them to buy things they do not need, consumers still have the choice to buy or not.

Disney Channel Report

The Disney Channel

Disney Channel is an American Channel, which is marketed for children.  In recent years the diversity of viewers has increased with an older audience. The Channels official website is: DisneyChannel.com.

Disney Channel’s website launched on June1, 2000.  At first, there were two websites for Disney Channel. First one is DisneyChannel.com and the second one is ZoogDisney.com. Disney decided not to use anthropomorphic characters, and anthropomorphic means not human: so they called these characters “Zoog”. After a while they combined two websites under DisneyChannel.com. In 2006 DisneyChannel.com began to use its own video player, and in 2008 they started Disney XD, which is Xtreme Digital. This is a new service of Disney.com that lets members communicate and interact with each other with chat rooms that are limited to selected phrases and the ability to create your own Disney XD page, which are called channels. Disney XD allows you to watch full-length episodes from Disney Channel and other videos; play online quizzes and games, stream Radio Disney on your computer, and preview new movies and music albums.

Disney Channel has promotions for General Mills cereals, Yoplait, McDonald's, Danimals, Subway, Honda, and Kellogg's. Though they are not regular commercials, they are tailored to Disney Channel audiences. Also Disney Channel's program breaks consist mostly of advertisements for the channel's programming. Other promotions for Disney-owned networks, music videos and public service announcements are also showed in the breaks.

Disney Channel doesn’t have any pricing for series and movies which are being watched on website.  In addition to its priceless it can be watched in several languages as: French, Spanish, German, Mandarin and Hindi. 

Sevtap DUMAN

In Your Heart

In Your Heart

The advertisement that I chose is not a real advertisement, but it touched my heart. It reflects the events that happen in my country, Thailand, and is a type of drama. The producer of this advertisement uses short dialogs, both in Thai and English, and situations to communicate it. All dialogs start with questions and end with very meaningful answers. Moreover, the producer uses music to make this advertisement very impressive. The reason I like this advertisement is that it is very meaningful and impressive. The producer picked out very simple situations to communicate his message, which was to celebrate the King of Thailand’s birthday.

In the advertisement to celebrate King of Thailand’s birthday, there are three people who do not understand why they have to show respect or praise him. The first person, a foreigner, does not understand why the pictures of the King is everywhere. The Tuk Tuk driver makes it clear. The King is in Thai people’s hearts; he is the heart of Thai people.

The second person, a runner, joins a marathon without understand the meaning of this activity. He runs in order to reach his goal. However, after another runner gets hurt, he turns back to help that man. Finally, he comprehends that the goal of joining this activity is not getting the finish line, but making Thai people look around and help each other.

 The last person, a student, stands with many people along a road that the King will travel on. She does not comprehend why others look so happy. They can only see the King pass through. Is it worth standing the weather like that? Finally, she finds out that the King does not just pass through; he realizes the difficulty of his people. Thus, he always brings assistance and a development to hometowns.

Birthday of King of Thailand

Duangjai Sirasoontorn

Advertising: Covering Humans Needs.

Since childhood, we are influenced by the environment in which we grow up; everything from the weather to daily actions makes us develop unique needs for objects. Those needs change from person to person and from population to population. The things that you need are presented by the advertising industry in incredible and repetitive ways, which eventually make you develop a connection with the product so you probably will buy it even if it doesn't meet your principal needs.

Since we are born, humans develop a need for other persons; because we can't feed ourselves when we are born we can't survive without somebody to care about us, which makes us dependent to someone. When we grow up, our dependence changes from a person to objects; we start to figure out that our life can easier and better with certain tools that can help us in our daily life. This fact is supported by many psychological investigations, such as "Maslow's hierarchy of needs" based on observations of human nature and curiosity, Maslow states "With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individuals safety needs take over and dominate their behavior... these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts and insurance policies".

Those needs for objects and benefits are the targets of the advertising companies. "Because you have to travel a lot, I can offer you a car. Because you don't have enough time to cook, I can offer you fast food. Because is very cold outside, I can offer you warm clothes", and goes on. All those needs changes within countries and zones on earth. In northern cities, there are ads for warm clothes, umbrellas and so on. But in tropical part the ads are for swimsuits, sport cloth, lighter food and so forth, so the environment is an important factor to be considered in this industry, which defines who the target of the ads are.

Once the ads are designed for certain people, they are showed over and over, in order for the public to start thinking about the product, looking at it and imagine one with it. Everything is planed specifically from the music to the color in order to connect the product with these arrangements. Symbols are a common strategy; advertisements often pair the product with a symbol, a word, or both and begin to show it everywhere, in cans, bottles, bus stops, walls, flayers, food containers, TV, radio, and so forth. The strategy is to teach a conditioned response (think about the product) to a subject by pairing a unconditioned stimulus (the need for the object) with a neutral stimulus (the symbols and the words), so when you see the symbols, you will think about the product, and probably buy it.

The environment in which we grow up makes us need certain objects, food, clothes etc. This needs change constantly and the advertising industry notice that, so they target those needs and shoot you with images, words and even sounds in order for you to think about the product every time you see or hear them. In conclusion, once the product is in your mind, is very probable that you will buy it. In fact an investigation shows that sales on an advertised product increase 11% once they began to do the publicity. However, advertise make some needs more important than others. People may satisfy a need that may not be one of their ones. They may buy things that they regret later, eat when they're not hungry, or perform other useless actions. This is the result of a well-made advertisement.

Fernando Blohm

Seat Belts are Important

The genre of this TV commercial is drama; it shows the importance of using seat belts via an emotional scene. The techniques used in this ad to keep the viewers attention are the actions and situations, in a vicarious way you can experience the accident and its consequences, which makes it very interesting. I personally like this video because it's very emotional and serious, even though the music is funky, the scene appears serious; they create this environment that make you pay special attention to the 1'15" seconds that it lasts. In my opinion, this ad is excellent, and transmits a clear message "use seat belts"

No Seatbelt, No Excuse

Fernando Blohm

WE DELIVER, WHATEVER

One of my favorite ‘YouTube’ commercials is called “We Deliver, whatever”. Trying to get people’s attentions, this advertisement used funny situation techniques. I personally liked this advertisement with three reasons. First reason is that it gives happiness and smiles to people. Within 30 seconds, it is really hard to give impression or happiness to others. But this commercial did show them. Secondly, it made me to trust the DHL Company. They sent everything including “actions”, which means there are no impossible things that people cannot send. We can definitely see their commitments of the company. Lastly, I am personally a fan of the woman in this commercial. There are not many mail services’ commercials in Korea, so this advertisement really succeeded. I think this advertisement deserves the ‘prices’.

 We Deliver, Whatever

Sam Jeong

Gift Rojsiriruch

My classmate, Gift Rojsiriruch, is from Bangkok, Thailand. She was a lawyer in her country, which proves how smart she is. However, she is not just a smart girl because she is the one who can also spend her life doing other things. She likes to watch movies, sing, swim, and listen to pop and hip-hop music. She taught singing in Thailand to adult students. She also visited many countries during her vacations. She went to China, England, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and so on. Among those countries, her favorite country was India. She came to CELOP to improve her English ability, and loves Boston now.  

Anna Hwang