Media Literacy Project

Wordle: Media Lit Proj
Ever day, we read, see and listen to messages from others. We are reached through music, movies, magazines, newspapers, television, video games and advertisements. In this unit, our goal was to become aware of the messages created by others and the values imbedded in those messages. In this blog, we each examined one area of media and looked at how that media might be influencing our values and how it might be contributing to inequity in our society. Each entry describes what we learned from our research and our thoughts about what we learned. Each entry is a thoughtshot: a window into our thinking.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Commercials Over the Decades, how Advertisers have been using the same Tricks

Introduction:

I am studying commercials through the decades. I have looked at four ads in each decade 70's 80's 90's and today. I have looked at McDonald's Coca Cola, General Mills and General Motors, I have been looking at how there adds have been targeted to Kids and teens. Also I have researched different slogans and theme songs that companies use for their buyer to remember and connect the tune to the merchandise, also keeping track of how many times the commercial refers to their product as something you need, or would complete your day.

A lot of people think that the era of marketing has just begun throughout the last ten years or so. What I have found suggests that marketing specifically targeted towards teens or children is not a new strategy for advertisers, but maybe just an idea that has changed in a world of the internet or an a increasing number of television viewers.

When you look back at vintage commercials an see the perfect families and remember the “good old days” back when there were no scams or false advertising but good spirit and honest companies just trying to sell their product. Now looking back at some of adds and from a students perspective seeing other details than just a good spirit. I am not exclaiming that these ads are a scam, but just taking a closer look.
Investigation:

After looking through my result numbers, I found that over the years big companies such as these have established logos symbols and slogans that allow them to create a message without saying them out loud. In my results the number of times the company says there name or product aloud has decreased as they have become more well known.

Compare this add made in the 70’s add to one now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zCsFvVg0UY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NnyE6DDnQ

During the first add coca cola is trying to persuade you that their company is very friendly and wants to help the world. One strategy advertisers use is to come up with a song or rhyme that you will remember so when ever you here the tune you automatically think of the product or company. Another example is Subways five dollar foot long song. Once you hear the tune you can piece together the lyrics.

According to my results the number of times the commercial verbally refers to its product or company has decreased from the 1970’s till now, after a company’s logo, song, or slogan has become well known. They can present that to the viewer they know who the commercial is for. When you compare the two ads above you can tell during the first one they tell you out loud what the product is. In the more recent one you can instantly know from looking at the logo and even the color of the drink and the classic bottle gives it away

Showing from the results on McDonalds commercials targeting children has gone down. In the 1970’s three out of the four commercials were targeting younger children. In the 2000’s zero were targeted towards kids. In the 1970’s and 80’s McDonalds was using Ronald McDonald as a mascot to attract younger children. Now Ronald McDonald has past, maybe because of a new generation of kids or parents.

The commercials I have been studying show that for kid or even an adult this could affect how you would think of a family, and a new generation of people coming from a world with influences from the media all around you could affect how people think of other races or sexualities because of what is on the television or on the web.

Values and my thoughts:

In most of these commercials the families are white, and could make people believe that only good families are white. Even when that is not true in some of the ads I watched the racial diversity would suggest so. In the McDonalds commercials the people working behind the counter are sometimes African American that could lead to people thinking that African Americans can only work at a McDonald’s

Before I did this project I really did not realize anything about commercials or really any kind of media around me it all seemed to just blend in. Now I feel like when I see a commercial I can see the point of why the commercial is their and what the true meaning of it is.

I don’t think this project will effect how I use media, definitely how I look at it and think about it but when I use it, what I learned will be on my mind but not effect how I use it.

What I found really interested me and I think it is very interesting. I did not find what I expected. I thought I would find more commercials for teens than I did. I think that the categories I chose are topics that young adults are not interested in. But specifically targeting false messages to that age group is affective, but taking advantage of young adults.

Sources:

www.youtube.com
over all I watched 64 commercials
four for each decade of each company

1 comment:

  1. This shows that you researched a lot for your project and thought about what you were viewing. Some of the statements in this are very strong and thought-provoking (like the one about McDonald's targeting kids in their ads), but it was hard know what to think about them without more explanation from you. Your ideas were intriguing--so I wanted to know more!

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