Stereotypes

Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people?

Personally, I think people have the freedom to promote, advertise, and endorse their product however they feel like necessary. Maybe the product itself is for a specific audience and the producers want to advertise their products so that it will appeal to the audience that it desires. 

This will also depend on the medium that the company chooses to advertise its audience. The reason why they might choose different mediums is to appeal to their audience who use the platform. For example, Video Sharing Sites (YouTube, Vimeo), and Social Media Sites (Facebook, Twitter). If people decide to advertise their product on YouTube and Facebook, who’s audience are older millennials who won’t have an easily offended audience, then there won’t be numerous complaints about offensive content. However, if the company decides to promote their product on TV, which people viewing TV can’t decide what is televised and broadcasted to them, then they will probably get many criticisms about offensive content being aired publically taking in the audience.

People can also be offended very easily as well. Many people may have had either experienced the situation before hand, or are just people are offended easily. This can cause protests against the product and could lower the reputation of the company.

Print Ad

In class, we have been assigned a print advertisement. This blog post is going to be an analysis of the print advertisement.

The ad focuses mostly on the cultural context. Mostly tradition. In the ad, the woman is wearing a wedding gown and is tying the shoe laces of her converse shoes. This usually isn't worn in a traditional wedding. Usually the bride wears and expensive, or white heels, traditionally. But this is meant to go against tradition. Beside the subject (the bride), there is a text that reads "Never Follow". This is linked with the shoe. The shoes are meant to symbolize the subject not following the tradition.  The shoes she is wearing are mostly cheap and are more casual. they shouldn’t be worn in a special occasion, especially a wedding where people, especially in western societies, take it very seriously. Also, the setting of the ad is very odd for a marriage to take palace and for her to be fitting her wedding costume on a set of stairs. The word play of the company also can play in to the ad. Hour Choice is the name of the company and sounds like Our Choice. This can also connect with the rebel side of the viewer and be inclined to wear the watch because of what it symbolizes and the ideology it possesses.

Historically, in this generation especially, people have done this type of thing before. Being wed in an “extravagant” place. Some people mix nature in their wedding by being married in a forest. This could be because people are to insecure about the fact that people try to be the same and the traditional marriage occasion is set. People try to stand out in the crowd and be special. Or the feel like the experience would be more enjoyable if they express their emotions on their special day.

This could also be a movement if seen general. One of the biggest issues that people face is the choice of conformity. Most of our subjects that we take in classes are focused on the topic and/or concept of conformity. This could make people break traditions and make their own ideologies and not to follow society norms and make their own rules. This again could make people more inclined to buy the product because of what it symbolizes.

Pitch Reflection

What main appeals did you use in your pitch? Why did you decide they would be the most effective?

We were aprehended by a company to create a a advert for their product, a high sugar energy drink. The first appeal that was used, was the fear appeal. This was used to denote the strength of the drink in a way. It was used in situations like try to finish a meager or somber task, or trying to complete an asessment, or reach career/work objectives/goals, but sleep is getting the best of you. If youd rink the energy drink, the unbidden sleep will disapear in a mattter of seconds. Another one was the bandwagon appeal, to be apart of the group. We could have a hip-hop/RnB star to be at the studio without the energy to record a verse.But once he consumes the drink, he feels the energy rushing through his body and makes him feel alive. Snce it was a healthy drink that has a better taste than most caffinated drinks and coffee, we also appealed to the logical side of things. Since it is healthier than most drinks, people will more likely be obligated to buy the drink since it won't damage their health, and since it tastes better than most drinks, they could also have a positive association with the product since it tastes good and it is healthy. 

What were some specific persuasive techniques you used (include examples) why did you believe these would be effective?

The most persuasive techniques was the way we presented our appeals. We already had an upper hand by making a healthy energy drink in a market where not only is it an obese market, but a heavy energy drink use market. So having an efficient healthy good-tasting energy drink made it easier. We also tried to explain in detail while being consise enough not to bore the audience and make them interested. This would make them have more information rather than broing the audience. 

How did an awareness of audience and context influence your overall approach to this activity?

It would be in specific places. For example, it efected where we would advertsie the product because since we wanted to appeal to the 18-25 year old audience. We had planned to use youtube, facebook and other social media mediums in order to advertise the product. Our appeals where also change. in order to use the bandwagon appeal effectivley we would have to use celebrities that are very relevant and have a huge following. it affected our fear and logic appeals as weel. In order to appeal to fear we would have to use young people in our advertisement and school juniors/seniors in order to appeal to the worry of failure. And as for our logic, we had to make sure that we had to market the heathy a lot since it is a very relevant topic and is very wiley know to use healthy, organic products