Blog #11:Life After Blogging

    Going into this assignment I was very unsure on how I was going to be able to pick apart ads and talk about the real meaning behind them.  After doing this assignment I feel like I have a way better understanding of advertising.  I know that ads have different meanings depending on how you look at it.  There could be a picture of a gorgeous woman in a bathing suit that is eating a burger, like most ads these days, but there is a different meaning behind it and for the people that are attracted because of the ad.
    After doing this blog I feel like a more open person.  I liked that fact that I was able to express my opinion on such a broad variety of different advertisements.  I think that it is a good idea for everyone to have an assignment like this in order to get a feel of what advertising is really like.  I hope that I can continue to keep blogging, whether it is about advertising or not, in order to express myself.  I will never look at an ad the way I did before doing this blog and entering the class, which believe me is a very good thing.

Blog #10: Consumer Behavior

   There are so many products that are advertised and for a short period of time and then we never see them again.  Why is this? It is because these products were not launched successfully.  They were not promoted or marketed correctly so people weren't buying them and that is why they are unsuccessful.  Who remembers these products?  Probably not too many or if you do remember you probably forgot about them because they weren't successful for a long time.
















   Different products can be unsuccessful for different reasons.  Take these examples below.  Yeah they were pretty cool back in the day when our country wasn't very technology savvy, but if you were to ask a ten year old if they would buy these cell phones that would probably laugh in your face.  Another reason that products become unsuccessful, especially in technology, is because we keep upgrading our technology devices.

  There are products that have so successful and have been around for years and then there are companies that have only been around for a little while, but still very successful.  Why are these companies successful? Because they know how to advertise and market their products well in order to attract customers.

Blog #9: A Day in the Life: Stella Artois

    It's a gorgeous sunny day in Orange County, California when Oliver wakes up.  He had a long day yesterday, busy with running his own business that he started at 28 years old, 7 years ago, but it is finally the weekend, and he has a day to relax.  Oliver gets up and takes a shower to make sure that he is starting his day off fresh.  Once he gets out of the shower he puts on his favorite Neiman Marcus cologne and his favorite Saks Fifth Avenue T-shirt and a pair of jeans with Steve Madden shoes.  He calls his assistant Taylor to pull the car around so that he can start his day early.  Oliver goes down to the garage and waits for Taylor to pull his Bentley around.  Oliver decides that it is a good day to go to Beverly Hills and meet up with his mom and have some lunch and do some shopping.  Once he arrives and pulls into Mastro's Steakhouse he sees his mom waiting for him at the bar with a gin martini waiting for him.  Oliver and his mom take a table outside since it is spring and the sun is shining.  Once the waitress comes to the table Oliver orders a San Pellegrino and a Filet Mignon medium rare.  He also orders a side of green beans and brussels sprouts.
      His mom orders a side salad with dressing on the side.  His mom and his make small talk about music and TV.  Oliver and his mom gossip about what is going to happen next on House of Cards, both of their favorite TV shows.  Oliver talks about he heard the Rolling Stones on the radio on his way over and it just put him in a great mood because it is his favorite band.    After him and his mom finish lunch, Taylor drives Oliver back to his house so he can change into his workout clothes and go for his daily five mile run to clear his head with his dog Hudson.  When he gets back from his run, he notices that Emily, his chef, went grocery shopping at Whole Foods because there were grocery bags on the kitchen counter.  After dinner, Oliver lies down in bed with Hudson and browse's on his Ipad for his next vacation.  After looking for about an hour or so he finally decides on Bora Bora for him and his sister.  Since it is late, and he has a long day ahead of him tomorrow he turns on Casablanca and doses off.

Blog #8: Day in the Life: AirFrance

   Lets take a minute and look at the day in a life of someone who would fly with Air France.

    A 35 year old women is driving her 2012 white Audi with her husband through the suburbs of the New York City on their way to pick up their kids from school.  Courtney and her husband Paul have two kids, eight and ten.  The younger girl is named Stephanie and the older girl is named Mallory. They go to a nice K-8 private school. Courtney doesn't really have a secure job.  Sometimes she helps volunteer at her children's school, but for the most part her husband provides the income.  Her husband took a break in-between his customers at his accounting firm in order to pick the kids up with his wife and take them to lunch.  After they pick up the kids from school they go to a restaurant near their house that has a little bit of everything on the menu.  Courtney decides to order an ice tea while she takes a look at the alcohol menu.   Once the waiter comes back she orders a glass of white wine and then orders the cobb salad.  After the family finishes their lunch, Courtney realizes that she needs to go to the grocery store real quick to pick something up for dinner.  Her and her husband run into Trader Joe's real quick to pick up some chicken for dinner.  When Courtney gets home she has the kids start their homework and Paul goes back to work to finish his day.  Since Courtney knows that she won't be leaving the house for the rest of the day she changes from her Nordstrom jeans into Victoria Secret sweatpants.  She decides to turn on some classical music while she reads her favorite book and relax before her husband comes home and she has to start cooking dinner.
    After dinner, her and her family sit down in the living room and turn on her favorite movie, Sixteen  Candles and watch it until the little ones fall asleep.  Once the kids are asleep around 8:30pm, her husbands puts them to bed while Courtney gets ready to do at home yoga in their spare bedroom.  At about 10:00pm her and her husband lie down in bed and talk about how excited they are to take a trip to Paris in two months.

Blog #7: Political Manifesto

      For our political campaign we decided to do women's equality in the workplace.  The reason that we picked this topic is because their is a lot of inequality in the workplace for women right now and has been for a very long time.  We picked Emma Watson to be our spokesperson because she is a feminist and strongly believes in equality for women in all aspects.
       Times have changed drastically and it is time for women to get more credit then they are receiving.  Women are more then capable then doing the same job as men, and deserve to get credit for their hard work.  For our campaign we decided to make a Facebook page about what it is like to be "Equally United".  On the Facebook page we have women that have made a difference in society and things that we can do to promote equality for women.

Blog #6: Gender Stereotyping

      Have you ever looked at a little kids toy ad and noticed the color and the products that they are promoting.  Nine times out of ten there are pink and purple toys for girls and blue and green toys for boys.  The type of toys are also different.  Girls are encouraged to play with dolls, and playhouses, and cooking equipment while men are encouraged to play with guns, and action figures and trucks and cars.  Parents want their boys to play with "manly" toys while girls are suppose to play with "girlie" toys.
     As you can see in the top ad the colors are switched.  The girl in the pink is playing with toys that are bleu and vice versa.  This is trying to show how boys and girls are gendered from the day that they are born.  This picture came from an ad in the New York Times in an article that talks about gender stereotyped toys.  Elizabeth Sweet says in the articles, "But by 1995, the gendered advertising of toys had crept back to midcentury levels, and it’s even more extreme today. In fact, finding a toy that is not marketed either explicitly or subtly (through use of color, for example) by gender has become incredibly difficult".  This shows how toys are made specially for genders  Toy makers know that they should make legos and building blocks in blue and green and make dollhouses and cooking equipment in pink and purple.  The article also talks about hard it is to find some gendered toys in the opposite colors.  If you take a minute to think about a toy store like Toys R Us or even Target, you can tell what aisle will have what just by the colors of it.  It is very unlikely to find gender neutral colored aisle.  By making the stores these way, it is just promoting gender stereotyping because it is unlikely that a girl and her mom are going to walk down the blue and green aisle.

    Gender stereotyping also occurs in job occupations.  I am sure the majority of the population know that a lot of women get paid less that a man even when they have the same occupation.  In the nurse ad it shows how unlikely it is to be a nurse when you are a man and if you want to become a male nurse you have to be able to stand up to the stereotypes and judgements.  Gender stereotyping can also occur in sports like the clip that I have above.  This is from the movie "Sandlot" that is about a group of guys who play pickup baseball games.  This quote, "You play baseball like a GIRL" was said to the opposing team in order to insult them.
      As you can see gender stereotyping is everywhere.  It is in sports, TV, ads, jobs, and much more and I think that we are a long way away from seeing it disappear.  Being a sociology major I don't believe in a specific gender stereotype.  I don't see how our society has made it okay for little girls to only play with dolls and playhouses and for boys to play with guns and cars.  And if we see a young child playing with the opposite toy, especially a boy, we automatically make assumptions about them.

Blog #5 Racial Stereotypes

 

Is racial stereotyping ever okay to do especially in advertising.  Absolutely not. You see this everyday though so maybe advertisers think that it is a way to humor the public and to get their company more recognized.  In both of these ads here we see racial stereotyping.  In the first ad there are four people doing a line up for some type of crime.  There are three white males and a dark colored male.  The three males are pointing to the dark skinned man, and the dark skinned man is even pointing to himself.  This shows that since there is a dark skinned man in the line up, it must mean that he have done the crime.  In the other ad there is a Chinese boy who failed his exam.  A lot of stereotypes are made about Chinese males and how they are exceptionally smart and are about average but this little boy is different because he failed a test. 

       Racial Stereotyping was huge in the past because we had a really big race issue going on when there was slavery and much more.  I think that people thought that it was okay to use racial stereotypes in the past to promote their product but I don't think that it is okay to do it so bluntly now.  I think that advertisers have ethnic responsibilities and a lot of people look at ads before they buy the products.  Why would someone want to buy a product where the advertiser used racial stereotyping in order to promote it.  In an article by Stanford Business about racial stereotyping it says, "Even among the most well-intentioned and consciously egalitarian people, says the associate professor of organizational behavior, non-conscious associations about ethnic groups still have a pernicious effect on behavior and attitudes".  This shows that people still have a problem with racial stereotyping no matter what social class they are in.  

Blog #4 Semiotics

       Ads don't just have one meaning to them.  When you glance at an ad quickly you see one thing, but if you actually spend time to look at the ad you will see that there is actually a different meaning to it.  This is where denotation and connotation come into the picture.  Denotation is what is actually in the ad.  Everything from clothing to cups to shoes, every little detail that you can see.  Then there is connotation which is the meaning behind all those details in the picture.


Denotation of print ad                                    

• Katy Perry
• Red Lipstick
• Bag of Chips
• Black Lace Top
• Red Background
• Dark Hair
• Dark Make-up
• Black Tight Necklace
• Red Nail Polish
• Bite Me

Connotation of print ad

• Red background to represent sexuality
• Red lipstick to emphasize sexuality
• Black dress to look sexy and to stand out
• Only biting the edge with tongue out to show sexual actions
• Dark makeup and dress to make her stand out in the red background
•  The phrase is referring to the chips but also creates a sexual meaning with the bad in her mouth
• Hand on her hip shows attitude 
• Breasts pushed together to show sexuality

Overall, this ad is actually very sexual.  The color scheme is so simple, but was made like that to make her stand out.  The use of the color red is used to represent sexuality and so is black.  The ad is trying to lure people in by using a good looking female in a sexual position.  She has her mouth open and her tongue out a little bit.  They also used a famous singer and not a random model, probably because they want to show that there product is popular to everyone and you can look "sexy" doing it.

Denotation of TV ad

• Green watered beach
• Carls Jr drink and bag
• Blue towel
• Woman in a bathing suit
• Hamburger
• Black bathing suit
• Sand
• Light, warm background
• Blonde hair
• Carmel colored skin
• Blue sky
• Light eye color 
• White clouds
• Small white waves

Connotation of TV ad

• Beach represents a warm and nice area
• Half naked pretty women shows the type of people who eat the burger
• Woman in a bathing suit represents that you can eat the burger anywhere
• The woman is lying in a seductive position to represent sexiness
• Carls Jr. logo stands out to make a point that sexy women eat Carls Jr.
• Carls Jr. is using good looking women to promote their company
• Lying on a nice sunny beach and tan shows how appealing it is to eat Carls Jr.

Again, this ad is very sexual.  Carls Jr. is trying to promote their company and their juicy burgers by making them look appealing by adding half naked women into the ad.  This is just a picture from the clip that Carls Jr uses.  In the clip, they have the women walking around with her hair blowing in the wind.  The message is suppose to be humorous but also appealing.  The commercial makes it kind of seem like they are advertising the women and not the burger, but at the end it shows her take a big bite of the burger and the ad all of a sudden switches to promote the burger. 

Denotation of outdoor ad

• Yellow car
• White billboard
• Green grass
• Company's logo
• Company's phrase 
• Blue sky
• White Clouds
• Brown background

Annotation of outdoor ad

• The car billboard is made to attract men
• The phrase "It also sticks handles to teapots" refers to that women will also be able to use it
• The white plain background wants to make sure that their audience focus's on the car and the phrase
• The slogan in the corner shows what type of brand this is

Overall this ad is pretty plain.  The main point of this ad is to tell the public that cars are usually a guy hobby but a women can also use the product too.  Men are more likely to buy this product for their cars, but it can also work for women with their "hobby", which I guess is making tea.  All of the ads that I chose kind of tie together.  The first two are super sexual and are made because they want men to take a second look.  This outdoor ad is mainly focused on men and is putting down women because it is unlikely that they will be interested in cars, but can use the product on something they are familiar with.  

Blog #3 Superbowl

          Superbowl....One of the most exciting days.  Not only for sports fans or football players but also for advertisers.  Superbowl is one of the most watched game on TV and that is important for advertisers to make sure that there product or commercial makes it on TV while hundreds and thousands of people are watching.  I don't know what it is about Superbowl but they always have the most exciting and interesting commercials.  Maybe it is because they may hundreds and thousands of dollars for 45 seconds on TV? I can only imagine how long they are working and perfecting their ad to make sure they get it just right.  It is very hard to say what Superbowl ad was the greatest because there are so many and they are all pretty different in terms of how they portrayed their product.
        The ads on Superbowl Sunday are usually made using different selling techniques.  There are the touching ads that make your heart melt and literally say "aww" out loud even with a bunch of rowdy men around.  There are the ads that have the "hot" woman who is always surprisingly well at multitasking whether it is eating a burger and washing a car or walking through a market looking for clothes but also looking for something "juicy" to eat.  These types of ads have a double meaning and are definitely more attracted to the male gender.  Then there are the funny ads that use sarcasm and unrealistic examples to emphasize their product.

        Call me soft or call me typical but the best Superbowl ad this year had to be the Budweiser commercial.  I don't know how Budweiser does it but they seem to do it year after and year and only get better.  In my opinion the ad isn't very gendered, it's not about a typical family or a hot girl but about a loving soft puppy that needs to find his way home.  When I watched the commercial I teared up and I think that means a lot when watching an ad.  The ad really has an emotional attachment to it and tries to show the strong bond between the dog and the owner and then relating is back to Budweiser.

Blog #2 Advertising Ads

        Yesterday, February 1st was the Super Bowl and as a lot of people know it is a time for really good ads.  Whenever I watch football they always tend to have some pretty good commercials and ads but nothing compares to the ads during the Super Bowl.  To be able to get an ad in the Super Bowl is huge.  It is an honor for that company because they know that there are going to be a ton of people watching it.
       While I was watching the Super Bowl I saw a lot of really good ads but the one that comes to mind is the "always" ad.  This ad represents women and how they should be treated fairly.  Being a sociology major, I see all different types of gender discrimination and double standards and so on.  At the beginning of the commercial guys are asked to run like a girl or fight like a girl and so on and they responses are what your typical society would say.   Then the commercial focuses on girls and asking them the same question and they have a completely different response.  They run their heart out or they fight like "men".  The commercial is promoting gender equality and making is equal for women. USA today confirms that this was one of the best ad that premiered during the Super Bowl.  It was a powerful message that the commercial was portraying.

Blog #1 Intro to Advertising

       Ever since I was young I have been around advertising because my dad works for the LA Times as head of advertising and I am always hearing him on the phone about how his employees need to fix the ad or the font isn't right or it isn't located in the right place.  Advertising is one of those things that two different meanings.  When you glance at an ad or a commercial you just see the basic and standard information but once you start to analyze it you can get a glimpse of what the advertisers are trying to say or show.  Advertising is EVERYWHERE.  Every company uses it to promote their product, sports team use it to promote their jerseys and their team, no matter where you look you see advertisements.
       I like advertising because I like looking at the meaning behind the picture.  I like trying to find the message that the company is trying to say or show.  Every single detail that goes into an advertisement has a purpose.  Making an ad takes a lot of time and energy and I am excited to learn more about what exactly an ad can do.  My favorite ad of all time has to be the GEICO ad.  I like this ad because it is entertaining and actually doesn't make me mad when my TV show goes to a commercial.  I think that it is important for advertisers to make sure that their ads are informative, yet entertaining so that people are interested and turn their heads once that commercial comes on.