The Persuaders

-
In class this week I watched Frontline's documentary titled The Persuaders.  As our media expands the job of the advertising industry changes constantly.  The film discusses the new challenges that these companies face, and strategies they have come up with.  Although the film is outdated, some of the techniques mentioned are still being used today.  One example would be product placement in films and TV shows.  A few examples I can remember from my own viewing would be the Kardashians, and Jurassic World.  The Kardashians are the perfect example of product placement the whole show is based around their "life" but there are so many little things that are influenced my product placement: the phones they use, the shoes they wear etc.  The movie Jurassic World is similar.  The characters all use the same brand of cell phone, and drive the same brand of car.  It's pretty obvious that they are product placement when the shots make sure that you can see the brand.  The documentary made me really open my eyes to what I am watching.  It makes me curious to see how many episodes of television I have watched centered around a certain product. 

Photos:
https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/frontline/195441/images/mezzanine_680.jpg
https://i2.wp.com/www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/wp-content/uploads/2004/11/Persuaders.jpg?resize=1200%2C630

Comments

  1. libbyreynoldsmApril 30, 2018 at 3:47 PM

    I think your comment on shows such as keeping up with the Kardashians is very interesting. The whole show is based around the idea that it is showing the true aspects of life for the rich and famous, and so when there is a product used, then people think that is actually what they use and prefer to use, even though it most likely is there because they were paid to use it. I haven't really watched it so i'm not entirely sure, but it seems like a very interesting cycle of money and advertising to look into, especially with the whole Kendall and Pepsi controversy.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts on "MissRepresentation"

-
Image
The documentary titled "MissRepresentation" was written and directed by  Jennifer Siebel Newsom.  " The film draws back a curtain to reveal a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see – how the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls makes it difficult for women to feel powerful and achieve leadership positions" The Film brought attention to the high standards women hold for other women.  Looking back at it I can see different situations where this happened.  The whole 2016 Presidential campaign was an example.  The documentary talks about how if women stuck together to back rather than bash Hillary and other women in positions of power, we would see more women in power.  The article gave the example of battles in congress.  One of the politicians talked about how the women agreed that if it was just them they could have solved the issue within minutes.  The whole idea of the media putting women against other women is conc
Read more

Pet Social Media Stars?

-
Image
Social Media seems to be the place where you can find anything.  I recently read an article off of the CNBC website titled “ Pets are the new social media influencer, and this Harvard Law grad represents many of them”.  The article is written by Erin Barry and talks about how well pets perform on social media. Barry talks about how the pet influencer business has become large enough to the point where the animals have more followers than a lot of humans.  These furry stars need representation to navigate their popularity. With pets tending to perform better on social media the pet influencer market has become the biggest.  Everyone loves their pets, they make you happy, so when people see the pets with a certain brand they associate that happiness with the product. The social media accounts don't just have pet products, they have a variety of brands including movie studios, hotels, and cleaning products.  If these furry influencers have an audience of around 1 million fol
Read more

Thoughts on "Merchants of Cool"

-
Image
In the “Merchants of Cool” documentary we watched in class this week they people discussed the advertising market for teens.  Robert McChesney is a media critic, and in the documentary he gave his opinion on the effect the media has on our emotions. He states “ Well, it really promotes the sort of world in which you don't think anything matters, unless it serves your material gain. Why be honest? Why have integrity? Why care about other people? That's for chumps. It's all about taking care of number one. The dominant institutions in society, the values they send out is, ‘We're just here to make money off of you. We're just here to take advantage of you.’ The message that goes out to everyone in that system is, ‘Yeah, everyone should be everyone for themself. Just take care of number one. Why should I care about that other person, you know? What's in it for me?’” (McChesney).  As a teenager I feel like our society has been changing to this materialistic worl
Read more