Anna made a blog

The topic of my first blog post was my relationship with media. I wrote the at blog entirely on social media because I believed that it was the only form of media that I personally felt I was surrounded by 24/7. I felt social media's impact on me was much more influential than any other form of media like television. After keeping this blog for the past month, I have realized that there is a new form of media that I am exposed to constantly even though I never new it was there. This form of media is marketing media. All day long we are constantly being bombarded with advertisements. This form of media has been a constant in our lives for so long it is hardly noticeable anymore. This form of media is present in every other form of media, making it the most influential by far. If you pay enough attention, there are ads everywhere you look: in the movies you watch, on the highway, on the street, in shop windows, on the radio, on YouTube, even on cereal boxes.  https://www.goog

I've lived all of my life being surrounded by images, videos, ideas, values that tell me I'm not good enough. On a related note, I've also lived my whole life thinking I'm not good enough. Consequentially, I've lived my whole life trying to be good enough. Now if you stop and think about that for a second, that is a scary amount of wasted time. We all waste time thinking we're not good enough and the media is to blame for startling portion of that time. As a woman growing up in a society where there are only a few set archetypes for how an acceptable female should be. Body types alone are a huge example of female misrepresentation in the media. Did you know that media would have it that every girl is barbie thin, tan, big boobed, and has effortlessly gorgeous hair that someone definitely spent 24 hours doing. Not only does this create criteria that females don't feel they meet, it creates expectations that men begin to hold them to. All of a sudden, not on

For decades, media has dictated who we are as human beings and more importantly, who we should strive to be. A vast percentage of consumer culture rests on how well the media channels the human nature of potential clients into creating opportunities for new markets to thrive. The best way to do this is by manifesting human uncertainty to feed into man made insecurities. Media is funded by markets and in return, the media funds the markets. The media does this both through explicit and implicit advertising. Whether the advertising technique is product placement, endorsement, sponsorship, commercials, message placement, or something else, the basic principle is the same. The media shows us both who we are and who we should strive to become. Then, the media presents us with ways that promise to make this potential image of ourselves come to life. This is a classic magic ingredient marketing technique. The statement in the ad can be many different things but lead you to the same conclu

The big questions that marketers have to answer to are abstract, such as, "what do the people want?" and "How can a get these people to buy this product?" For a long time, advertisers simply placed ads targeted towards a specific audience in public locations. Now advertisers are discovering a whole new market in the YouTube community. YouTube has solved the issue of how to market to everyone. Obviously you can't market to all the people because not all people are the same. YouTube has provided an easy way to get ads directly to their intended target audience. It has conveniently divided viewers into much more specific demographic groups. Various types of videos usually have a majority of viewers that fit a demographic. Using this knowledge, marketers can evaluate what demographics watch what videos and attach their ads on to the beginning of videos that appeal to their intended target audience. For example, I watch a lot of fashion videos and as a result

I recently watched a documentary (and by that I mean I was forced to watch a documentary by my critical thinking teacher) entitled Merchants of Cool. This documentary centered around how marketers tried to open the untapped teenage market of consumers. It discussed how media was used to condition us to like certain things to make us better consumers how the media learns to understand what the teenage audience wants to see. The question posed was as follows: Is media just a mirror, or is it a feedback loop? The media is constantly analyzing people in order to create content the appeals to the programmed consumers in us. I have come to the conclusion that the media doesn't analyze who we want to be. It analyzes who we already are so that it can tell us who we want to be and in response, we imitate who the media has dictated is desirable to imitate. This creates a feed back loop with both parties, Marketers and consumers, mimicking each other in an endless cycle. Life Insurance ad

Teenagers make up a huge portion of the actively consuming population. They spend their money, they spend their parent's money, and that money goes to the products that best targeted the teen audience. Teenagers want nothing more than to fit in while standing out and what better way to do that then by buying into trends. But what decides trends? Marketers advertising to teen audiences are constantly drawing inspiration from real teens they observe and have identified as trend setters. They compile many of these teens into focus groups where they listen to their ideas and make marketing decisions based on that information. Advertisers have to respond to the general audience in order to be successful. Sketchers Commercial:  https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7Wp9/skechers-gowalk-teen This commercial is from 2014. The teens portrayed in the video are likable for the teen audience because they are dressed in the clothing styles considered 'cool' at the time. This makes the teen audi

In order to ensure that they will have a customer base in the future, it seems that some companies selling adult products like insurance or cars will try to target their marketing toward younger generations. Chevy Commercial Link:  https://kencastor.com/2015/11/24/top-5-commercials-that-understand-teens/ This ad satisfies the need for autonomy by implying that you can pick your car. It also uses the need for affiliation by implying that the car will be a long-lasting and loyal companion just like a dog. It plays off the saying that a dog is a mans best friend. But now the best friend is a Chevy car. This ad is also targeted towards teen drivers due to the subject it follows. The creators used this to state to this specific audience that they have their whole life ahead of them and they can live it with Chevy. This ad was most likely very successful in targeting the kids who don't have a dog. At least in my experience, when I was younger, having a dog not only seemed like fun, i

YouTube. The place I can always count on to suck me into an endless rabbit hole of wasted time disguised in the form of hundreds of 15 minute videos that don't seem to take up valuable time but do. YouTube is home to a variety of entertainment from the most mundane morning routine to all the weird stuff that pops up in your recommend box at 2 am. With all of these videos being released everyday there is bound to be inappropriate content. It is common knowledge that YouTube takes down the content that is considered to be inappropriate. But who decides what is inappropriate and what isn't? I don't know but whoever they are, they need to sit down and reevaluate their choices. A while ago, a youtuber I watch posted a video in which she touched on the topic of period sex and masturbation (this is a blog for school so I'm not quite sure if I just crossed a line but oh well). The video was demonetized due to its "inappropriate content." Apparently, its not okay t

A marketing technique that has been in use and effective for years is product placement. This is when brands pay the production team of movies and TV shows to place their product in their film usually in a discreet way to spread the name of the brand and therefor increase consumption. An example would be the characters of a film drinking Coca Cola. The name is subtly slipped into the viewer's mind without them even knowing. The hope is that the next time the consumer is presented with this brand, they will accept it. Avengers Age of Ultron Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VOhpeugDGI In this clip, as the avengers are suiting up for battle, quick silver grabs a pair of Adidas. He actually wears Adidas throughout the film as his costume. This makes people associate Adidas with speed because, as his name suggests, Quick Silver can run fast. However, he also dies at the end of the movie, which would make it seem that this is not good advertising by giving the message that the