Wrecking Pug (Ball)

Why are you looking at a picture of a pug that’s dressed as a ball with a naked Barbie strapped to it? Well, let’s see!

Tottie, a pug from Wisconsin won her owner $25,000 with this costume in a contest. Why is this costume worth $25,000? Because the costume is a mockery of Miley Cyrus’s costume in her music video Wrecking ball—her naked body.

Miley Cyrus is a popular celebrity in US culture.  Unfortunately, Miley is more known today for her body and twerking abilities than her great career as Hannah Montana or her music.  Sure, she’s naked but she’s much more than that. Although I don’t completely appreciate a naked music video, to me, Miley is a strong individual, she’s breaking norms and challenging what is socially defined to be OK. She’s emphasizing the control that she has over her body, how she has choices and that she’s just as able as a man to be naked and strut her stuff. Ideally, it’s not OK in our society for a White female celebrity to cut her hair short and shake her butt.

Gloria Steinem comments, “. . .given the game as it exists, women make decisions . . .[and] that’s the way the culture is. I think that we need to change the culture, not blame the people that are playing the only game that exists”.

That’s why you’re looking at this viral picture.  Because dressing up a pug in mockery of Miley’s music video shows how society looks down upon a female for breaking and challenging what is socially acceptable. Within the culture, we blame the people who play this game and always shun them for it. 

Sources: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-pug-dressed-as-miley-cyruss-wrecking-ball-is-the-best-c

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/gloria-steinem-miley-

cyrus_n_4097006.html

(week 6)

special commercial

   This is a photograph from artist Erik Ravelo,and the photograph is heartbreaking. The photographer took a picture of a girl hanging on the back of a ruffian to simulate Jesus hanging on the cross.

     The reason for this picture impressed me so deeply is that I can  see how does things like shooting really happened in our life.  The kid hung in the same posture as Jesus does really make me fell how painful the experience is to the kid.

Though this is called a piece of commercial, it doesn't contain anything relate to money or interest, and this is why I liked it a lot, and I especially appreciate the subject the photographer uses-the kids. Kids are always considered vulnerable and innocent, they should always be taken care of because of their innocence, and the contrast between kids' innocence and happiness and their weakness after they've been hurt is dreadful.So the photographer choose kids as subject receiving hurts would arouse people's greatest sympathy, thus make people really think about how should they deal with the regulation of guns. 

Google's Interest-Based Advertising

My favorite pair of black leggings was wearing thin, so I decided to see if I could find them for sale online. Who knew that typing letters into a Google search would cause so much trouble?

(an ad for Marika in the header of a website)

I was bombarded with Marika ads every time I went online: above article titles, below my email’s inbox, in the Facebook newsfeed margins. There was always some discount I could receive by going back to Marika’s home site. I was always tempted when the price of the leggings I wanted went from expensive to merely moderately expensive, but I held strong, never clicking on the ads.

Unfortunately, I may not be as strong next time. Google has implemented “interest-based advertising” that analyzes a person’s Internet browsing history in order to supplement web sites’ margins with advertisements that fit the Google user. 

Apparently there is a method to blocking Google’s wandering eyes from your search history, but most people do not know how to go about this and many are too busy too edit the ads they see.

Some people may prefer seeing advertisements that present images of goods the viewer wants. On the other hand, some Google users may find it disconcerting that buttons they press on a keyboard can alter their entire online experience. There are over 5 billion searches on Google per day on average. It is impossible to imagine the magnitude of people affected.

Geico Makes You Cool

Geico has gone to great lengths to produce multiple ads that show art pieces in a gallery that are able to communicate about their insurance, but one ad really kept with me. The above as show two girls that see the stereotypical "geek" as cool because he has Geico Insurance and the other "cool" painting doesn't.

You hardly ever see this in ads, but you actually see women objectifying men. Initially I found that super weird because this is one of the first ads I have ever seen that shows  the objectification of men. When the girls initially saw the "cool" painting and "liked" him based on looks, but it was not until they realized that they didn't have Gieco insurance shows the stereotypical way that when find men attractive based appearance.

Geico uses this psychosocial approach by saying "it makes you cooler and more attractive if you have Geico Insurance" through the commercial. Through this ad, I could tell that Geico targets the majority consumer insecurity, beauty and being the dominant beauty, to sell their product.

Every time I go onto Hulu or CW TV and see this ad, I just want to turn my computer off. I find this advertisement annoying and stupid, but in general, I find the blunt objectification of women and men something that we should be trying to change in our society, not promote through ads.

What do you think? Is this type of objectification of men okay? Have you seen other ads like this?

Racial stereotypes in cartoons

Racial stereotypes in cartoons

Who would have ever thought that one could find racial stereotypes in cartoons? Well,

In the happy feet movie advert above, racial stereotypes are made about the Mexican people and their culture. The singing penguin, short and chunky, sings a spanish song in a humorous manner. The combination of his mispronunciation of the word "love" (in the end) and his him making fun of his weight, seems to associate these characteristics with the Mexican people. Although this embraces the musical aspect of the Mexican culture (tuneful and catchy) the generalization about the Mexicans people is a trend throughout the movie which may have an enormous influence in the manner in which children (or anyone else who watches happy feet) view Mexican people.

This is just one of the many examples of this trend. Youtube has so many more videos on this subject, so please take a look at them or let me know if you would like me to upload them for you. I am also curious on your opinion on this? Is it something you have ever picked up? what do you think of it?

Have you Googled Yourself?

Thank you to the founders of Buzzfeed. I read BuzzFeed everyday faithfully. So I was doing my daily reading this week and an artical thatt caught my eye was titled, "U.N Ad Campaign Shows What The  Internet Thinks of Women". I was appaled.

The link didn't have a story with it, it had the Ad and that was just enough to get their point across. The ad's were addressing that there is still a gender barrier and that Women are constantly being put down.

The internet is proving that women are constantly being called names and it's even scary to know that people search these terms in the first place.

Is there something that we can do to change this? Women are amazing people, they should not have to deal with mean words that people believe define them.

I did the search myself and these are the results:

Well, I think the world needs to get educated...soon. 

Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hunterschwarz/un-ad-campaign-shows-what-the-internet-thinks-of-women

InstaAd

http://consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/instaad.jpg

Instagram is an app that has been becoming extremely popular over the years, especially as smart phones, specifically iPhones, have been falling more regularly into the hands of all sorts of ages. Instagram is an app where pictures are uploaded and often an effect is added to make the picture "better." I, too, have this app. For me, it is a way to keep up with my friends or follow brands or artists I like. For instance, I have pictures with my friends before a concert we went to, pictures of my new dorm room, or a picture I took at home over Fall Break. 

Like I said earlier, I do follow brands and artists I like, which for them is a way of advertising their products or their music, but now Instagram will have all sorts of advertisements in the picture feed, whether you chose to follow them or not. This just goes to show how you truly cannot avoid advertising. Of course no one forced me to download this app and use it countless times a day, but the idea that I started using this as a way to communicate with friends or stay in tune with brands or bands I like and still cannot dodge the advertising bullet amazes me. 

I have to wonder what this will do for the app. Pandora, a music radio website, has an option to pay a subscription so the listener's music isn't interrupted by ads everything three or four songs. Will Instagram do this as well? It's funny to see how far we THINK we're going to steer clear of these annoying interruptions, but of course either way the website or app wins. When we sit there and listen to the ad instead of paying the subscription to get rid of it, we are subject to the advertisers modes of persuasion towards their product or idea. The advertisers pay Pandora or Instagram to have their advertisements on their cite and make money off us as we listen. If we chose the other option, to pay a monthly fee to not have the advertisements, the app or website wins again and benefits from our subscriptions. 

So, when advertisements hit Instagram, which option would you choose?

Crest and Oral-B Steals Halloween in this Month's Best Ad

A Dental-care's take on Halloween

Some people would think that the best way to tackle poor dental hygiene around halloween-time, would be to cancel it altogether. Halloween is the time for kids to horde their candy loot and eat sugar-filled treats for weeks on end. In other words, Halloween is dental care's worst enemy.

In one of this year's best ads, Crest Toothpaste and Oral-B take advantage of the best advertisers in any business; kids. Companies like Crest, Oral-B, and Verizon have been producing commercials that exploit kids for their "aw" factor. Verizon's commercials similarly show kids testing products and theories to prove a point in a simpler form. In this case, Crest and Oral-B test children's reactions to vegetable-flavored gummies, Nori pops and tofu ghost-mallows instead of the usual halloween treats. 
The kids react with disgust to the healthy candies, making throwing up candies and cringing at the taste, look adorable. Crest and Oral-B want viewers to understand that Halloween is a holiday worth celebrating for kids as long as they properly brush their teeth afterwards.

By exploiting children's naivety, marketers can persuade consumers to do nearly anything. Like verizon says, "It's not complicated"; kids will never give up candy on halloween. Commercials like these act to play with viewers' emotions to get their point across. If a kid gets the point, the viewer must too. 

Is the 4th Generation IPod the new White Macbook?

         The introduction of IOS 7 has many apple consumers amped to update their IPhone or IPod devices.  IOS 7 comes with several new features that enable users to be more productive and according to Apple, IOS 7, is “designed to look beautiful and work beautifully, so even the simplest tasks are more engaging.” Apple is correct, the IOS 7 is a hot commodity, but unfortunately is unavailable for the 4^th generation IPod touch. This came to my attention after updating my IPad device and noticing that Apple did not send a notification to update my recently bought 4^th generation IPod. The reason behind this is puzzling. Is Apple trying to make younger generation IPods extinct? By denying the ability to update, Apple is basically forcing its consumers to buy a new product. I am not surprised by this move, seeing that Apple suddenly stopped the sale of its White Macbook in 2009. Why do we need a new device, because Apple says so? It is time for a change.

“He is so good at pronouncing R!”

(Please click the sub button for subtitles! Translation is really accurate.)

This is a most creative ad I’ve seen to present “globalization”. In East Asian countries, almost every enterprise requires its employees to use English sophisticatedly. Unfortunately, English – especially its pronunciation – is SO different from the language the local people use that this requirement sometimes can be extremely hard for some elder people who want good jobs or get promotion. In Japan, where there are many Fortune 500 corporations, this situation can be common.

I really appreciate the director set this story in a battle. It’s true that the competition in companies is fierce, and employees are always under pressure. And, here, the English is their weapons. “Soldiers” (office workers) are supposed to use this weapon to “fight” (well communicate) with “the enemy” (the new Boss from the west). This is a delicate metaphor. The actors performed well. All their movements and reactions are fluently, and dramatically. It's vivid. (BTW, the symbol on the flag is a bowl. LOL)

Besides, only at the very end of this ad, Nissin, a famous ramen (cup noodle) company, appeared with a chaotic battle background. This ad looks like a clip from a war movie, but finally the absorbed audience would realize: “Oh, it’s an ad!” Then they are more likely to remember the brands. Also, I appreciate the way Nissin used for, kind of, self-mockery. That’s brave! Though some people said there was nothing to do with the brand itself and the theme of the ad, the ad successfully impressed the audience. 

(I mean no offense here. My point is to show a good ad. =)