Justin Timberlake and Pepsi

Okay so I did my blogs a little backwards and now I’m going to post about the Sunday Superbowl ads.

One ad that stood out in my mind was for Pepsi Stuff with Justin Timberlake. I enjoyed it and thought it worked because it involved a celebrity doing something embarrassing and funny. It was full of crazy, wild stunts that Justin actually did himself.

The whole concept was a girl sipping on a Pepsi and Justin was “magnetically attracted” to her from across town. Justin gets pulled out of Southern Comfort and is dragged up the side of building where SNL’s Any Samberg makes an awkward and humorous appearance dressed up as a girl. He then gets thrown into a river and is pulled into the suburbs, where he runs into Cowboys Tony Romo, runs straddle-style into a mailbox (several times), and finally gets hit in the back of the head with a flat screen TV.

Basically the concept came down to every sip you take gets you closer. That could be seen as a little disturbing with the sucking of a Pepsi gets Justin Timberlake closer to you. I didn’t think of it like that though, so I don’t think it would be a big deal.

What I found really interesting was the amount of product placement in this ad, all at the same time. You have Justin Timberlake himself, Southern Comfort (which happens to be JT’s new restaurant), Pepsi, and AmazonMP3’s. I thought that distracted away from the main product, Pepsi. But hey getting an ad during the Superbowl is pretty expensive, so you have get some help from other products to cover the cost.

Pottery Barn = <3

So I looked at the assignment sheet and it said that the environment post was for over the weekend… but the updated schedule says it is due tonight… guess that means I’m ahead? Or maybe I’m behind because it looks like everyone else posted about super bowl ads.

Bah, I’m going to post about the “Pottery Barn Style” article anyway.

For starters, I thought this article was pretty ironic because I just got my PB teen catalog in the mail today and the Pottery Barn catalog came a couple days ago. The article was pretty on target (no pun intended) when it mentioned the difference between their product and Target was the design and the “total-lifestyle” look to it. Pottery Barn offers a variety of classic pieces of furniture with special accessories to go with, which is what makes them successful.

I thought Pottery Barn’s requirements of the 5-point test to their lines were pretty innovative. The product has to look good, but not too cutting edge, or fashion forward that it can’t be a classic piece. The direction has to match with the rest of the home it will be placed into. It also has to feel good and be durable against the little monsters that will most likely be jumping or spilling things on it. When you look at PB’s catalog they have a variety of covers that can be placed over furniture so, in case it does get ruined, it can easily be fixed for an affordable price. The fifth test the product or line has to go against is if the people who designed the piece would buy it or give it to their best friend. I find that to be really smart because if you design something you aren’t going to buy, who will?

Pottery Barn does a great job in selling to an audience that wants pieces of a collection that can be intertwined with what’s already in their house at an affordable price. The products and lines they sell are going to last for a really long time, and that is what gets people more bang for their buck.

Setting the Stage

Ok so the blog assignment is to write about the way the environment of a store we go to often tries to influence us.

Well, my favorite store is the Buckle and they always have outfits, with matching jewelry, displayed along the walls and throughout the store. Obviously they are selling their new items right when you walk into the store. The Buckle also usually has an entire table in the front and back of the store devoted to clothes on sale.

Side note - I think I read somewhere that stores will strategically put women’s clothes on the left side of the store because that is where we look first. I’m not sure if that is actually true but the Buckle and Hollister follow that.

Another way the environment of a store tries to influence us is by the lighting and the music. I notice the lighting the most in dressing rooms, especially with Victoria Secret and Hollister. Victoria Secret’s dressing rooms have dimmed lighting along the bottom of the walls. I sure they do that because harsh lights are just not going to make you look your best, especially if you are trying on clothes/lingerie.

Music is also another factor in the environment that can either make you feel happy or sad. The store wants you to feel you’re best and probably have you subconsciously associate their clothing with that emotion.

It pretty much comes down to that the store’s environment is going to have a huge influence on whether or not you buy their clothes. They are going to set the stage – meaning putting new clothing in the front of the store, the sale tables with big signs, dimmed lighting, and feel-good music.

Warning: Possible Crazy/Confusing Product Explained Below

All right a night of posting about whatever we want – sweet deal.

I’m really excited to be working on this rhetoric advertising assignment because rather than writing another paper, we can fully put what we have learned so far into use. I’m not sure what my group, Derek, Mallory, Kendal, and myself, are going to do yet but I’m sure it’ll be awesome. I think it would be interesting to do something involving Apple products like an ipod or the iphone, calculators, and gum together. It would be like a mega little device. I mean think about it, they would fit for our target audience, the class, because we all use them.

I guess I envision a wild device that is a couple inches longer than the iphone, and is a bit like the new Verizon Voyager. It’s hard to explain without drawing it out. But think about – one side could be your regular iphone (with a 30 or 60 GB of course because we all listen to a ton of music and 8 GB is not nearly enough) and then on the other side could be your touch screen TI-84 calculator. Coming out the end of the iphone, where you plug into the charger, would be you gum slot thing-a-ma-jig where when you press a button on the screen, out pops a stick of gum.

Oh and other additional ad ons would be a video camera, so we could record the crazy conversations we have, a mirror, and a foldable mechanical pencil that could pop out the top.

It sounds wacky, but I think it would be pretty tight.

Yeah Kilbourne

I feel like I am the only one who really agrees with Kibourne's argument. I thought she presented her point of sex/violence in advertisements well and backed up most of with sources. The fact that in some instances she went a little over board, like with the shaving ad, didn’t change my opinion that most women are dehumanized and made into objects in advertisements.

Edit: Thinking about this now though, maybe I was a bit wrapped up how women are seen as objects because I was frustrated with my brother and wanted to think that all males thought about is sex when it comes to women and these ads. Who knows?

In Kilbourne’s article she mentioned how it is typically the women’s fault if she gets raped or something bad happens otherwise because she was wearing the wrong clothes, was in a dark alley, or had been drinking. And it’s totally true. I suppose the only instance you don’t see that is in bromance movies when the guy gets drunk and sleeps with what he thinks is a really attractive women, but when he wakes up… she’s definitely not. Then it is blamed on him.

She also points out the ads in which men are encouraged to not listen when a woman says no. I’ve never seen those ads before and it really bothered me because it’s most likely men made those. It just kind of makes me sick to see what people come up with in their heads when it comes to sex and how much money they can make off of explicitness.

I think Kilbourne has some really interesting and dead on things to say about sex in the media and how women are targeted. Although yes, she did over anyalize some things, I feel that if say a person had been in one of those situations we saw in the ads, like with the man over the women and she laughing but over her head it says no, then they would be thinking like Kilbourne too.

Oh and P.S. I totally read this article before our debate I just didn't have time to blog about it afterwards.

Commercial Watching

This assignment reminded me of one we had during my Mass Media class except we had to write down what every commercial was for and then see if it was directed towards the same audience as our show. So it’s kind of fun to have all of this come back and do a similar assignment – minus all the writing.

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I actually found the commercial that aired during an MTV show was really ironic. For starters, I was watching True Life – “I like being overweight” (or something of the sort). It was, surprise, about people who liked the shape that they were, even though doctors advised against it, and their lives.

So then, right after the show cut to a commercial came Jenny Craig! It was a newer one though, not the typical one where that woman calls Jenny and talks about all the weight she lost. It was Queen Latifah appearing at the very beginning of the commercial and she said that was going to be taking the first step to improving her health with Jenny Craig. It then showed others cheering her on and telling her that they’ve done it too.

The whole thing kind of made me laugh at first because it seemed as though it was aligned right after True Life on purpose, but once I started to think about it some more, it was a pretty wise decision. I mean really, the audience for True Life is teens/young adults and they might be any size, but are still watching an episode based around over-weight people. And so to put a commercial on afterwards that points in the direction of losing weight and being healthy is pretty smart! I also liked that Jenny Craig focused on having a spokeswoman that just at the beginning stage. It made it seem like you could work on losing weight along side her, which will connect more to their intended audience than say someone who has already reached their goal.

Friday Night Plays

The plays on Friday were really well written and I thought they were great! Elise Lockwood is incredibly talented to write all of these plays and have them flow, make sense, and be funny. My favorite would have to be Playing the Pronoun Game and/or Being or Not Being.

I thought the title, Playing the Pronoun Game, itself was just so creative and I loved David, played by Daniel Hellman, and Isaac, played by Ian Ketcham, as the Dads of Elise Vreede. I wasn’t so sure about the end of play though, not because Maggie and Kristen got together, but because it ended so quickly – course it was a one-act play.

Being or Not Being, written by Henry Johnston, was hilarious. Lucious, played by Ian, telling Brad Pitt, played by R.J. Connors, off was classic. And Jim Ray just made it for me!

The only play I didn’t understand was If Books Could Kill. Joshua, J.P. Mershon, went crazy because he couldn’t figure out the narrator of a book Rory, Elise Lockwood, wrote and eventually it killed him. I feel like there was something deeper to the play, but I don’t know what it is. I also wish I knew the significance of the quote he wanted Rory to figure out which book it was from.

Great Job!