Final Reflection

So as I have been working on these media logs recently I have come to realize just how much media an average person consumes in their day to day lives. Sure I had heard others say what studies had shown to be truth but to me all these statistics were just number, that is, until I personally began to pay more attention to my own media influenced life. Every radio station, television show, website, video game, you name it they all have some form of media within them that takes partial credit with how we live or lives. I would have to say that I take in a good eight hours of this each day just because of how long I am online doing things on the internet or watching television shows (this is an approximation obviously but I think that it comes pretty close to the amount that I actually take in). No matter how hard I try, turning on ad block, trying to straight up avoid the media encounters, and so on, I just can't escape the constant appearance of media. Now, all of this media consumption must impact us somehow/someway. As I have contemplated and thought this question over I have come to the conclusion (and this is my personal conclusion so don't be offended or think that this is true for everyone) that media determines our culture and may even be the creator. Of course there are deeper roots to present day cultures but if you really think about it it seems that culture is the biggest factor that changes how we think about ourselves and others, but then doesn't the media do this as well? It seems reasonable, then, to assume that in some aspects of the different cultures is the media itself. Of course this does not mean that media is culture but more that it is a part of it, all of it.

After going over so many print ads and commercials another aspect of this all as come up. How I personally now perceive media and the different needs and techniques that they take advantage of. I have to say that after going through all of these aspects of making an ad I definitely have a new found appreciation for advertisers and the work that they do. Along with this, however, I also can't stop thinking about the techniques that people use when ever I see an ad of any type. And I know that this isn't just me that it is happening to. I have talked to numerous people who have agreed with me by saying that the exact same thing has been happening for them. None of us will ever view media the same way ever again. But even with this new annoying habit that I have apparently developed I can't say that I've changed my media consumption habits at all. I still spend plenty of time doing the same things as I used to and even though I might understand what the advertisers are trying to do more clearly now I am still often persuaded one way or another by a well put together advertisement. I'm assuming that this is because I don't feel like all the things that I have learned, although interesting, is enough of a reason to change my habits. Also this is largely due to the fact that one, I'm to lazy to do anything about changing my habits and two, I don'e think that changing my habits would actually change the amount of media that I consume just because of the vast amounts of it in today's societies.

I do feel that it is important to have a so called "media literacy". But this is largely because I feel like nowadays a majority of the populous does not actually understand what is being sold to them. By comprehending what the advertisers are trying to do to attempt to get your attention and ultimately your business then we can maybe begin to focus more on other things and ideas rather than media. This goes the same with being an educated consumer. If we know what's being sold to us then we can begin buy smarter and get items that we really need and not things that we think we need but once we buy it we realize that we actually have no real use for it and that we were once again falsely coaxed into buying something that we didn't actually want. I wouldn't doubt it if this hadn't happened to all of us. Buying something and then later thinking back about why we even wanted it. And to think that this is all thanks to the advertisements that companies develop. I think that it is quite amazing what an advertising team can do to the majority of us with just a page of advertisements or a 30 second video ad.

In the end, this blog did wonders for me. And I'm not just saying that to sound completely pretentious. I honestly believe that having this blog and being able to post what I really think and have learned about the media that I consume is really helpful in my understanding of what is happening in the world around me. Because of this type of long term project I have been able to go over what I have learned to have embedded even further in my head, which probably takes part in why I can't stop but think about the techniques and needs that are in ads when I see them. During this project I actually did have thoughts of continuing to keep this blog up and continue to post every once and a while about the media that I had most recently for myself if anything. Naturally I am now rethinking this just because I am so utterly lazy (as I have already said) but it is cool idea to keep in mind. In all my appreciation for media has sky rocketed. Instead of just thinking of them as being annoying and useless and skipping them them whenever possible I now find a new respect for them and take time (for some) to think about what aspects are being used in them and what the advertisers actual point is that they are trying to get across.

Papa Johns = Football

I always see Papa John commercials when I'm watching football and never ant other time. I have come to begin to wonder why that is. My best guess is that this is their target market, families (because a large portion of their commercials include families and not just a few men or women) that watch football and need a quick and easy meal while they're watching the game. Maybe its more focused on groups of friends that have come to watch the game together (it seems to be probably around the ages of 18 to 30 or so...basically a younger to mid age group). I couldn't help but notice that in most of their advertisements they have Papa John himself either go to the family and deliver the pizza to them or do something different then the other people in the commercial. i feel as if they're trying to get him to stand out in the audiences mind so that they might remember that they can always turn to Papa John's pizzas if they're in a tight squeeze. Along with this their commercials are always centered around football. Whether it be the game itself or a few of the athletes there is always some aspect of our American football within both their commercials and the print ads.



This commercial of their specifically has two significant techniques that I noticed. First, and probably most obvious, is their use of the Testimonial Technique. By having Peyton Manning in many of their commercials and having these commercials play during football games they really hope to get their audience to focus on the fact that Peyton Manning is their and that, because of that, their pizza must be exceptionally good because why would Peyton Manning get bad pizza? Basically they're trying to get their audience into a somewhat starstruck state where they will follow the star (in this case Manning) no matter where he goes or what he does. Along with this technique is the Time Pressure Technique. They use this when they say that Papa John's allows you to get one large pizza or two large pizzas for discounted prices for the Super Bowl. They want people to feel like they need to take advantage of this opportunity while the deals last, so they'll rush over and by Papa John's pizzas up until the deal is over without thinking about how it's probably not any bit of a discount and that their prices were never really all that different....ever. With these two techniques I found one need that they tried to put upon their audiences' minds. This is the Need for Affiliation and it came up largely when  they said that Papa John's gave away free pizzas to all the fans (obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration) which makes the audience think that tons of people must go to Papa John's. This makes them want to not be the last to go their (they don't want to be left out) so they rush to go and be with all the "tons" of people who are ordering from Papa Johns.

Dog. Don't. Move. A. Muscle.

A reason why my parents have always been against having a dog as a pet, especially bigger ones, is because of the mess that they would make around the house. Obviously when I saw this advertisement I immediately thought about how they would have just freaked out in such a situation.

At first I just stared at this ad just kind of laughing to myself while thinking about how hilarious the situation was. I didn't even know that it was for a company that makes carpets until I read the small print at the top of the page (sorry I couldn't get a better picture for this so that you could all read it as well, but mainly it said that the Mohawk company had created a new type of carpet named SmartStrand which supposedly had new types of fibers to help release substances when someone was trying to clean). 

Within this fine print at the top comes the Magic Ingredients Technique. They try and tell their audiences that they have not created the best carpet for any pet owners because they will no longer have to worry about how their carpets will be completely ruined by their pets if something was to accidentally happen. Because they say that they have these new types of fibers within their carpets Mohawk makes it seem as if they have discover a new ingredient (a magi ingredient if you will) that is the next step in the carpeting industry. Along with this they use another technique, the Wit and Humor Appeal Technique. This is obvious because of the absolute absurdity of the situation that the family is in in the advertisement. Since the situation is so unrealistic but still so present in our minds it makes a sort of funny that we laugh at because it sucks for the family that has to deal with it but we would never want to have to do it ourselves.

Along with these techniques come to needs that the advertisement creates in their audiences' minds. First is the Need to Feel Safe. This is more for the people that are so worried about the appearance of their home that they constantly fretting about any little sign of dirt or disorganization around their home. By saying that their is no more need to worry if you get SmartStrand Mohawk get rid of this panicked state and allows the part of their audience that was like this to relax and really enjoy their home. The second need that appeared to me when I was looking over this advertisement is the Need to Satisfy Curiosity. We have a natural tendency as human beings to be curious about things that we have not seen to be truth ourselves. By giving this situation and saying that SmartStrand will allow you to easily clean up any mess that is on it Mohawk creates this uncertainty within us that questions/wonders if this is really true. I wouldn't doubt that quite a few people have bought this product with just the wanting to test out the result for themselves in mind.

A Target MissRepresentation

I saw this Target advertisement on the side of one of their stores in West Sacramento the other day. At first I was just surprised to see that the the male figure in the ad wasn't red throughout the entire board. It seems that in anyone of Target's clothing advertisements the model is always wearing a majority of red or white and everything around them is the same in that regard. So it hit me as a little strange to see that in this advertisement the male model was fading out on the right side as more of an orange/yellow color instead of staying consistently red like the four other shots of himself. Even after thinking about it for sometime while I was walking around I could not figure out Target's purpose for changing his color. Maybe I'm over-thinking it but it just seems weird to me to see a Target ad that isn't wholly red and white. At first I thought that maybe they did it so that the Target symbol would be more noticeable but then that just seems lazy because why not just move it over above the words "Energy spent wisely?" That was my best guess for why the advertising team might have decided to do that and even then it just seems like such a bad excuse.

Besides this I also realized that for most, if not all, of Target ads that I have seen that are trying to get people to buy their sports gear the models in the advertisements will be men and almost never women. Even when the ad is just referencing a sport it's not a woman that is being portrayed as strong or athletic or whatever they're trying to get across, but a man. I was surprised to see how much I started to notice this advertising strategy (or maybe stereotype) after recently watching and discussing the Miss Representation documentary. It seems that many of the points that they brought up during their documentary are very true, even today, and I could find a better example than Target, probably one of the most popular stores is still focusing on the "fact" that men are to be portrayed as competitive and sporty while many of the advertisements involving women has them in the house or outside doing house/yard work. They too are wearing Target clothes or using their products but still in the stereotypical way that woman are the house keepers while men are more active in the world. I feel that if someone doesn't notice these differences in Target's advertising then they won't be effected all that much but every since I've noticed it it just seems that it takes a little away from Target's overall ad.

Lowe's has always worked hard to try and compete against the other huge companies, like Home Depot, that and make it seem as if home projects can be extremely easy if we just go to one of their stores first. to be completely honest I had always thought that, based off of their commercials, Home Depot was the better place to go if one wanted to do something at all project-like but this Lowe's commercial really made me rethink that.

To think that this one commercial could make me completely rethink what I had previously known as fact. I just thought that this commercial perfectly encompassed everything that a amateur home designer would want. Something to make all the work incredible easy while still having the finally product look just like they had initially intended. I thought that it was great that they stealthily incorporated Lowe's items into commercial so that it wasn't just some random woman doing some weird magic. This really just made sure that their audiences were aware that they were watching a Lowe's commercial and not some one else's. Along with this the self satisfied little smile that the woman has on her face at the end once everything has been laid down perfectly is just icing on the cake. It makes us think that whatever project we do using Lowe's products will come out just as perfect as we had first envisioned.

Lowe's uses the Plain Folks in this specific commercial, which makes it seem as if they work well with everyone and can help us all succeed. By using an ordinary woman who doesn't seem to be really special in any way they hope to focus on the fact that any one can do what they want and that it doesn't matter who you are within society. Along with this we see that her house is really nothing special and isn't some giant mansion or what not and that even her yard was a completely neglected waste land that no one had worried about until she had decided to go to Lowe's.

They also use the Simple Solutions Technique to try and make themselves look even more appealing. By focusing on both the woman and the yard that she is working on they show that she becomes happy as she works with Lowe's and that the garden to become happy in a sense as she does so. Now Lowe's is addressing to issues, or consumer bases. First is the people who just want to do some work on their property to make their house just look better. This is an obvious group of people but they are often drawn to other businesses just as I was. The other group is those who are unhappy with their lives at this moment and need a pick me up. Lowe's is telling them "Hey instead of falling into depression or starting to just aimlessly wander why don't we keep those hands busy?" They show that by working on your house or yard with Lowe's you can actually become happier and gain a sense of entitlement.

Finally, Lowe's uses a small bit of the Wit and Humor Technique to try and further their happiness/satisfaction point. By having the woman simply reach in a grab a rug of perfectly preserved gardens and lawns. As she spreads it out over the lawn and everything falls perfectly into place their audience is caught by the absurdity of what's happening and chuckle (or giggle whatever you prefer) to themselves while thinking about how amazing it would be if they would simply lay down a garden rug and completely redo their desolate waste land in an instant. This thought changes into curiosity as they begin to think more and more about what they just saw until eventually they are pulled by this wanting to Lowe's where they can finally see for themselves this "magic" that can be done for them as well.

Is Food Actually That Good Or Is It All A Cover Up?

I've thought of this many times before when I see food commercials. They always make the food product look so good, so absolutely perfect that it's hard for us to resist the temptation. But it never really turns out to be as good as it looked in the ad that we had previously looked at. I remember seeing something before (sorry I can't remember what exactly it was) about how food producers spend a lot of time on their commercials picking the best fries, the best swirl of ice cream and so forth. In fact they even said that sometimes the food in the picture isn't even real and is actually a sculpture of some sort that has been made to their ideal product appearance. Now I don't know how true all of this was but at the time it seemed pretty convincing and just straight up logical.

So all this brings us to the McDonald's, or should I say McCafe's, coffee advertisements. How much time did they spend on just these two cups of coffee? The whipped cream? Even the chocolate drizzled on top? Right now, in this picture it looks like these to cups would be the most delicious thing in the world. But once you get one will it actually look like that? Will they spend the same amount of effort to reach perfection for OUR cup of coffee as they did in the ad? Of course not. They want us to believe that they will and that every one of their products is complete perfection but that just isn't true. Of course I'm not completely hating on these ads, I actually think that they work quite well. In fact I would go so far as to say that these ads use the Need for Aesthetic Sensations in their audiences. It seems that the need for perfection is present in so many of our minds today that even the most simplest of things, like a cup of coffee, can attract us. Because of these thoughts we can event think that a McCafe coffee is a beautiful art, in a sense which leads us to wanting it even more.

This specific McDonald's ad uses Magic Ingredients in their ad by saying that they use "rich melted caramel" in a "Mocha Bliss" that is surrounded in a "cloud of chocolate." They make it seem as if all of these ingredients are uniquely theirs and that because of this they have created something that is better than all others. This is how they compete with big organizations like Starbucks, by appealing to their audiences and apparently giving them something that no one else is offering. Do you honestly believe that other coffee places don't have pretty much the exact same drink? Chances are that they probably do but they just aren't advertising it like this. It's because of these secret but not so secret ingredients that so many of us buy so much food that we see in ads or on commercials.

Along with this Magic Ingredient Technique that is used in McDonald's coffee advertisement they also take advantage of the Glittering Generalities technique to create even more curiosity, and thus attraction, to their product. By using terms like "cloud of chocolate" one can only think of the immense amounts of chocolate that must be contained within these drinks. Added on top of these strange phrases that are meant to entice their audience they also focus a lot on the font a positioning of their words. By using the different writing styles they bring the audiences attention to these strange and enticing phrases which only makes us want it more. In all everything in these ads are directed towards us purchasing their foods and drinks...even the words themselves.

The Newest Disease: Newphoria

The anti virus software, Norton, has begun to advertise more often with their newest ad which is campaigning to spread the awareness of Newphoria. Obviously this is not an actually disease/symptom or anything to be careful of, it is simply their way of saying that even with all the newest devices that are constantly being created and then outdone with another model, we must still be careful of the potential threat of viruses, hacking, and so forth. Instead of listing off the outcomes of these cyber threats and try to warn people about these viruses straight up they use the Wit and Humor Technique to try and get people's attention.And think about it, if Norton had decided to just try and get our business by just telling us the facts, how many of us would actually listen? It's more probable that we would all just turn the page of the magazine or simply just not pay attention to it (depending on where we are).



The use of Wit and Humor really allows them to connect, in a way, with the audience. They can get them to become somewhat aware of the threats around them by making them laugh at the randomness of Newphoria. In addition to this Norton doesn't just stick with Newphoria ad. Instead they mix it up, creating different people with different personalities (or so it seems) so that they can continue to entertain people while hitting a larger audience because of the different aspect of each advertisement.

Besides the Wit and Humor Technique that Norton uses they also aroused the need to fell safe. They made it seem as if there are still diseases that we are all unaware of but we won't need to worry about if we have Norton. They try and make it seem obvious to their audiences that their anti virus software is the best and can protect us from anything whether it be on our phone, laptops, IPads, etc. so we'll no longer have to worry about any of that and can finally begin to move on and do the things that we want to do.

Finally, from what I saw of the new Norton Multi-Device ads, they use the Magic Ingredients Technique within many of the advertisements. At the bottom of most of the Newphoria ads they write, in small faded print, what Newphoria really is (or technically isn't) and how Norton can help protect all of our devices because they have discovered the Multi-Device technology which they, and only they, are now allowing us to use to ensure that all our new, precious devices can stay safe from cyber threats.

By combining all of these needs and techniques together into one ad Norton is able to successfully advertise their product because it gives their audience something to not only laugh about but also think about and maybe even worry that they aren't as safe as they should be.