Recent Research Perspective

In the beginning, my thoughts were to research about marketing to children and how consumerism is changing the culture of childhood. This led me to reading about “new nostalgia.” It can be described as a marketing tool of reintroducing past popular products, such as toys to a new generation of kids. Thus, my direction shifted and then became more focused with helpful advice from our professor in regard to choosing a relevant, iconic type of toy, such as Barbies or a classic theme park such as Disneyland. Thereafter, I chose Disney Princess. I read about how Disney was experiencing financial trouble in 1999. The Disney princesses’ Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, and Mulan were marketed as a package. This brilliant marketing campaign saved Disney’s lackluster sales. The Disney princess brand now supersedes Mickey Mouse as being more popular (based on sales) and has flooded the children’s market with dolls, costumes, books, videos, and gadgets etc. I will be examining how Disney reinvented itself with the princesses.      

Research Paper: Assignment to answer rough ideas of topic and research question.

My topic for the upcoming research paper is on the psychology of advertising to children, and how this leads to materialism. The probable research question is: what are the current advertising strategies and methods that marketers use to target pre-teens? The link to popular culture regards how the modern strategies of marketing to children are accepted without question by mainstream society. Marketing is pop culture in itself because it represents the current trends—what is propagated by advertisers. Habitually shown, it becomes a process of brainwash: “I must have this,” “I must be this,” etc.

What I know (so far) on this subject is from a great documentary called Consuming Kids. Basically, the overall idea of the film highlights how children are being influenced (nowadays more than ever) to consume. The film supports this assertion by showing and discussing all the different ways children are being manipulated with detrimental marketing tactics and how advertisers employ child psychologists’ to research children’s behavior, and video graph children around the clock etc.

How would I respond to answering my research question right now? I would simply state: marketing to preteens has become more pervasive and sophisticated. Additionally, even defining this demographic market is difficult. What I still need to do is research more. Such as, why are these advertising methods harmful? Why should society care? How will this affect future generations? What are the differences with past marketing strategies versus current tactics? Why has this come to be? Is it because of deregulation and/or shifting cultural values? Why do advertisers have more leeway today? What can be done to change this? What are the solutions? And many more questions can be constructed.   

Rough Draft Requirement

     Two young women have just arrived in France and their introduction to the City of Light begins with a flirtatious greeting from a handsome, young man. The women are unaware that this man has just targeted them for abduction. Hence, the movie Taken entertains us with the horrific hypothetical fear of being kidnapped in a foreign country. The theme of this sensational movie illuminates sexual exploitation under the context of a father (Liam Neeson) trying to find and rescue his daughter from an underground network of brothels. The target audience is teenagers and adults because the movie is rated PG 13 and deals with mature content.

   The cultural beliefs of the movie reflect the stereotypical plot structure of placing the divorced father into the passive role of having little control over the decisions made by the permissive mother who grants permission for their daughter to travel alone with her friend. The mother encourages freedom and independence. Therefore, independence from one’s family is an implied value, which needs to be accomplished regardless of the outcome. The value of virginity in the female is also addressed by the fact that the daughter is a virgin. Virgins are valued as “diamonds” in the slave trade.

    Chasteness leads to the attitude that women should abstain from sex until they are married because this prevents them from becoming “used” products that no one will want to “buy.” The attitude suggests that chaste women are able to survive. The daughter’s virginity enables her to stay alive longer than her non-virgin friend who is immediately placed inside a brothel.

      First rate and second rate “packages” emphasizes the narrative that women are being sold as stock in the slave trade. The risk of allowing young women to travel alone without chaperones suggests a cautionary narrative: women are vulnerable prey because their bodies continue to be labeled and sold as commodities. Additionally, women still need their fathers or a male hero to rescue them from their predicaments. Male chivalry relates to the mythic knight who rescues the “damsel in distress” in fairytales. Cultural entertainment must fulfill the typical mythology that our hero (the father) will successfully rescue his daughter.
     The positive value of the film endeavors to generate awareness about the international exploitation of women being sold as slaves for prostitution. A father’s love and determination to rescue his daughter is also positive. The negative value suggests that a father’s wisdom is not culturally acknowledged until a crisis occurs to prove that he was right. The superficial mother holds all the power and her decisions veto input from the father.

     Finally, Taken shines a spotlight on the corrupt society in which we live. The contradictory value that society cares about women’s bodies being sold as products reeks of hypocrisy. Ironically, our culture openly capitalizes on exploiting women as “X-rated” models in advertisements, music videos, and film etc. Propagating females as sexual products for images supports the same undignified idea that human traffickers promote—a woman’s body is worth more than her brain.   

       

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/

Moving Forward to the Future Side Effects of Tracking

Internet users are held accountable for what they post or view online. Indeed, we should be careful about what we post or view online. However, we can no longer safely discern what is considered innocent self-disclosure or innocent Web surfing. Imagine, an employed pregnant woman (similar to our reading) innocently perusing baby related Websites or posting this news on Facebook. She could be unwittingly tracked and fired. And she would never be able to “prove” why. People are regularly fired and denied employment based on their age, medical records, and credit scores.

Additionally, tracking people’s political affiliation and who they vote for is unethical. The whole point of secret ballots is for society to feel comfortable and secure that no one will be influenced or bribed to vote for certain candidates. Potential employers could use this to decide not to hire you, based on your political affiliation. Every corporation has its own culture. Headhunters do searches for corporations that solicit potential employees who fit their values and criteria of their particular corporation. It is naïve to believe that people are simply hired for merit or experience.

The implication of tracking is that people don’t question the legitimacy or ethics of this system. People become complaisant robots who expect and tolerate trespassing. These “robots” readily defend tracking as if it benefits them because they have become programmed to believe that this way of life is “normal.” In later years, they will discover the consequences of allowing private information to flow. They will become “cloned” by a “greater” model of robots that will exceed them in being far more tolerant and subservient to a governmental system where newborn babies will automatically be inserted with microchips to be tracked for the rest of their lives. Thus, tolerating tracking today leads to microchips tomorrow.  

Snuggle's the bear and little girl advertisement

The Ultra Snuggle fabric softener advertisement is cute. This is my initial response to the adorable image of a little girl posing next to the friendly “Snuggles” the bear stuffed animal. The beliefs of the ad imply an ideal childhood with an animated sweet little bear. Thus, it evokes feelings of innocence and happiness. Therefore, Snuggle is trying to sell me sentimental good feelings to persuade me to buy their product.  The advertisement is persuasive because it endeavors to associate its product with feelings of nostalgia without making people become aware of the “unconscious” link to childhood. The ad suggests that it is just an innocent picture to symbolically show how soft and fluffy our clothes will be (like the bear) if we only use Snuggles’ fabric softener.

Snuggles the bear is a very successful marketing tool because it appeals to the attachments people held as children for their favorite dolls or stuffed animals etc., and the stories we created with them. Some children become so attached to their favorite “cuddly” that the thought of losing one would be as devastating as losing a friend. Thus, the bear is not only animated—he’s life-like. Snuggles had   appealing television commercials as well: the bear could speak, move around, and lift up blankets.  As if a kid’s dream came true—their bears are realistically interacting with them! Thus, this appealed to children, and was an excellent way to begin building brand loyalty at an early age. Or to at least persuade children to become so interested in saying, “Oh, Mommy, why don’t you buy the softener with the cute little bear on the label?”

The Snuggles bear also holds nostalgic feelings for American history: the American version of a stuffed bear—“Teddy”—bear’s name—was inspired by President “Teddy” Roosevelt. Therefore, Snuggles’ fabric softener appeals on many levels of our emotions to persuade us to buy their product. Does it make me feel like I need something that I truly don’t need? Of course, but personally, and perhaps ironically I have never purchased Snuggles’ products. However, I continue to adore the cute cuddly bear!

Note: I could not find a copy of the ad I have on the Internet. However, here’s a commercial link for the bear.   http://www.bing.com/search?q=+Snuggles+commercial+ads+from+the+1980s&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=snuggles+commercial+ads+from+the+1980s&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=94d377187cf84f76895a718205fc99af   

Re: "The rising of Popular Culture: A Historiographical Sketch"

     The article concludes with the thought that popular culture is not controlled by the media nor pushed solely by the people. Popular culture holds both elements. We are fortunate to learn about certain historians who endeavored to analyze various forms of common entertainment. This is wonderful information for separating and examining the trends of each decade.

     However, my overall conception of the forces behind popular culture has not changed. In sociology, we learned about the roots of mass consumerism and how psychology was implemented for marketing popular culture. Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays was so powerful that he influenced not only culture but our government as well. Bernays was the manipulative “master of capitalism” who defaced democracy with materialism. Century of Self: Part One, was one of the most influential films that I had to watch in college, and it has continued to leave an indelible mark on the way I perceive popular culture: “Passive consumerism=key to control!”