Hey class, sorry I had to canceled today. Here are some notes from your colleague, Natalie Freilich, which we would have gone over together today. Feel free to comment or add your own response, for sake of participation.
"Major Companies are trying to keep their multi-billion dollar industry afloat and prospering by subconsciously brain washing us into this media/advertisement/consumption culture cycle that we cannot get out of. It is time to stop and take a step back to see how we are being manipulated." -Natalie Freilich
Key Tensions/Questions Generated by the Reading
•The range of Adbusters’ readers vary from high schoolers to people in their middle ages. Who do you think will take the most action to change their lives? The cynical youth or the tired adults?
•What can we each do to diminish major corporations and brandings hold over our lives?
•Is branding and monopoly the same thing? If one is removed will it diminish the other or will one continue to flourish on its own?
•The youth controls what is “cool.” How did we psychologically make branding the most important things in our lives?
•Do you seek the truth behind what your professors say? Or simply write down your notes to pass the class? Do seek further information?
•Have you made some change lately? Step out of the box and take a look at your life – do you want the American Dream or your own?
Definitions/New Terminology
•Mental Detox: The act of stepping away as much as possible from technology and proceeding to live your life for a period of time without it. To stop living virtually and begin to experience life in real time and the real world around you.
•Neocon: A liberal who has turned conservative. Usually from an intellectual community. Modern liberalism has not turned out the way they wanted so they switch to neoconservatism. Some have dropped out of the government and gone into colleges and the media futher influencing others.
•Heterodox: not conforming with accepted or orthodox standards or beliefs.
•Branding: the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.
Notes
•Major corporations have led to major consumption, which in turn has led to increased destructiveness of our environment. As we learned at the beginning of the year, more people know of the Mercedes Benz car logo than what poison ivy looks like.
•Wanting to become a graphic designer with advertisement, that would perhaps entail me working for one of these large corporations. AdBusters has made me aware since last year of the negative effects of large scale branding. If possible, I would like to work on a smaller scale with smaller and local companies, improving their design and logos.
•Declutter, declutter, declutter. Declutter information, stuff, and propaganda.
•Anyone can do this, it is not limited to the youth or the old.
Adbusters Articles, take a look (links below):
Neocon Indoctrinataion
A Textbook Insurgency
McCrriage of Justice
Commentary
ReplyDeleteSamantha Levy
For one of my weekly responses I chose to address AdBusters, but a lot of the points that were brought up here were ones that I did not address. I really liked the key point that you brought up: Is branding and monopoly the same thing? I personally would not say they are the SAME thing, because they each contain their own complex meanings. I do, however, think that they work together, branding definitely influences monopoly. Branding also safeguards monopoly and secures its power. You then talk about removing one or the other. Without monopoly, branding would still be successful, causing competition between products etc. but it would not be as powerful as branding for a monopoly. Without branding, I think it would be very difficult to create a monopoly. While a company can try to independently remove competition, it is ultimately up to the consumer (which is swayed by branding) to hand over power. Also, your discussion of adults vs. the youth influencing the future of advertising is interesting because ultimately, it will affect us all.
Stephany Schafer
ReplyDeleteADP 3
Weekly Response 5
First of all I’d like to say that this book is possibly the best one we’ve been asked to read by far. Not only is the text engaging and there actual points made in the book, but the author is discussing something I feel is far more interesting.
I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier book when he discussed how modern day families live in a manufactured reality. It was as if he were writing what I have been seeing for years all along but had no words to explain. Children have become further and further detached from reality. I remember in high school seeing some of the younger students, even those as young as third grade having cell phones. Very few of them still play the games outside that I did, and even fewer are as carefree as I once was. Some of these children are so modernized that they actually are watching what they eat and keeping up their social images at the age of 5.
Children should not be concerned with such things at that age; they should be able to eat candy and to dress weirdly without fear of the consequences. At their age, there are no consequences. It shocks me to see children at young ages discussing who they’re dating and how long.
All in all I’d say that this book so far has discussed some very important issues within today’s culture, and I am eager to read the rest of it.
Anastassia Fulmer
ReplyDelete11/11/09
ADP 3-Joe Trumpey
GSI-Ashley Lieber
Adbusters: The Vicious Cycle of Advertising and Consumerism
Advertising is everywhere we turn; it is one giant sensory overload. Adbusters are working together to fight this phenomenon back by telling the truth the companies are trying to hide in their ad. Adbusters has a hard time getting out in the world because of this fight for truth because it makes the big companies look bad, but what if people were able to see these ads? Would people change or would this just be another collapse in the economy?
If people knew the truth behind what they are consuming by way of Adbusters approach then people would not buy anything. Adbusters yes is trying to do good but need to sneak in a little better and maybe try to work with companies over time to better their products. The problem is that there kinds of commercial businesses play a huge roll in the government and have a lot of pull when it comes to being able to advertise what they want. This is why these companies are able to get away with only advertising the bare minimum.
I admire groups like Adbusters going out there and helping people become aware but what happens to people when they know the truth? There is a negative to every action and the alternative may not be much better then the original. There is this constant cycle that will keep going that has bonded within it our economy, health, environment, and many other issues. When two forces fight against each other instead of work together this vicious cycle will never go away, it will be a constant issue of who is right versus who is wrong never knowing who is who.
Weekly Statement #9
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of ADBUSTERS before hearing about them in this class, but I really enjoyed taking a look at a bunch of different Adbuster images that I found after Googling it. They made me laugh, and they made me realize just how ridiculous some real ads are.
One of the Adbuster ads that I took notice of was the one where it was a take on a “Just Do It” ad from Nike. This Adbuster ad instead says, “Just Douche It.” This particular one made me laugh because I have definitely seen a few guys around who look similar to this guy in the ad and thought to myself ‘What a douche.” In the ad, this guy is hanging from a basketball hoop wearing all sorts of Nike clothes and gear including sweatbands and rolled up windbreakers. The “swoosh” is visible at least seven times on all of his clothes. He is also making a ridiculous face while about to bite into a hamburger. You can see Nike articles of clothing all over campus, but I cannot say much because I currently have two pairs of Nike shoes, one pair which I sort of flaunt because they are really hip with really cool colors. But when I see people around campus who are just dressed head to toe in Nike gear, (at least now) I sort of shake my head. They either have no idea about what they promoting, or they don’t care. Either of which are really disappointing.
Another Adbuster ad that made me laugh, and I cannot keep a smile off my face every time I look at I now, was the Adbuster spoof off the Calvin Klein ad “Reality for Men”. In this Adbuster ad, there is a man who does not have the body of a model with a rather hairy chest and looks completely naked. This is what Reality truly is. There are not too many men walking around who have totally hairless chests with six or eight-pack abs. That is not reality.
One Adbuster ad that I found very striking was the one with the huge slab of shark meat with the fin still attached sitting in what looks like an alleyway. It was an image that was really gross and sad for me and I couldn’t look at it for very long. But all I needed to see was that first second for the image to hit me like a ton of bricks. The message is clear: Stop hunting things that are not plentiful enough to be hunted (like sharks).
I really like the idea of Adbusters. They make us stop and think about the hundreds of ads that we see everyday. We automatically absorb the information in ads that advertisement companies have become so good at sending out. We don’t even realize that they are changing how we think. Adbusters does a good job of making us stop and think about these ads though. They make us aware of how ridiculous (and brainwashing) some ads can be. Their intent is to break the cycle of making us want to buy everything we see. I am not sure how effective they actually are with this, but at least they bring some awareness of the issue to the table.
Weekly Statement 8
ReplyDeleteAfter talking about Adbusters in discussion this past week I started to pay attention to advertisements. The goal of advertisements is to grab the attention of their target audience. The theme that most advertisements are taking now is the personal approach. Companies are trying to get you to display your personality with everything that you buy, cell phones, computers, and televisions. Although we do need some way to express our personalities, technology is the main way to do it these days.
I think that expressing yourself through technology does not really say that much about you other than how current you are. The choices that people make in terms of their technology has to do with function, style, comfort, and quality. Unless you are familiar with technology you would not be able to judge someone based on his or her personal items. I think the main thing that people judge about a person’s technology is how often they use their cell phone, how much they need to be in contact with other people, or how much they enjoy watching television.
I think that using personality and showing how technology can be involved in our everyday lives is a way of advertising to humans as a whole. Humans are social beings, and making technology fit in with our social lives is a key to make it sell. It is almost like humanizing technology to make it more adaptable to our lifestyle.
I think that there is no way to control advertising completely, there will always be some ridiculous statements being made about how “this product will change your life” basically saying that you can buy happiness. But I do think that people need to express themselves visually, and because technology is becoming such a prime role in our lives, it fits that we could express ourselves visually with those products. I think that expressing yourself through you belongings is not a bad thing, but it should not be the only way that someone expresses their personality.
Alexis Newton
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #8
Last week’s discussion about ADBUSTERS was very interesting to me, I think, because I am very interested in the field of advertising and in marketing. Seeing the type of work that ADBUSTERS does was really cool. When the audience views one of ADBUSTERS pieces, they may first think that it is another advertisement like the ones they are used to seeing everyday, but I think that this makes the ads have more of an impact when people realize what they really are saying.
I love how ADBUSTERS comments on the parts of advertising that are used as tactics to get consumers to buy, buy, and buy. As I discussed in class with my group, I think that if the work of ADBUSTERS was made more mainstream and more consumers were to see it everyday, the advertising industry would have to change drastically. I believe this is true because people would become more aware of the tactics that advertising agencies and big corporations are using to persuade people to buy their product. People would be able to see that advertisements today are not focused on the product itself, and the products capabilities and benefits, but on how the manufacturer, wants the consumer to believe, that their product is one that the consumer needs to have. This is where products and brand names around us begin to define “who we are,” and how we are seen by other people in society.
The American dream is no longer just about how much land you own; it is about how many things you own, and how advanced the technologies you use are. Within the past 5 years, it seems that the original iPod has become almost obsolete. It’s crazy to think back about my 9th birthday when getting a portable CD player was the newest, coolest thing, and that was only ten years ago. Now the cool thing is having the latest forms of technology. If you don’t have an iPod from the newest “generations”, where have you been? What about cell phones? Does ANYONE not have a cell phone? Why don’t you have a Facebook? It is amazing knowing that these products, whose advertisements have taken over our sight everyday, have become what is expected to have. People just need to know that they don’t need all of these things to survive. ADBUSTERS can make them realize that.
Weekly Statement #10
ReplyDeleteI’ve looked on the Adbusters website a few times ever since we finished reading it. Now when I watch TV and watch the ads I have a whole new light on what I’m seeing before me. Just now I was watching the Food Network’s commercials and an advertisement for Poptarts came up. It’s funny because the commercial stated at the Poptarts now have 7 vitamins and minerals inside their product. Although that still doesn’t make it less healthy. Our group project is dealing with a lot of wrappers and it just happens that most of them from Poptarts. The ingredient block on the back does list the vitamins and minerals as the commercial states, but the amount of saturated fats, sugar, and sodium is still considerably high. I wouldn’t eat this product at all just because of how terrible it still is for you. Culture Jam seems like it is blowing hot smoke about how corrupted America’s society is, but when I watch TV and look at some of the ads I am I started to see just what the book is talking about. The McDonald’s commercial and other junk food airs on most channels I watch: Fox, ABC, Cartoon Network, etc. Although when I go to channels like the Food Network healthier choices like Pistachios and Rice crackers are aired coupled with a higher quality meat choices.
Some of the toy commercials make me cringe. I look at these ads on TV with a new perspective and I understand what the game the advertising firm is playing on the children. They try to get them excited for their toy with fun filming effects and in-and-out close-ups while someone is narrating with an excited voice. I watch thee commercials and see that I fell for this ploy when I was younger because of how “excited” I felt when I saw them on TV. Christmas time I would ask for things for the sake of asking rather than for things I truly wanted. Once I came to the realization that I was doing this, the pile of things I received for Christmas each year shrunk. Nowadays my parents have to call me or bother me about things I want, but rather than asking for things that I want I ask for things that I need like a new pair of tennis shoes to replace my old ones with holes in the sole. It’s a mentality that we all need to learn to follow when it comes to the holidays. Pretty soon we shouldn’t be asking for things or expect them, but I think we're still too "far away" from that to expect anyone to do that.
Weekly statement 9
ReplyDeleteCommercials have a huge impact on our lives. They affect the way we think, we see things and most importantly what we buy. I thought the statement “all Americans are dreaming the same American dream” is funny when I first read it. But then I realize it is true. I start to realize the problem of mass media. We are manipulated by them.
We learned a little bit about public art in ADP I and II. No doubt they have pretty strong power when it comes to protest. Just like public art, commercial works the same. It is publicized media delivering certain message. And we as audience have no immune to them.
However adbusters are the same except that they deliver the opposite message. Instead of suggesting people to buy more, they suggest that we have too much stuff and we should stop. They reveal a lot of truths in our society that are hidden by the mass commercials. I think adbusters help me to realize a lot of things such as I use certain brands to represent myself; I spend money and buy stuff to show people I care about them, etc. through this class it was my first time heard about adbuster. I wish it would be more widespread so more people would know about the truth behind all the commercials and our consuming society. I hope adbusters will be shown on TV. It will be a awakening call for a lot of consumers , it will also do a good job to educate them to shop wisely, not just follow whatever it is shown or said on TV.