Along with the Rubik's Cube and the iPhone, the Harry Potter Series have been one of the best-selling product of all time. In 1990, Scholastic published the first Harry Potter book of the series and it was an instant success. The books became the top-selling series with sales totaling in $7.7 billion. The author of the series, J.K. Rowling, became one of the richest authors in the world. The books also became a successful movie series. Now that Rowling has agreed to put her books into electronic form, they have earned more than $1 million in just three days. The last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is one of the fastest selling books of all time. It sold $11 million copies within the first 24 hours of its release.
Being a consumer, I absolutely loved the Harry Potter book and movie series. I started reading them when I was about seven-years-old until I was in high school. I also grew up watching the movies at around the same time too. There was just something about these books that made it so fascinating to read, which is why I think that it was such a huge success. Everything about it was unique and creative and there was nothing else like it. That's what consumers like to see: something that's interesting and extraordinary. Like the Rubik's Cube and the iPhone, it was an "out-of-this-world" product and people enjoyed the appeal these products gave off. Having owned all seven books, Harry Potter has definitely been one of the best purchases I have made.
For an online workshop, my group and I discussed three different gender stereotypical ads. The first ad
is stereotyping women by saying that woman are
weak. In the print ad, the Alco HyTop bottle cap is easy to open that a woman
doesn't need to use a bottle opener, knife, or even a strong male to help her
open the bottle. The woman in the picture is holding the bottle and she looks
surprised that she (a woman) can open it. The second ad is a commercial that shows a little girl playing
"wife" in a playhouse and doing what normal housewives are
doing (cooking, cleaning, baking, taking care of baby, etc.) Being a housewife
is fine, but the problem is that the media is telling little girls that a
housewife is a women's role in society, which is not true. The media should be
telling girls at a young age that they can be anything they want to be when
they're older. It also gives the impression to little boys that girls will be
housewives when they're older, when men can also be the "housewife."
And lastly, the third ad is another commercial that shows
group of women having a picnic while
drinking diet Coke. They spot a man mowing the lawn and one of the girls rolls
the diet Coke to him down the hill. The girls tell him to drink it and he opens
the coke and it sprays all over him. The girls start laughing and he takes his
shirt off (in a sexy way) and the girls are staring as if they're in love with
him. If the roles were switched and there were a group of men staring at a sexy
woman, it would be wrong. Men can walk around with their shirts off and that's
okay, but if a woman were to do that, she could be deemed a "slut"
for being so provocative.
Have you ever seen those shirts with the black and white panda bear and the letters WWF on them? I always wondered what that meant and what was the purpose of it. Through research, I found out that WWF stands for "World Wildlife Fund" and it's mission is to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. They want to keep animals safe in their environment and protect them from extinction, like polar bears, pandas, and rhinos. This campaign is found almost every where from South America to Australia.
It's very important to raise attention about this to the general public. They ask for everyone to reduce humanity's impact on this life and in places where endangered species might live. A healthy, happy, thriving, living and ultimately diverse and wonderful world is all they want in return. And with our help, we might have that in the future.
FRIENDS. Everyone's guilty pleasure TV show. The hilarious sitcom is about 6 white New Yorkers, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, and Joey, who go through their daily lives with a few ups and downs. However in the show, there are close to no outside ethnic groups throughout the entire series. And when the 6 friends interfere with different races, they become challenged, feared, or disliked. The main characters of the show are always shown sitting on a huge couch at their favorite coffee shop called Central Perk, making everyone around them seem less important or not good enough for them. But, every time one of the six starts dating an ethnic person, there's conflict among the others.
For example, when Ross starts dating Julie, a Chinese-American, Rachel becomes jealous (since she has feelings for Ross) and is not only rude to her, but she doesn't let her friends hang out with her. In this clip, you see Rachel trying to be friends with Julie, but at the end of the clip, Rachel calls Julie a "manipulative bitch":
Another example would be when Rachel starts dating Paolo, a mysterious Italian man living in their apartment building. Ross absolutely hates Paolo's guts, because he wants to be with Rachel. And once again, when an ethnic character enters the circle of friends, there's conflict and jealousy among the characters. In this clip, Ross starts making fun of Paolo's accent:
Throughout the entire series of Friends, not one minority ever lasts for more than a few episodes. Only one character becomes accepted by the group, Phoebe's husband, Mike, who is a white middle-class, just like the rest of the group. Friends seems to keep that kind of white, middle-class status throughout the series and never has any ethnic character enter the group. The show does reflect racial diversity; however, most fans of the show (including me) seem to not care about that because of the comedic vibes the characters give off. The show is not a huge problem for racial diversity, but it is something to realize and take note of.
As I was reading articles on racial stereotypes, I came across a quote from Junot Diaz who said, "Stereotypes, they're sensual, cultural weapons. That's the way that we attack people. At an artistic level, stereotypes are terrible writing." Racial stereotypes, whether harmful or hurtful, tend to be based on a lot of truth. They exist because people still perpetuate them. I believe it is wrong to racially stereotype in anything especially advertising. It gives people the wrong impression. Why focus on one main characteristic, when we can learn about other factors in a certain culture? The problem with racial stereotypes is that people like to generalize instead of accepting that one person's mistake is not a representation of a whole race.
I feel like there is some racism in advertising, but it has reduced over the years. More ads have been using Hispanic and Asian models, but not so much African Americans. I don't think advertisers intentionally create racism in ads. They have to avoid complaints, but they can't please everyone. And advertisers do have ethical responsibilities and guidelines in place for them to follow. They want to be nice to everyone because they want to sell their product and make it successful.
Last week in class, we discussed gender stereotypes and how men and women are portrayed in advertisements. While searching for a historical ad, I came upon this Clorox print ad:
This ad for Clorox, a cleaning product, shows that only women know how to clean. For years, women have been portrayed as housewives in advertisements, movies, TV shows, cartoons, and other places. Not all women are housewives (some men are house"husbands"). This ad portrays women as a housewife who can clean, cook, and accomplish other household chores that men or children cannot do, when in fact, this is completely wrong and stereotypical against women. Now forward to the future, and here is a more recent Clorox print ad:
This print ad shows the Clorox wipes product and a dragon made out of those wipes about to "attack" the mess on the table. The print ad reads, "Be afraid germs, be very afraid." No women are depicted in this advertisement, which shows that ANYONE, not just housewives, can use this product to clean up messes. The dragon shows that these wipes are powerful and it's simple and easy to use. Clorox ads today have improved a lot since and instead of using women for their advertisements, they are now using their imagination to show that anyone can use their product. Well done, Clorox.
On Monday, we learned about using semiotics while observing and analyzing different kinds of advertisements. I, for one, had no idea what semiotics even meant at the beginning of class, but it's simple. Semiotics are used to help enable us to make sense of visual imagery and associated advertising messages. Here are some examples of semiotic analysis.
A print add for the lollipop Chupa Chups. Here we have a lollipop on the ground (looks like it was dropped on the ground). Usually when we see some sort of candy on the floor, it attracts ants because ants love sugar. In the picture, the ants are avoiding the lollipop on the ground. Why? To show that this lollipop is sugar free. And since the lollipop is sugar free, it won't attract ants! I thought this was a clever print advertisement.
Next we have a billboard advertisement from McDonald's. Here we have the infamous red and yellow colors. Anyone who looks at this ad will automatically know what brand it is. The golden arches says it all! No words on this billboard except for measurements and arrows pointing to the nearest McDonald's location. The billboard pretty much says "Hey if you're hungry McDonald's is 200 meters away!" And if you move three more meters to the right, "Only 197 meters to go...." The billboard is persuading to go to McDonald's by using measurements! If I saw this ad, I would probably consider going there because of the taunting messages.
And lastly, we have this Coca Cola T.V. commercial. It shows a married couple having a baby and showing a Coca Cola bottle in a few scenes. This commercial perfectly captures what it's like being a parent and having Coca Cola by their side. From the pregnancy test to their baby growing up and to having another baby, the Coca Cola bottle always appeared to assure you that it will be their through the ups and the downs. Very cute and somewhat emotional commercial.
