Christine Neals



Christine Neals4/27/12EDU 100Alternative Assignment Advertising or Brainwashing? It’s no secret that television commercials and magazine advertisements are filled with subliminal messages affecting how we feel about the product and whether we have the urge to splurge or not. Ever since I was young and saw the tall, thin supermodel advertising a chocolate product she would never be caught dead eating or a cool cowboy striking up a cigarette attracting the eye of a scantily clad woman, I have been fascinated with advertising and how it works. There are so many children in the world today who are growing up faster than ever and I feel a big part of this is advertisements children and their parents are being brainwashed by. What makes an ad or a television commercial effective? Why does it seem to be that sex truly does sell and is this effecting children like it does adults? How do we reinforce the right messages to our students and children in general when they are being bombarded by all this false advertising? The commercials you tend to see on television networks such as PBS are usually filled with child-friendly characters such as Clifford, Curious George and Elmo. Commercials on channels geared towards very young children are usually quite innocent and friendly since they are most likely being aired on a publically funded network. However, once the child gets to be a little older and begins to watch shows on networks such as Disney Channel or Nickelodeon they begin to see commercials for clothes, shoes, toys, and food, among many other things. This is when advertising really begins to affect children’s thoughts and opinions about products and affects the decisions they make when purchasing products. Seeing familiar actors, celebrities or athletes children look up to endorsing a certain brand or product will make the child more likely to want to purchase the product rather than if a less-known actor was the endorser. Using these well-known faces children can look up to definitely has an impact on whether or not they want the product. The fast food industry is a master when it comes to false advertising, especially amongst impressionable children. They use techniques such as taking familiar nursery-rhyme songs such as “Do you know the muffin man” and re-mixing them to sing about the McDonalds blueberry muffins. Children hear a song they’re familiar with but instead of the usual words there are new lyrics regarding McDonald’s fast food, which leaves a familiar and lasting impression in the child’s mind. Other fast food chains such as Burger King use celebrities like Mary J. Blige to film commercials about their new crispy chicken wraps. Children and young teens see a face and singer they’re familiar with singing about Burger King’s food and want to go out and get it. False advertising is not the only cause in childhood obesity, but it is not helping the situation either. Parents and teachers need to be aware of these catchy tunes and commercials children see every day whether it be on TV, in a magazine, or even walking by a billboard and warn them of the dangers of false advertising. According to the Stanford School of Medicine’s “Scope” Blog1; a group of pediatricians and researchers at Texas A&M International University conducted a study to see just how much fast food advertising affected children between the ages of 3 and 5. The study split a group of 75 children into two groups, “one of which watched a series of two cartoons and a commercial for French fries, while the second group watched the same cartoons and a commercial for apple slices with dipping sauce”. After viewing the cartoons and commercials the children were allowed to pick one coupon for either the French fries or the apple slices with help from parents. Half of the parents urged their child to pick the coupon for the healthier option of apple slices and dipping sauce while the other half remained neutral in the decision. “Among the children who saw the commercial for French fries, 71 percent chose the fries coupon if their parents remained neutral while only 55 percent of the children chose the French fry coupon after being encouraged by their parents to chose the apples”. However, of the children who saw the commercial for apple slices “46 percent chose the coupon for French fries if their parents remained neutral while 33 percent chose the coupon for fries after being encouraged to select the apples.” I don’t think Fast Food chains should be told to take commercials off of specific channels that are geared towards children, it’s not 100 percent their fault the child is opting for fast food. The commercial being aired may lead the child to ask for fast food for dinner but it is the parent or teachers responsibility to educate children of the dangers of obesity and provide them with tasty and healthy alternatives to fast food. Some may argue that Fast foods are misleading children and are harmful and wrong, but I feel the Fast food companies are actually being smart. They know giving people visuals of their food will make them crave it, therefore increasing their sales. Although this technique may be seen as “evil” or unfair the Fast food companies are only trying to rake in as much money as possible. Many people feel strongly about banning fast food advertisement but what they don’t realize is that there are so many other subliminal messages out there even more dangerous than these. For instance, when thinking of cigarette advertisements we picture cowboys, celebrities, “Mr. Cool” Joe Camel, and beautiful women lighting up with a smile on their face. We see these commercials and are aware of how they affect adults but they are forgetting our children see these ads as well and are even more impressionable than we are. Many different forms of subliminal messages include sexual innuendoes such as phallic symbols, half dressed women, the word “sex” itself, as well as all the familiar logos we see in TV shows all the time such as students using Mac Books, actors drinking from a coke can and including other products that are sponsoring the program. These tricks have been around since advertising began, even way back in the 50’s. One well-known subliminal message study was conducted by James Vicary in a New Jersey movie theatre back in 1957. Vicary flashed the words “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” for 3/1000s of a second and were displayed once every 5 seconds throughout the movie. Suddenly people became thirsty for coke and hungry for popcorn, which increased sales for popcorn by 57% and sales for Coca Cola by 18%. The same method is used today in a more obvious way. When watching a television program or a movie and seeing an actor walk across the screen eating a hot dog, we are suddenly left craving a hot dog. This method has proved to be extremely effective in the food industry. Many people tend to focus on how sexual messages affect adults, but what they fail to remember is that our children are seeing what we watch whether we know it or not. Just one moment of walking through the room and seeing what we have on the television leaves a lasting image in a child’s mind whether we are aware of it or not. A perfect example of this happened to me just recently. My seven-year-old cousin was walking through the room when I had the TV on while an advertisement for AXE body spray was being aired. The commercial consisted of a teenaged boy who sprays himself with the product and is immediately surrounded by beautiful models practically throwing themselves at him. A few moments later I smelled a strong cologne scent coming from the room he was in. I walked in to find him spraying himself with a bottle of his older brothers AXE spray. When I realized he had seen the ad I couldn’t believe how quickly what had affected his decision to run and find the product and practically douse himself in it. Today more than ever we need to teach children that there are many false advertisements out there that are very silly and unrealistic. The biggest issue I have with false advertising is the extreme use of Photoshop. More and more companies and magazines are over-using Photoshop to go beyond “enhancing” a photo but instead completely changing the shape of a persons body, hair and eye color, skin tone, and background to make the image look as “perfect” as possible. Children are seeing this and from a very young age are learning to hate their bodies and have serious issues such as body dysmorphic disorder. Seeing these beautiful women with perfect skin, large breasts and a tiny waste puts the impression that THIS is what all women should look like into a young girls head. These issues also occur amongst young boys who see “G-I Joe” look-alikes on the cover of magazines with six packs and perfect smiles. Recently Glamour Magazine has begun to address this issue of “How much is too much?”2. In the article, Shaun Dreisbach takes a photo sent in by a subscriber of herself and her husband on the beach. After a “normal” amount of re-touching done by most magazines and advertisement campaigns, the couple thought the image was “scary” and extremely shocking to see how many differences there were from before to after. Altering images for an ad campaign is becoming more popular and becoming increasingly unrealistic and extreme by the year. With all the commercials spanning from Dunkin Donuts to Nike, from Cosmopolitan Magazine to Burger King, children are surrounded by false advertisement and dangerous messages. Teen pregnancy, fattening fast foods, cigarettes, expensive toys and electronics, weapons and thousands of other items are seen daily in the eyes of our children and students. We cannot prevent our children from seeing these advertisements but what we can do is stop them from becoming brainwashed by a company and giving into peer pressure and faulty marketing.0530225Some Advertisements I found containing subliminal messages… 0282575-228600-2286003200400-6858003429000621665-45720039306503320415-4572002971800297180018288002971800-228600-457200-457200CitationsStanford School of Medicine “Scope” Blog, Oct. 6 2011, Magazine, Shaun Dreisbach, 2012, ................
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