Stereotyping in Advertising

It's safe to say that in the modern society we live in today that racism sexist and other types of stereotyping have demonised well beyond from what they use to be like. While I'm still aware that stereotyping does exist in the modern society; it does not carry the weight that it did in the past. With that being said, it is never right to racially stereotype in an advertisement. Advertisements in the past had always used racial stereotyping to appeal to the audience through what was perceived of that race. These assumptions that the advertisements led were then pushed on to the readers or viewers to give them the false ideas of a race. While stereotyping was used purposely in the past, in present time stereotyping is used much more unknowingly and sublimely. I do not believe that racism in advertisements is a thing of the past but it has improved from the past. The problem is when an ad creator makes an ad that is not intended to be racist but still interpreted as racist. That is the problem many ads face today, giving off small messages of stereotyping. With as much influence as the media has today I find that advertisers do have and ethical responsibility to up hold to not bring anyone race down. Also found in advertising today is positive stereotyping; as seen in this ad with Amy Poehler asking the Asian American hundreds of tech questions. The stereotype here is that Asian have more improved skills with technology compared to other races.

Stereotyping in Television

Workaholics is about 3 college drop outs that found their way in to the telemarketing business, but these 3 employees are not the typical office workers. The premise of the show is the guys Adam, Anders, and Blake are all roommates/cubical mates every episode the guys are taking drugs, partying, and having the time of their lives while being a slave for TelAmeriCorp. During the show there isn't always a strong range of racial diversity but the show does portray some gender diversity. Having 3 white males play as the main characters makes the audience lose sight of some diversity, but I feel that this show does bring in characters that do give it a range of racial and gender diversity. This show doesn't highlight on racial or gender diversity but more so skims it.

The show does make several strong stereotypes more focusing on gender than racial but some racial stereotypes may be pointed out during the show. The show always has the character Adam(shown on the left of the picture) trying to become a professional body builder; Adam believes that he is huge and has to keep getting bigger to show his manliness during the show. This is a negative stereotype for men trying to show masculinity through size and muscles. While this is a negative stereotype the show also does give positive stereotypes; for instance, the guys boss Alice is a strong independent women who manages the company and she is typically the one who resorts order with her power. This is a positive stereotype for women giving her the management position and making her character succeed over the 3 male characters.

Semiotics Messages In Disguise

Every ad we look at we either get the message or we don't and it is through semiotics where we are able to comprehend the ad or not. Semiotics show us both the blatant evidence of the ad and also it brings us a subliminal message of the ad that you may or my not recognize but is still there to persuade us as consumers. This brings be in to the denotation and connotation of advertisements. Last class we learned that the denotation of an ad was the literal or obvious message trying to be told; while on the other hand we have connotation which relates to the the audience's social culture or personal associations. Add the connotation and denotation with signs in the ad and that's the basis for practically every ad.

 

 

 

 

Here in this ad we have a two adorable baby animals looking the reader right in their eyes, then off the the right in big bold letters "Why love one but eat the other?" Right away we can see that the denotation of the ad is the two lovable animals sitting right next to each other one being a pig and the other a puppy. The ad is implying you wouldn't eat a puppy so why eat a pig when they are equally as cute. The connotation is that people in the US often take up dogs as pets over pigs but really they are both able to be house pets so don't eat them!



 



 

 

 

In this ad from a magazine (unknown) we can see a baby crying which as a human nature we want to fix, no one likes seeing babies cry! The baby crying is the denotation along with the box of diapers at the bottom here we can make then connection that the baby is crying because she needs to be changed. The not so obvious part to this add is the title where it says shes gotta have it this part is inferring that the parent should be on top of diaper duty and have diapers on demand for when ever "She" needs them.

 

 

 

 

 

This last ad is an ad for Direct TV about how their cable DVR is always full with shows and not enough room for more. The Denotation of the ad is how the two friends come pair cable to extremely bad memories, making cable seem like a bad time at the dentist of a chomped finger from the zoo. The connotation of this ad taps in to our everyday lives, seeing either of those bad instances could bring up our own memories to relate to the subject mater making one cable is as bad as the audiences bad memories. I overall like these Direct TV ads they're to funny to love.

Rock Brands

Brands are the rock stars of the business world; there are the ones you want to see and the ones you could care less about. Brands bring this sense of pride or shame to the products we buy. As we discussed in Mondays class there are so many different brands for the same product but who is better, or do we even care who is better? Most drug companies such as Advil, Vicks Dayquil, Peptobismol  all get their product from the same place as the store owned brand only difference is the drugs are sent to different packaging companies (and sometimes that's not even true, its the same company with two brands). I think for most people including myself we do take brands in to consideration, but i think there are certain products that we as consumers look at brands in a bigger way. Do you want to look like Dr. Dre and have bumping headphones for a ridicules price or get the same quality of sound but less attractive and cheaper alternative like Bose. Most of my generation would want the Beats but that's the magic of brands Bose still exists and still sells products to others. It's funny I don't own a pair of Beats by Dre and I've only used them say once or twice in a store but i trust that brand through my peers; this brand already has trust with consumers that haven't even bought their product yet. While myself and other trust brands though our peers some people trust their brands so much they go and brand themselves. I don't know do you love a brand enough to do this? Are you a Rock Brand?

Advertising Wizard

After getting that amazing presentation from Mr. Dahman I am wow'ed about the amount of detail that is put into the advertising world. With technology making such large strides Diermar explained how they (the advertising world) are always looking for the newest way to get the consumers attention and to maintain the attention. But as Dahman explained also we as consumers move faster to; we require the "new" faster, more frequent updates, and we want it now! This idea that Dahman introduced was the term "nowism" along with "first-ism". These words are how businesses and companies look at us as consumers now, like piranhas in water starving for the newest and latest idea so they can swarm and feast on the idea until there is nothing left of it to move on to something newer. With having consumers moving at such a fast rate the idea makers are inclined to move at a faster rate to keep up and to push on to the future. During Dietmars presentation looking in the future I am only excited to see what the world brings next, personally I'm looking forward to "digital dust" (how Dertmar explained) or Holograms