Commercials!!

Some of my favorite ads are first aired, of course, during the Super Bowl. Since in grade school when i didn't give a flip about football (I still don't), I always watched the Super Bowl (at least portions of it) primarily for the commercials. The Advertisements during this time are funnier, well put together and are just great. The best commercials in my opinion are the FUNNY ones. Some of my favorite commercials from this past Super Bowl in February are as followed:

1. The Chocolate M&M commercial "Just My Shell"
2. Even though they aren't my favorite, I have to say it surprises me to no end how the GO Daddy.com commercials time and time again bank on the fact that sex sells.
3. Best Buy "Innovators"
4. The Coca Cola Polar Bears (their so cute!)
5. The eTrade Baby Commercials (he's cute too!)
6. The Pepsi "Kings Court" commercial with Elton John
7. The Audi Vampire commercial
8. The Doritos's "Man's Best Friend"

Actually one of my favorite commercials ever is a Doritos Commercial... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bptmb0Ygmus

The Link to see any of the other commercials can be seen at this website as well: http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/46/commercials#video=09000d5d826a052a

Big Ideas on the Advertising Industry (Ch. 13)

1. Controversy
2. Controversy
3. And MORE Controversy

For the the chapter of Advertising, I wanted to focus on the issues pertaining to this industry. Since its beginning, advertising has had its down sides. In the late 1800s the advertising industry was truly out of control, filled with a lot of puffery, or exaggeration in advertising claims. Most of this came from patent drugs at the time that claimed to cure gout, tuberculosis, cancer, heart disease, and pretty much anything (but they didn't). Many of these drugs actually contained mostly alcohol and addictive drugs such a cocaine, which is illegal today, and morphine. In response to all of this craziness, a number of things happened. The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906; the Federal Trade Commission was established as an advertisement watchdog; The U.S Postal Service took the responsibility to overlook the ads sent out in the mail; The FDA oversaw as about food, drugs, cosmetics, and health products. However, wanting to strengthen their credibility, the Industry formed The American Association of Advertising Agencies, with the pledge made in 1924 to follow a published code of ethics in advertising, which is still in affect today.

Other concerns of the work of Advertisers is the amount, or lack, of truth put into ads, and the direction of certain ads to children and teens. The use of cartoon characters or young actors in commercials are obviously targeted toward young people, but unfortunately some of these tactics are used in Alcohol and cigarette ads.

In Conclusion, even though some of the strategies used by the Advertising Industry are questionable, I feel as though these professional are doing their jobs. There is no way of stopping them from getting people from buying their products because THAT IS THEIR BUSINESS. And besides lobbying against certain ads and strategies, I don't feel as though advertisers will ever stop trying to trick or manipulate people into buying their products. Sorry.

Big Ideas On Public Relations (Ch. 12)

1. Ivy Ledbetter Lee/ Edward and Doris Bernays
2. Strategies used by Public Relations Professionals
3. Controversies

Starting in the early 20th century, Ivy Lee was blazing the trail for modern PR professionals. He is widely recognized as being the "Father of the modern public relations industry". Lee was responsible for changing the way public relations was published: Instead of lying to the public or ignoring the publics concerns, Lee believed that businesses should go out of their way to be on the same page as the public and their interests, not the other way around. He also believed that corporations should fit a certain image that PR professionals build for them, in order to appeal to the general public. This tactic has proved effective and works in today's society because most Big corporations rely on their PR representatives to give an image to the public...an image that helps the publics forget about the old white RICH very rich men that are probably the CEO of the corporation who don't really care about anything but getting money, kind of like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of our time.

Likewise, Edward and Doris Bernays made strides in the PR Industry because they opened the communication between their clients and the public. They were the one's to coin the term "public relations counsel" and start the first PR course at NYU in 1923.

The strategies used by PR professionals include: News Management, Community Relations, Crisis Management, and Lobbying. These strategies are in connection with the controversies and criticism of their work. One of the controversy is centered on the practice of "spinning" a story. The definition varies between public relation professionals, who say its telling a story by putting the best possible face to the facts, and critics, who say that its a form of lying.

So as conclusion, after reading this chapter I found that I had no questions about the PR profession and its future in society. People will ALWAYS need public relations because businesses, corporations, individuals always want to be liked by the public. The only difference is how that message is projected, and as technology improves so will PR.

Ten of My Favorite Movies!

A list of my favorite movies...ever

1. "Pride and Prejudice"- (2005)
2. "Avatar"- (2009)
3. "Sex and the City"-(2008)
4. "Iron Man" movies- (2008)
5. "X-Men" movies- (2000- )
6. "Tangled"- (2010)
7. "Little Miss Sunshine"- (2006)
8. "Meet Joe Black"- (1998)
9. "The Notebook"- (2004)
10. "Diary of a Mad Black Women" (all Madea Movies)- (2005- )
11. "The Parent Trap"- (1998)
12. "Step Up" movies (only the first three)- (2006- )
13. "Slumdog Billionaire"- (2008)
14. "Inception"- (2010)
15. "Pirate of the Caribbean" movies- (2003- )

Obviously I have more than ten movies on this list...I can list even more movies but I'll stop here

Big Ideas of The Television Industry (ch. 9)

1. The Golden Age of Television (Not so Golden)
2. The establishment of Cable TV
3. Video Recording

From 1948-1958 television experienced a Golden Age of TV programming and good quality shows. However this period brought about the beginnings of a ongoing problem in television: Stereotyping and Non Diversity. Television shows like the widely popular I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best portrayed women as incompetent housewives and incapable of succeeding outside of the household. Most shows at this time didn't have any colored actors in the cast as primary characters; they were only presented as secondary characters such as cook, maids, and chauffeurs. This problem has escalated over the years and programming on TV is still a matter of controversy as more violence, sexual activity, suggestive dialogue, and foul language is shown on TV. In recent years minority groups such as The National Organization for Women (NOW) and the NAACP, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, have pushed for better representation on television. Also, the parental advisory rating have been implemented to programs as a guide of the content.

Cable TV was established in the 1950's as a way to receive clearer reception of TV (network television). However the branching of of pay cable channels has opened a plethora of TV program selection for consumers. As discussed in the textbook, cable providers have a selection of hundreds of channels, but on average the consumers are only watching 15 of the channels: I myself can attest to this fact, i have my primary favorite channels and occasionally will find something good to watch on any other channel, but even then I have Hundreds of channels that i have never watched in my life. SO this leads to my question: Will cable providers eventually bend to the demands of people and offer their channels in a "a la carte" pricing (meaning consumers ail handpick the channels they wants and only pay for those channels)?

Lastly, the entrance of video recording in 1975 in the homes of Americans has started a major problem with television network execs: More than ever people are "time shifting", the term used when individuals tape the programs they want to watch on video recorder in order to watch it later. First the VCR, and not TiVo and DVRs have caused issues in the television industry. This is mainly because people have the ability to fast forward through commercials, which defeats the reason for them because advertisers spend good people for people to see their ads. Now if people aren't watching commercials then advertisers will see no need to spend thousands of dollars to the stations of networks, which is bad because they need that money to produce their programs. So...How will the Tv industry deal with possible decreases in advertisers? Will Advertisers eventually start pulling out or demanding reduced ad space costs?

Shows/TV moments of the 2000's!

If I were to make a video montage of all of the most popular shows of the 2000's, I would include the following:

1. Bush/Gore Election results
2. The attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2002
3. American Idol
4. Survivor
5. The Amazing Race
6. Malcolm in the Middle
7. Who wants to be a Millionaire
8. Family Guy
9. Spongebob Squarepants
10. Avatar: The Last Airbender
11. Hannah Montana
12. High School Musical
13. CSI
14. NCIS
15. The Bachelor
16. Project Runway
17. How I Met Your Mother
18. The Big Bang Theory
19. Two and a Half Men
20. Grey's Anatomy
21. Ugly Betty
22. Glee
23. 24
24. Coverage of Hurricane Katrina
25. Curb your Enthusiasm
26. Breaking Bad
27. Modern Family
28. Desperate Housewives
29. Top Chef
30. Real Housewives Franchise
31. Jersey Shore
32. The Hills
33. Flavor Of Love
34. The Apprentice
35. America's Next Top Model
36. House
37. President Barack Obama's Inauguration
38. The Office
39. 30 Rock
40. Lost
41. Coverage of The Earthquake in Japan
42. The Soprano's
43. Mad Men
44. True Blood
45. The Death of Osama Bin Laden
46. Honey Boo Boo
47. Dancing With the Stars
48. Prince William and Kate Middleton's Wedding
49. Death of Micheal Jackson
50. Death of Whitney Houston

P.S I did not intend to include ALL of these shows/events but once I got started all the idea just came to me.

Big Ideas for the Movie Industry (Ch. 6)

1. The Motion Picture Patents Company (aka the Trust)
2. Distribution: Domestic vs. International
3. Stereotypes in Movies

The Motion Picture Patents Company was the idea of Thomas Edison in 1908 to control the technology of the film industry. Film producers had to pay a patent use fee in order to make movies, a fee they were unwilling to pay. Although the Trust had the money and power to improve the quality of motion pictures, the lack of competition in the film industry at that time made it too expensive for independent groups to produce movies. So at the time, the industry's center was in New York City, but in order to escape the Trust, filmmakers moved to California to make movies. And thus Hollywood was born. I don't know if the film industry would have made the move to California if the trust didn't come into existence BUT I found this fact interesting because movie from that point on continued to evolve and California became the ideal place for movies to be made down to this day.

The Next point that I found interesting was the international distribution of movies. Up until the 1970s, domestic theatrical accounted for most of a feature film's revenue, but since then international revenue for a movie has become more important. In some instances movie studios make more in revenue from international theatres. Of course, being about two years old, the chart in the textbook concerning the top grossing movies of all time is a little inaccurate, but when I looked online for the most current list I found that all of the movies listed in each list had one common thread: THE WERE ALL ACTION MOVIES! when I did a little more research i found that all of them mad more money in international sales then in domestic. For example, Avatar, the top gossing movie coming in at.....2, 700,000,000 bucks made the bulk of its revenue, the 2 billion, in international sales. So with this much money I can't help but wonder...will the international sales influence the type of movies made? has it already? (question of the day)

Lastly, stereotyping in movie has been a matter of controversy for many years. Critics say that the portrayal of certain minority and majority groups in movies can be very offensive. Movie producers respond by saying that stereotypes are an ingredient in story telling; shortcuts to making characters. After much thought, I came to the decision that I was on the side of the movie producers.  In literature, there are archetypes which are universally understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype). I think that in movies there are archetypal characters or situation, but movies are stories brought to film, so people can't get mad if they see something they don't like. There is a fine line between archetype and offensiveness, and as a member or two groups often stereotyped: being African American and a women, I feel as though movies are art, and art imitates life. Movies need characters and sometimes the inspiration for these characters are drawn from certain aspects of life that people don't find so pretty, but life isn't always pretty. So should movie writers and producers be penalized for imitating life in their films? What kind of movies can be drawn from that?