This is what a feminist looks like.

Emma Watson has lately made the news, the tweets and blogs quite often, after she started the new HeforShe campaign with the United Nations. Suddenly she changed from being just a normal actress to an advocate for women´s rights. Her powerful speech at the United Nations Summit in September started a wave of feminism all over the media. The new issue of the Elle.uk is called the feminist issue and has Emma Watson on the cover (picture below). But what it this all about? Is Elle just using the new wave of feminism?

The whole issue is made by women and is therefore supposed to be feminist. While this is a great idea, I get the feeling that the magazine just wanted to jump the bandwagon. Emma Watson is not only advocating women to stand up and embrace their rights/power, but also men to stand up and encourage women to speak for themselves and insist on their equal rights. This whole topic is somehow getting lost in the magazine. 

The question is: Did Elle just use Emma Watson and her new campaign to sell more magazines? Or did Emma Watson make a decision to try to reach more women by bringing her campaign into the magazine? I am pretty sure that both are the case in this situation. Elle is very much using the topic as a advertisement for themselves, while Emma Watson needs to broaden her base which she tries to do by entering into the living room of women through a popular magazine. Both partners are benefitting from this. 

All in all I do like this commercial, because it has a good cause. People might also think about the questions I raised before, but I believe that it is a good way to start a conversation on this topic. Women will be confronted by all of these strong women standing up for themselves and maybe this inspires the readers to stand up and speak up as well. 

Marketing on Instagram

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/14-instagram-data-findings-every-marketer-needs-know-160969

Instagram is a social media platform that allows their users to engage in posting pictures and videos. In this article about the 14 Instagram Data Findings That Every Marketer Needs to Know, I found it really interesting that now more than ever, image based networks are more effective in capturing the attention of their audiences.

The article on Adweek provides statistics and advice on what marketers need to know about using Instagram as a platform to market their products. I personally think that social media has been an extremely useful tool for all the marketers out there. Taking Instagram as an example, when a company posts a picture to their Instagram account, their followers (generally, people who really like the product) will like and comment on the pictures, which generates publicity. However, the marketers are also able to reach a much larger audience. When a person likes something, people who follow them will be able to see this on their newsfeed, and sometimes, on the popular page. Just as mentioned in 'Generation Like' users of social media are now being used by these companies to further promote their product and the worst part is most of them are not aware of this.

I personally do not follow any big companies on Instagram, but sometimes I do see some advertising on the popular page. What about everyone else, do you follow any brands?

Beauty in Media

As we have been discussing about advertisements in media, I recently read an article about how the beauty portrayed in media is affecting the public. It seems as if the celebrities that people see through media have the same influence on the public as any advertisements. We often hear that appearances are important; if we change them, our lives will improve. In order to be accepted by the society, many continuously go under plastic surgery.

Renée Zellweger seemed to have done much plastic surgery, as it could be clearly be observed compared to the past. Before the surgery, she used to have chubby cheeks, but now it is quite unrecognizable that she has lost those chubbiness. Although it has not been clearly stated that she actually went through the plastic surgery, people are more curious about why people in general want to do the surgery. 

If so many celebrities put something in their face or take something out of their face constantly, it would mean that there is a strong trend of plastic surgery. Those wanting to be beautiful would want to be like the celebrities they like, and do plastic surgery as well. In my opinion, so many people want to do plastic surgery because they are quite worried about their appearances in that they want to look beautiful to others and want to be accepted by the society. 

Facebook Elections

For the last week or so, we've been discussing how social media influences our spending. Since many of us in the class are aware of the power of Facebook, I thought this Buzzfeed article on the 2016 elections would be appropriate. Personally, I do not engage in political discussions (and am often way out of my comfort zone when people bring up the topic) but this article was simple enough to understand the shift in advertisements regarding elections.

Rather than spending multi-million dollars on a television ads, the political parties will focus more time on social media, specifically Facebook. As the writer Ben Smith states, "the way people share will shape the outcome of the presidential election". In two years, I suspect more people will be influenced by social media than through TV/paper ads or even word of mouth. 

The amount of people discussion their political views on Facebook has contributed to a new research branch called "sentiment analysis". This statistical analysis method is hoping to predict the election results based off of people's writings on Facebook. Like advertising, statistical analysis is using what Facebook users post in order to stereotype them, placing them into certain political groups. According to Smith, a flaw in this method is that the programs are unable to detect sarcasm. But then again, even humans find it hard to detect through text. Another thing to note is that the Facebook population is only a sample size, not population size. This skewed sample is not representative of everyone who is able to and will vote during the 2016 election.

A small detail that I encountered in this article was that Facebook would maintain anonymity and will not share results to groups under one thousand people. Translation: no go to small companies, yes go to big companies that pay big bucks. Like the articles that we read last week addressing anonymity, big companies like Facebook claim to protect our personal information. However, our information, in this case political standpoint, will be sold to large companies for large sums... all in the name of political research. Once again, social media users are the easy targets of large markets, in this case: politics. 

Interesting note: there is a red box at the bottom that says "you need to accept third-party cookies in your browser (aka advertisements) in order to comment using this social plugin (Facebook)". Social media is always linked to  advertisements. But then again, that is how they choose profit. 

Amazon Fire Phone takes away childhood

As usual, before enjoying any video on Youtube, I have to spend the first 15 seconds watching advertisements. Amazon Fire Phone’s new advertisement below did better than any advertisements I was forced to watch last week as I forgot to click “Skip Ad”. However, I was attracted not because it was a great advertisement (barely!) but because I was shocked watching it.

Besides the fact that Amazon exploits children’s cuteness to advertise, the situation it creates to tell a story disgusts me. Two nine-year-old children spend time alone in a café, browsing their new phones instead of playing outside and enjoying fresh air. My mind was attacked by millions of questions: When did children start to grow up so early and to act like adults going to work? When did they begin to prefer sitting still instead of running? Or when did smart phones start to influence their life so much that they can lecture/ advertise to two adults about benefits? To me, these children are not nine years old. They are not even cute or naïve as they should be or as their images should be promoted…

Children are forced to get out of childhood earlier and earlier. Advertisers mercilessly attack them from every aspect of life. Through its advertisement, Amazon Fire Phone brings adult’s heated communication to children’s world. How long will it take for children nowadays to be able to communicate through screens only?

Goldieblox vs. The Big Sister Machine

The infamous Goldieblox company is at it again with a new ad. The company, which became popular last year with a viral ad, main purpose is to encouraging young girls to get into engineering. Their new ad titled, "Goldieblox vs. the big sister machine" features an assembly line of girls dressed identically in pink heels and pink vests, grabbing barbie-like dolls off a conveyer belt. While a women who is assumed to be "big sister" chants “You are beauty and beauty is perfection” from a T.V screen. All hope seems to be lost for the this next generation of little girls, for they are too caught up in what is stereotypical. That is until an overall clad blond sneaks into the line with a hammer and breaks the machine. The company then announces that there will be a new action figure for girls, and we can assume that this action figure was the girl that broke the machine.

I think that the Goldieblox company is a great one, and that their cause is noble, but this ad left something to be desired. First, in comparison to their first ad I just didn't think it was as poignant, or as cute. Second, i'm not sure what they are trying to do. Is this new action figure going to go around stealing dolls from "girly girls," because dolls are supposedly bad now? I don't think it is good that little girls are sold a narrow variety of toys, and that they all seem to be shallow, and I do think that Goldieblox's goal (to entice girls into the field of engineering) is a great one. However, it seems like in this new ad is saying that in order to be this new breed of young girls, you can't like traditional girly things. pinning two stereotypes "girly girl" and "tomboy" against each other is not going to lead to the reform in childhood toys that Goldieblox wants. Regardless, seeing these types of ads and these types of companies is heartening, and I hope to see the trend continue.

McDonald's to Change its Slogan

We all grew up watching McDonalds commercials with Ronald Mcdonald creepily playing with children and then watched as those commercials changed with time just as the size of the food they serve seemed to have shrunk over the years. The one thing that stayed the same throughout the years, though, had been its famous slogan, "I'm Lovin' It." It came a shock when The Wall Street Journal reported that the chain would be launching its new slogan, "Lovin' Beats Hatin" in January of next year. It's famous tagline, "I'm Lovin' It" followed by the catchy melody, "bah dah bah bah bah" has been universal between all of the McDonalds chains around the world since 2003.






This won't be the first time has tried to make a change in their slogan, though. Previous attempts to find the perfect marketing tagline has included, "We love to see you smile," and, "Did somebody say McDonalds." With their newly released mascot of
the slightly shady happy meal, do you think a change in their tagline will be too much change for the company happening too soon or do you suspect these changes will result in successful marketing for the company?