Fragrance Ads

I love perfumes and colognes because they all smell so different and mentally they give off a vibe and sometimes people identify you by the smells because they're used to you smelling a specific way.  I have favorite scents that I would re-buy if I could. I love the different ads they create to sell them. It's usually very sexy, feminine or masculine depending on the concept. One perfume ad that sticks out to me because it isn't only my favorite fragrance,  or that one of my favorite artist endorsed it, was Tommy Hilfiger's True Star for women. Beyonce was the model in their advertisements and she is one of my favorites because of how beautiful yet strong type of woman. She gives off the powerful woman image and true star is one of my faves because it's the perfect scent. I can wear it to any place, going out or just going to school. It smells wonderful and the commercial they used was very glamourous. She's singing and you can feel her star aura.

I also love Giorgio Armani's Aqua Di Gio's ads. They use a very attractive man that shows masculinity and how every woman is going to want the consumer if they use it. They also do this with their scent called Light Blue and they definitely target both males and females. Maybe the marketers think women are going to buy the cologne because they want their man to look and smell good like the males in the ads. It worked for me because I buy my boyfriend scents that I think smell good and give off a good vibe. I find it interesting that many fragrances use sex to sell their products, we see the models as sexy and seductive and for the most part it works. Rihanna has a fragrance called Nude that smells wonderful(personal favorite) and it's linked to the human body which is sexualized in our society. The body is a beautiful thing, too bad we think so negatively of it or we think sex is a bad thing. I think that's why I love fragrance ads the most because they sexualize everything and it's accepted by consumers.

Consumer Behavior: My personal favorites and connections

I realized just from the last lecture we had,  that I gravitate to specific brands and products simply because of the name or because I haven't had too many issues with them. I just recently switched over to all Apple products rather than just having an Iphone. I love my mac which is weird how a person can love a brand, but everyone says they love certain things, even materialistic things. I even thought about how I want Apple TV, yet I have Comcast and probably don't even need it but I am going to want the product because it is by Apple.  This changed when I seen the new Apple Watch, I changed my mind when a radio host said he already had a phone that showed the time and why would he want a watch that does what his phone does?! It was quite interesting and it made me rethink why I truly want a product. I also realized while I was shopping for work out clothes and only looked at the name brand ones and totally ignored the cheaper and more likely the same as the Nike or Adidas ones. Why must we only gravitate to specific brands, maybe it's like when our Prof said that it sometimes depends on the service they offer. He hates Chase bank because of the terrible service, I shockingly love Chase because they're very helpful whenever I need questions answered or problems solved. I have never really had an issue with my bank which is probably why I always tell people to get Chase bank or a credit union because I've had positive experiences with them.

I also gravitate to specific eating places because I don't like trying new food, I don't want to waste money on something I won't like. Food is the easiest thing to stick with since most people know what they like. Whenever I go home, I always eat at the same places. There's a pizza place called Me N Ed's that I have loved since I was small and nothing compares to that pizza place. I have gone to different pizza places and not one comes close to how good Me N Ed's pizza taste.

Everyone in our day and age gravitates to different products and brands or places that we won't ever leave because we believe in their message and their product. We've had positive experiences and negative ones that sometimes make the basis of our decisions.

Love and Hate

I never really thought about ads until this class taught me to think critically and showed me that everything is strategically placed in ads. I look at ads differently knowing the information I've learned since the beginning of the semester. I find them to be corny or annoying more than ever. I usually say that's not real or they planned that commercial thoroughly. One of my favorite commercials we've seen in class was the Subaru commercial that links love to their car. The portrayal of the actors in the commercial were very sweet and it felt as if it was genuine real love for someone else while featuring a car. You really felt the love at the end of the commercial or the display of love.

I hate pop up ads that don't go away!! The ads that pop up while I'm listening to music on pandora or on the radio. Maybe it's because I don't like the excessive amount that occur between every other song or that I'm too into the music.  Either way, they're really annoying. Over time TV shows show more commercials than they do the actual show and even movies show too many ads for different movies or brands.  I think advertising has it's pros and cons like most things in life. It definitely gets stuff out there and sometimes a little too much advertising and not enough content, but can we actually see television without ads selling random stuff to consumers, probably not.

Consumer Behavior: Yeezy Boost

The product that caught my eye was everyone's "favorite" American rapper, Kanye West. He's released a few different shoes with Nike, but he didn't make much of a profit on them. His newest shoes are called the Yeezy Boost. They are a beige/grey color with an off white sole.  They aren't that sturdy-looking, but because they are Kanye West's shoes they are still talked and tweeted about. Adidas isn't doing as well as Nike is, especially since adidas is mostly categorized with soccer rather than Nike that has been targeted to many different sports and involves the brand with athletes from all over the world. The Yeezy Boost's sold out almost immediately and will probably re-sell out again when they re-release them.  Kanye did a lot of advertising and social media networking without actually having to do it. He had all of twitter talking about his new shoes and he didn't even have to tweet a lot about them like most artists. His wife and her family spoke and tweeted about them which got everyone on twitter talking about them. I remember when Kanye released his first pair of Yeezy's in 2009 and not too many people that I knew heard of them, but a select few. My good friend waited in line for a week in Long Beach to buy them. He paid almost $300 for a pair of shoes that he rarely wore.

I even seen a few videos online that showed that these fancy Yeezy Boosts ripped, even though they cost well over $250. Social Media had a lot to do with marketing this product and it definitely was the reason it had sold out so quickly. Consumers want something that everyone is talking about, especially when their favorite rapper created a decent looking pair of shoes. I think the reason behind everyone wanting these shoes is that celebrities are going to be wearing them, and only a few have been seen wearing them. Kanye West is very well known  and everyone in the western world seems to be going crazy about his new shoes and even his older shoes. They're going for sell online for $7000 for a pair of shoes that were originally $250.

Politics and Advertising

I chose to write on the World Wildlife Fund because they are very well known and have had some controversial advertising.  Their twitter account, which is verified, acknowledges the current problems that are occurring all over the world and continue to occur if we don't do anything to help. The account only tweets and retweets different articles that pertain to any wildlife problems.  Currently they are fighting against ships crossing the Great Barrier Reef and have been posting a lot of information as to how to help with the process of stopping it. The Great Barrier Reef is home to thousands of species and will be killed off if they do not have a habitat. I admire that they use dramatic and truthful images to get their point across, more groups should do what they do, but for honesty rather than trying to make money. The ships are going to dump into the reef and many of the species depend on the reef which shows how big of a deal it is to the world, even if we aren't there. I want my future children to be able to see the different animals that I've been able to see, it's not fair that they will only be able to see images of them rather than knowing they're alive and thriving.  There Facebook page has different posts of various international wildlife and environmental problems. Something I thought was interesting about a few of their Facebook posts was that they include the positive changes that are also occurring due to many nations taking a stand for wildlife. It isn't all bad, but they include the progress which makes it that much better. The use of Social Media outlets like twitter and facebook gets their information and issues known to the public all over the place, it's definitely better than just using their website, but getting out all of the information to millions, if not billions of people world wide. 

Gender Stereotyping

Masculinities are definitely stereotyped in advertising, just as much as feminine ideals are. Men are supposed to be big and strong and many commercials and brands use advertising showing exactly that. Taco Bell did an ad showing how manly you have to be in order to eat their new steak quesadilla.  They kept saying be a man and had a few models in the commercial flocking to one guy which only reiterated the be a man idea to the viewers of the viewers. They stated they didn't need to be told to be a man because they already were eating a lot of steak that shows that they are men. Many fashion companies use masculinity when trying to get new consumers, especially young male consumers. Calvin Klein uses both masculinity and femininity in their advertising. They use a manly model to show how a man would look in their clothing and products and how many women they can get if consumers use their products.

Even women's companies target to men with their use of beautiful women to get men to buy their products. Victoria's Secret uses beautiful models that are half naked to get women to buy their products for men to want them more. The bra's are very pretty with different designs even though I've asked a lot of my guy friends if they even pay attention to the bra and panties, they all told me no which is interesting. They focus on the body of the women and with VS' advertising only shows half naked beautiful women in a bed or dark mysterious room.

Racial Stereotyping in Advertising

I personally feel it is never okay to racially stereotype in advertising, but it is done all the time. I just saw a commercial from Pizza Hut about Italians not wanting any change to their pizza style. It seemed as though they used people that were "real" Italians or they used really good actors and actresses. They showed off their attitudes in the commercial and tempers by asking them if they would like their pizza to be different from the so called old style. I've seen plenty of racial stereotyping focusing on African Americans. Popeyes is a good example of this, they advertise on the people of the south which are predominantly black. They show what southern cooking taste like through their commercials by using a black woman and southern ideals within their commercials. They even use southern slang. Not every black person likes chicken like Popeyes claims they do.

Racial stereotyping is not a thing of the past, it is still prevalent today. I think people want to feel more comfortable with other races or that advertisers want buyers to think they're getting a little bit of culture by using their products because someone else of a different skin color is using it.

Advertisers have ethical responsibilities, but don't actually follow them. We still see racial advertising today.  In lecture we discussed the Aunt Jemima syrup brand which is ultimately the mammy example who loves to cook and look after someone else's kids. There was even a movie that was about the mammy example and how "they" supposedly felt about raising someone else's children.

In conclusion, I don't think it is ever okay for companies and advertisers to advertise using racial stereotypes because it only continues on with those misbeliefs.