Persuaders - A Frontline Film

    The PBS film The Persuaders is all about how important it is that advertisers get their message out. I was mostly intrigued by the section of the film involving emotions. I had never thought that an advertiser would completely forget about everything their products do and totally focus on what the consumer thinks about the product. Simply, the advertiser drops information about the product in order to grab the attention of the viewer by making them think they are in the ad. These advertisers think of many different ways to gain the attention of viewers, but I have to say that this takes the cake.

Song Airlines

    To make this movie more interesting (which didn't help for me), the creators of this film focused on what one airline company did to stay afloat. Song Airlines was a new airline that appealed to women and a younger age group. They were colorful, peppy, healthy, and hip. Their advertising group came up with ways to try and keep them out of the "clutter" of typical producers. In my opinion, it didn't succeed. Song Airlines focused way too much on what they strove to be, and completely missed out on what they are: an airline. There's even one part of the film when a gentleman becomes confused about what Song does. He seemed to be stuck with the idea that they were a travel agency. The commercials that they showed had nothing to do with airlines, but with people who seemed to not be interested with flying. Also, the fact that Song was so flashy made them seem like something else entirely, and that they certainly did not seem like an airline company. It's true that if they went with the typical style used by all airline advertisers, Song would most definitely be lost in the "clutter", but if they would have went down a different path, I believe things would have been different for Song Airlines.

  

My Favorite Super Bowl Ad

            It just so happens that I didn’t pay attention to the Super Bowl this year (gasp!), and that means I focused on the ads even less. The only ads that I did see were the ones that have been getting a lot of reputation throughout the week. They include M&Ms, Chevy, Fiat, Doritos, and the ever popular David Beckham. As interesting as these ads were, I’ve gotta say that my favorite ad this year, hands-down, was Honda’s CR-V ad starring Matthew Broderick portraying his best character Ferris Bueller.

            I first heard about this ad a few days before the Super Bowl when I took a glance at Youtube’s Most Watched videos, in which I came across this:

            It really piqued my interest, to say the least. I was desperate to learn why Matthew Broderick was resurrecting his legendary character. I scoured the Internet for the next couple of days to figure out why I saw what I saw. Just 6 days before the big game, I noticed that someone on Twitter had posted a link to “Matthew Broderick’s Day Off”. That was when I knew that I had finally found it. So, without further ado, here it is:

            As a huge Ferris Bueller’s Day Off fan, this ad made me laugh my ass off. There are so many references to the movie that if someone had never seen the movie, he/she wouldn’t be lost when viewing the commercial. The commercial itself is pretty self-explanatory: “Take a day off for yourself, and spend it driving around in a CR-V.” One beef that I have about the ad is that it takes a lot of focus away from the car and more on Broderick. In fact, the first time I saw it, I had to rewatch it because I had forgotten in mid-commercial what they were selling.

Save Ferris

            Because there is so much focus on Matthew Broderick, I would like to make a prediction: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2. Unfortunately, it will most likely happen, especially since this was one of the more popular of commercials this year. I predict that once Hollywood takes notice how important the character of Ferris is to today’s viewers, they will be bold enough to announce a sequel. They have the thought process of “Hey! Since the character is popular enough to star in a commercial, why don’t we just give him another movie?” If Hollywood grows the balls to go ahead with it, I will be very disappointed. There are films out there that absolutely DO NOT need sequels, but that is a whole other story by itself. Basically, the ad is mediocre if you look at what Honda is selling. Then again, are they selling a car or a specific attitude of a specific character? Something to think about.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Spotlight ===> YOU

            Imagine being on a stage with hundreds of people staring directly at you. How would this make you feel? How would you act in front of them? Once you’re back-stage, would you act completely different? The answers to my questions would probably differ from person to person, but according to Erving Goffman, author of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, we all act at different parts of our lives. This is saying a lot because if you’re reading this, you’re probably not an actor (unless I have the privilege of Jim Carrey reading my blog). You are most likely a college student, or a parent, or a professor, or you’re a combination of these three. BUT, according to Goffman, these are roles that we play, as actors, which define us as individuals. Now, if you saw the documentary The Codes of Gender, based on Goffman’s book with the same title, you would see some similarities between the two works. I plan to name a few in the rest of this post.

How do you act in this situation?

            Personally, I see the need to study gender differences within advertisements and the rest of media, but when it comes to how an individual perceives him/herself, I find the results much more interesting. Now that I got that off my chest, Codes of Gender was still a very important piece in which an individual learns how others strive to become what they see on TV. I notice that in  Western society, women are always depicted on TV as super-models whose sole-purpose is to attract a man. This can be noticed in Presentation of Self. Goffman notes that there are three different types of regions,each with different affects on an individual’s performance. These are the front, back, and off-stages. Basically, front-stage is when an individual is putting on a show for everyone (as a whole) around him/her, back-stage is when that person is alone and is truly him/herself, and off-stage is when a person acts in front of each “audience member”. The individual may act a different way for each “audience member” based on the relationship with that member. Now, by saying this, a woman may see an ad and respond to it in a way in which she may be turned on by it. For example, if a woman saw a commercial for a particular type of perfume, she may want to buy it so she could smell nice for her husband or boyfriend. That’s an “off-stage” approach. She possibly might want it for not just her hubby, but everyone else in her social circle. This is an example of when she is “front-stage”. This example cannot be used in a case of “back-stage” unless she wants the perfume strictly for the smell without caring about who else smells it. Of course, these statements could be argued because everyone’s personality is different.

A distorted photo of my cousin and I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The only other similarity I can see between the two pieces of Goffman’s is the fact that everyone “shows off” during points of their lives. Do gender laws used in the media create this persistent need to act in front of others? I believe so. Case in point, me. To be short, I tend to act a fool in front of many of my friends just to get a few laughs. In front of strangers, I am the exact opposite, I’m quiet and almost act invisible. The real me is a soft-spoken, intelligent, quick-witted guy. Of course, you’ll never be able to tell.

            To conclude this post, I will state that the two of Goffman’s work are fine pieces, but I hardly found any similarities between the two. There were some there, and there’s most likely more than what I could find, but after going back and forth between the two, I was only able to identify two of them. Nonetheless, they are both very good theories, and I do enjoy reading Goffman’s books. That’s probably because I can relate to a few theories he mentions, but hey, who wouldn’t?