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Christine Neals
4/27/12
EDU 100
Alternative Assignment
Advertising or Brainwashing?
It’s no secret that television commercials and magazine advertisements are
filled with subliminal messages affecting how we feel about the product and
whether we have the urge to splurge or not. Ever since I was young and saw the tall,
thin supermodel advertising a chocolate product she would never be caught dead
eating or a cool cowboy striking up a cigarette attracting the eye of a scantily clad
woman, I have been fascinated with advertising and how it works. There are so
many children in the world today who are growing up faster than ever and I feel a
big part of this is advertisements children and their parents are being brainwashed
by. What makes an ad or a television commercial effective? Why does it seem to be
that sex truly does sell and is this effecting children like it does adults? How do we
reinforce the right messages to our students and children in general when they are
being bombarded by all this false advertising?
The commercials you tend to see on television networks such as PBS are
usually filled with child-friendly characters such as Clifford, Curious George and
Elmo. Commercials on channels geared towards very young children are usually
quite innocent and friendly since they are most likely being aired on a publically
funded network. However, once the child gets to be a little older and begins to
watch shows on networks such as Disney Channel or Nickelodeon they begin to see
commercials for clothes, shoes, toys, and food, among many other things. This is
when advertising really begins to affect children’s thoughts and opinions about
products and affects the decisions they make when purchasing products. Seeing
familiar actors, celebrities or athletes children look up to endorsing a certain brand
or product will make the child more likely to want to purchase the product rather
than if a less-known actor was the endorser. Using these well-known faces children
can look up to definitely has an impact on whether or not they want the product.
The fast food industry is a master when it comes to false advertising,
especially amongst impressionable children. They use techniques such as taking
familiar nursery-rhyme songs such as “Do you know the muffin man” and re-mixing
them to sing about the McDonalds blueberry muffins. Children hear a song they’re
familiar with but instead of the usual words there are new lyrics regarding
McDonald’s fast food, which leaves a familiar and lasting impression in the child’s
mind. Other fast food chains such as Burger King use celebrities like Mary J. Blige to
film commercials about their new crispy chicken wraps. Children and young teens
see a face and singer they’re familiar with singing about Burger King’s food and
want to go out and get it. False advertising is not the only cause in childhood
obesity, but it is not helping the situation either. Parents and teachers need to be
aware of these catchy tunes and commercials children see every day whether it be
on TV, in a magazine, or even walking by a billboard and warn them of the dangers
of false advertising.
According to the Stanford School of Medicine’s “Scope” Blog1; a group of
pediatricians and researchers at Texas A&M International University conducted a
study to see just how much fast food advertising affected children between the ages
of 3 and 5. The study split a group of 75 children into two groups, “one of which
watched a series of two cartoons and a commercial for French fries, while the
second group watched the same cartoons and a commercial for apple slices with
dipping sauce”. After viewing the cartoons and commercials the children were
allowed to pick one coupon for either the French fries or the apple slices with help
from parents. Half of the parents urged their child to pick the coupon for the
healthier option of apple slices and dipping sauce while the other half remained
neutral in the decision. “Among the children who saw the commercial for French
fries, 71 percent chose the fries coupon if their parents remained neutral while only
55 percent of the children chose the French fry coupon after being encouraged by
their parents to chose the apples”. However, of the children who saw the
commercial for apple slices “46 percent chose the coupon for French fries if their
parents remained neutral while 33 percent chose the coupon for fries after being
encouraged to select the apples.”
I don’t think Fast Food chains should be told to take commercials off of
specific channels that are geared towards children, it’s not 100 percent their fault
the child is opting for fast food. The commercial being aired may lead the child to
ask for fast food for dinner but it is the parent or teachers responsibility to educate
children of the dangers of obesity and provide them with tasty and healthy
alternatives to fast food. Some may argue that Fast foods are misleading children
and are harmful and wrong, but I feel the Fast food companies are actually being
smart. They know giving people visuals of their food will make them crave it,
therefore increasing their sales. Although this technique may be seen as “evil” or
unfair the Fast food companies are only trying to rake in as much money as possible.
Many people feel strongly about banning fast food advertisement but what
they don’t realize is that there are so many other subliminal messages out there
even more dangerous than these. For instance, when thinking of cigarette
advertisements we picture cowboys, celebrities, “Mr. Cool” Joe Camel, and beautiful
women lighting up with a smile on their face. We see these commercials and are
aware of how they affect adults but they are forgetting our children see these ads as
well and are even more impressionable than we are. Many different forms of
subliminal messages include sexual innuendoes such as phallic symbols, half
dressed women, the word “sex” itself, as well as all the familiar logos we see in TV
shows all the time such as students using Mac Books, actors drinking from a coke
can and including other products that are sponsoring the program.
These tricks have been around since advertising began, even way back in the
50’s. One well-known subliminal message study was conducted by James Vicary in a
New Jersey movie theatre back in 1957. Vicary flashed the words “Eat Popcorn” and
“Drink Coca-Cola” for 3/1000s of a second and were displayed once every 5 seconds
throughout the movie. Suddenly people became thirsty for coke and hungry for
popcorn, which increased sales for popcorn by 57% and sales for Coca Cola by 18%.
The same method is used today in a more obvious way. When watching a television
program or a movie and seeing an actor walk across the screen eating a hot dog, we
are suddenly left craving a hot dog. This method has proved to be extremely
effective in the food industry.
Many people tend to focus on how sexual messages affect adults, but what
they fail to remember is that our children are seeing what we watch whether we
know it or not. Just one moment of walking through the room and seeing what we
have on the television leaves a lasting image in a child’s mind whether we are aware
of it or not. A perfect example of this happened to me just recently. My seven-year-
old cousin was walking through the room when I had the TV on while an
advertisement for AXE body spray was being aired. The commercial consisted of a
teenaged boy who sprays himself with the product and is immediately surrounded
by beautiful models practically throwing themselves at him. A few moments later I
smelled a strong cologne scent coming from the room he was in. I walked in to find
him spraying himself with a bottle of his older brothers AXE spray. When I realized
he had seen the ad I couldn’t believe how quickly what had affected his decision to
run and find the product and practically douse himself in it. Today more than ever
we need to teach children that there are many false advertisements out there that
are very silly and unrealistic.
The biggest issue I have with false advertising is the extreme use of
Photoshop. More and more companies and magazines are over-using Photoshop to
go beyond “enhancing” a photo but instead completely changing the shape of a
persons body, hair and eye color, skin tone, and background to make the image look
as “perfect” as possible. Children are seeing this and from a very young age are
learning to hate their bodies and have serious issues such as body dysmorphic
disorder. Seeing these beautiful women with perfect skin, large breasts and a tiny
waste puts the impression that THIS is what all women should look like into a young
girls head. These issues also occur amongst young boys who see “G-I Joe” look-
alikes on the cover of magazines with six packs and perfect smiles. Recently
Glamour Magazine has begun to address this issue of “How much is too much?”2. In
the article, Shaun Dreisbach takes a photo sent in by a subscriber of herself and her
husband on the beach. After a “normal” amount of re-touching done by most
magazines and advertisement campaigns, the couple thought the image was “scary”
and extremely shocking to see how many differences there were from before to
after. Altering images for an ad campaign is becoming more popular and becoming
increasingly unrealistic and extreme by the year.
With all the commercials spanning from Dunkin Donuts to Nike, from
Cosmopolitan Magazine to Burger King, children are surrounded by false
advertisement and dangerous messages. Teen pregnancy, fattening fast foods,
cigarettes, expensive toys and electronics, weapons and thousands of other items
are seen daily in the eyes of our children and students. We cannot prevent our
children from seeing these advertisements but what we can do is stop them from
becoming brainwashed by a company and giving into peer pressure and faulty
marketing.
Some Advertisements I found containing subliminal messages…
Citations
(1) Stanford School of Medicine “Scope” Blog, Oct. 6 2011,
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2011/10/how-food-advertising-and-parents-
influence-affect-childrens-nutritional-choices/
(2) Glamour Magazine, Shaun Dreisbach, 2012,
http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2012/02/retouching-how-much-is-
too-much