Racism in Advertising

After reading my last blog post, you all now know if you have not before that advertisements are usually just a scandal. However, after reading an article written by David C. named "RACISM IN ADVERTISING: 50 SHOCKING EXAMPLES", I have been opened up to a whole new problem in advertising. The amount of racism that is found in some ads broadcasted by companies is actually shocking to me. I figured that back in time when being racist was socially acceptable that advertisements would be racist to an extent, but the modern day ads that are racist make me question how smart some of these advertisers are. I do not understand how an advertiser can produce something like the ad shown to the left and not identify the possibility of it being racist. Anyone can clearly see that there are several black men seemingly bowing down to their white manager. Even the caption says "multiply computing performance and maximize the power of your employees." The racism is just too blatantly obvious to try and make the excuse that they did not notice the possibility of racism. Now this is a serious problem because racism cannot be advertised in modern day society just because it is not a good way to advertise. I am not saying racism is a good or bad thing because that is a personal choice but racism in advertising is bad. The point of advertising is to make a product look appealing and pissing people off by being racist is not a good way to make a product look appealing. For example, the Intel Core Processor being advertised in this ad just lost tons of sales to anyone who thinks racism is a bad part of society. It is an inefficient way to make sales and a waste of money because the end result is usually losing customers. So, in the end, I am not saying that racism is good or bad, that is a personal choice, but it is one of the worst strategies when it comes to advertising because the goal of advertising is to make your product appealing to as many people as possible.

Advertising: The Unconscious Influencer

Nike ad provided by graphics.technoezine.com

After reading Jean Kilbourne's article titled "Jesus is a Brand of Jeans", it became clear to me that advertisements promote a false sense of feelings in the consumers that they try to target. Whether it be a fashion magazine advertisement making women feel that they need a certain brand of clothes to feel beautiful or the ad to the right that sends the message that Nike clothing makes men athletes "invincible", they are all around us and all corrupting us. These type of photos are bombarded toward us everywhere we look all of the time and most of the time we do not know that the ad has affected us. A lot of male athletes will look at this advertisement and be fully convinced that they are not influenced by it, however Nike is one of the biggest sportswear producers in the world. We are unconsciously being swayed by these ads whether we like it or not. As Kilbourne describes in her article, very rarely are ads like this actually consciously noticed, but as they slowly make their logos and motos familiar to our eyes we will go to this product when we go shopping for athletic clothing. So technically speaking, these ads don't even need the ridiculous idea that Nike clothing makes you "invincible" but that term helps sway people away from competitors like Addidas and Champion and many others. Overall, this ad is a typical form of lie that we are exposed to everyday and consumers must start learning that they need to stop giving into this effective form of advertising and start making conscious decisions on what they want to purchase.

My Writing Conference

After going to my writing conference this week with two of my peers, I thought it went better than I originally planned it to go. I was a little nervous at first because I thought I would just be bombarded by criticisms and complaints about my paper, but it was not that bad. In addition, I was nervous to point out the flaws in my two peers' papers because I did not want to insult their intelligence, or be wrong and just look stupid. I went in with this mindset, but I came out with a whole new mindset about the conference. It was not that bad at all and if anything I wish my peers would have felt more comfortable in criticing my work, but I understand that they did not want to bash me. I hope from now on my peers take the liberty in scrutinizing my work because I am fine with scrutiny as long as it is somewhat positive.
As far as my professor being there, I thought it was great that she takes time out of her busy schedule to help us improve our writing and get the best grade possible. It is obvious that she wants us to do well in the class which I feel as very comforting because many other professors do not even give me the time of day. Her comments were very constructive and enlightening and I feel that with the proper corrections to my essay, I will turn this rough draft into a masterpiece. To improve my work, I need to cite my pictures because I did not orginally do so, but also make my photos and make them more emotional. Originally, they were very bland so I want to crop them in such a way to contribute to the ethos of my work. But, in the end, I know that my paper will be very well written all thanks to my conference.