I just finished reading an article published on Ad Age written from the perspective of an older advertising exec. The article boasts how even though older generations of ad men lost their control over the ad world due to the excessively fast rise of the digital work. However, he defends his generation saying that he has been able to learn the ropes and bring his experience to this new platform.

Well that’s just peachy.

I’m glad the new younger generation (the one I’m apart of), whose edge was the knowledge of the digital world, is being screwed out of that.

Here’s a link to the article. It’s actually very well written and a great read. But scary for those of us still in college or approaching the job market in advertising. Not only do I feel like it’s a cut-throat environment between my colleagues and myself, but now I’m going to have to continue to compete with seniors who will still know how to write a mean copy.

On a bright note:

I’m absolutely in love with this commercial Ad Age posted that is a spot for the Levi’s and Opening Ceremony collaboration. Absolutely perfect.

In my Intro to Drama course, we were discussing the play A Doll’s House. The play centers around a woman who is living in her husband’s home. She has no real purpose in her life, other than to fulfill the duties as a woman of the Victorian era. The duties include keeping your mouth shut and doing anything you are told. When she shames herself by committing forgery, her husband is the one humiliated, with no regard for her well-being.

Our professor even gave us a handout which had an excerpt from a women’s manual entitle, Eve’s Glossary. One of the things it says all women must possess is delicacy, above all else, otherwise “her moral conduct is unpleasant.” In addition many of the excerpts from other Victorian readings had information on how to be a “good wife” by obeying your husband at any cost. I took the liberty of looking up a few of the rules for a Victorian woman.

When reading this I thought to myself, what a degrading and oppressive time for women. And then my teacher brought up Cosmo. One of the most widely read magazines in the country made “exclusively” for women.

This magazine that is designed for women seems to read like a modern-day women’s manual on how to continually please their man-only this time it’s sexually pleasing your man. This magazine is telling women that for you to be happy, you must buy trendy clothes, work-out, eat healthy, and have a great sex life. does this really sound that different from what they were forcing women to act like in the 1800s?

I always think it’s funny how everything seems to connect within my education. Last year in Advertising Principles, my teacher talked about how advertising in the 1950s played on the idea of social anxieties with both women and men. These ads constantly played on the ideals of their society and how important it was to keep up appearances.

This girdle ad is doing just that. This girdle is said to be necessary for “The pretty American figure”. And you might argue that we are far from that today. But think about a lot of the women’s ads today.

This Venus ad is playing on the social anxiety that a woman can’t have a any hair on her legs for a first date, or anytime she is with a man, because she won’t be sexy enough to kiss/embrace him.

And just last night, I watched a documentary on Coolhunting which had a segment on “The Midriff” and how women in today’s society are trying to embody the unrealistic women they see in advertising today.

I don’t know about you but I don’t know if a lot of my friends run around drenched in water looking like that. If you have 5 minutes, check out the video because it really is an interesting look at how advertising is affecting girls, especially the young ones.

Midriff clip

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02s486q70&continuous=1

The reason I’m writing this is because one day I’m going to be the person coming up with advertisements. Am I going to one day be responsible for girls running around half-naked and acting like sluts because that’s how ads are encouraging them to act? The documentary explores the idea that ad men research teens, and then display them on TV as an amped up version-sexier, sluttier, dumber-and then the kids start to mirror their television counterparts and then it’s a cycle. I worry that one day I’m going to become so wrapped up in that cycle that my own kids could be trapped in that same circle.

How do we avoid harming our society with advertising? Is it by making it dull and non-related to pop culture references? Or is there a way to incorporate new image of females into advertising?

It’s no wonder we live in such a self-centered world. Advertising is all about creating an ad, or sometimes even a product, specifically to meet the needs of a consumer. Those needs can be real or imagniary, rational or irrantional, all that matters is that I believe in the ability of your product to better me. So is this self-centered way of life a result of all this advertising or are we the ones that started it all?

Integrated marketing communications, also known as IMC, is all about the relationship building with an important public. The idea behind Facebook is all about broadcasting your relationships to everyone. It’s let’s someone see who is important in your life, the centers of influence or stakeholders, that will affect your life. Facebook and IMC are just about the fundamental human need for social interaction, which in reality isn’t that new of a concept. All that advertising is attempting to do is create a human connection between a product (essentially an inatimate object) and the consumer. Without this connection, why would we want anything? We buy things because we like the persona or the image that is presented to us, either because we want to envision ourselves that way or just desire it.

A great example is car insurance. The only tangible evidence of the purchase of car insurance is a tiny card that you have in your car. But it provides security and safety and peace of mind when we are out driving around the city. Insurance play up this idea (in attention to the fear of what if something bad were to happen) and often creates a perceived need for a consumer.

And their new direction still presents the “what if” but in a more humorous way. (Which I love)

Or some insurance companies will use an animation to illustrate an abstract concept of safety but humorous displaying it through the use of a little green gecko, like Geico.

I think it’s great how aware of this Geico is and how they even play it up in one of their commercials.

And just because I’ve been watching Sex and the City constantly the past 2 days:

“Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate, without them what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course we would never fall in love or be who we are. After all, seasons change, so do cities. People come into your life and people go, but it’s comforting to know, that the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you’re lucky-a plane ride away.” -Carrie Bradshaw