I look at media now in a very different way than a few months ago when I didn't know anything about media. To me, media had just been a part of my life. I never took the chance to try and observe everything that goes along with media. It was easy to be passive with media but cause they were selling me stuff and I only had to choose if I wanted to buy it or not. But now, I see what is being used in order to try and persuade me to buy something. There are words, appeals, and techniques that marketers will use in order to capture our attention. Everything that I see was planned ahead so that they were targeting a certain group. As I reflect on what I’ve learned with media, I see that there were so many ways to break through the clutter in order to advertise to me.
Whenever I see commercials now, the first thing that I will do is watch to see which from of advertising they are using. The most common form I will see is Madison and Vine because there are so many companies that try to combine their product into places that would be appealing to teens. But with this, I like to see which appeals and techniques that the company uses with their ads. A lot of them I never would've known until I learned about them. Like the fact that humans are greedy, so we are attracted to offers that gives us more for paying less. For an appeal, need for affiliation is very popular because it seems like to be normal, you need to have a social life. As I’m constantly seeing media everyday, I take this into consideration because of the things I’ve learned this semester.
To go along with how I see media, I have also been intrigued at the implicit messages that companies will give about their products. I didn't expect that every marketer was going to have an impact message embedded into their ad, but I’ve seen plenty of them to change my mind. The implicit messages can be controversial, but I think the main thing that I get from them is how it reflects the society we live in. There are some messages that I didn't know were true until I saw ads. So in a way, I now learn more from ads and how they influence people to do something or to be certain people. The downside to this is how ads can portray people that you aren’t. They do this so that you feel like you need to be someone different. This is where I have a problem with the messages. It’s a marketing tactic that I don't agree with because it forces people to change to shape themselves on what companies sell as cool. The only thing they want is your money. They ruin young kids lives because they create a high social expectation on who you should be. I don't try to be tempted by these ads but its frustrating to see media making false images of people.
By being educated in knowing about media, it allows one to be careful about what to consider when looking at products and how we base our choices on commercials. When one is more educated to understand the ways a company will try to sell you their product, then you become more aware of what’s actually true and what is fake. Everything that I've learned from the media blogs and from learning about marketing strategies will allow me to see what big corporations will try to convince to buy. There are many ways they can do this, so its great that I’m able to look at all of them and know what to be weary of.
Final thoughts I have to this quarter with media is that I don't think I’ll ever forget the messages that big companies will give to make us feel like their product is superior. The second marketing project helped me see how there are a lot of similar themes that media has in order to make us want to purchase their products. Like a feeling of safety, or family, or being unique. As much as I struggled to learn about media so early, I now see how this will affect and stay with me through my life.
Probably my favorite poster from the Think Differently Campaign, just showing how I will always look back at my experience I had with the media projects and how I see the experiences that are trying to be sold with companies.
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