Advertising vs. children

Advertising is constantly bombarded by criticism. It is accused of encouraging materialism and consumption, of stereotyping, of causing us to purchase items for which we have no need, of taking advantage of children, of manipulating our behavior, using sex to sell, and generally contributing to the downfall of our social system. However, many marketing communicators claimed that what they do is moral, they give to people what they really want to see, and that the public perceives advertising as a good thing. However, making money and corrupting the morals of a minor at the same time is not my idea of ethical advertising.
The role of advertising has been debated for centuries. Advertising ethics is a topic that has commanded the attention of philosophers, practitioners, scholars, and theologians. It is considered manipulative since it has the power to influence children to do things they would not do if they were not exposed to advertising. Some kind of advertising have negative appeal on children, since they make them believe that if they don't buy such product they will be rejected by others. They appeal negative emotion such as fear, guilt, and humiliation also. Food advertising to children
Critics contend that many of the products targeted to children are unnecessary and that the communication is exploitative. In US, for example the issue of advertising food to children is considered ethical, because the issue of childhood obesity and the marketing of food products to children are considered as debatable topic. Childhood obesity is a major problem. Many critics consider unethical to market food products to children especially through practices using cartoon characters to sell sugared cereals and non nutritious snacks. The problem consist in advertising some kind of food product, especially sugary cereals , to children where marketing communicators claim that those kind of food is healthy, rich in vitamins and protein, however this is not true. Many parents relied on those advertisement, and then they were surprised whith the increasing of weight of their kids, and after revising what their children are eating, they arrived to the conclusion that the food that were advertised are the cause. Those parents discovered that those junk foods contains high sugar and low nutrient, while in the ingredients parts it is not stated. The other problem raised here is the unethical use of popular pre-school personality to promote unhealthy food to children. The marketing communicators do not care about this since their only aim is to persuade those children to buy and eat junk food. This is considered immoral and ethical because they are selling junk food to those kids, while in their advertising there are claiming that it is a healthy food.
Advertising is capable of moving children against their free will. Tobaccos companies and alcohol companies are the most accused of targeting children and teenagers in their advertisements and it harm them rather than beneficiate them. It is both socially and legally unacceptable to advertise to children.
Many advertisement target adult product to teens and kids, according to a study by a watchdog group at Georgetown University reported that one- quarter of alcohol advertising was more likely seen by youth and kids than adults. Another issue that concerns the majority of parents is the targeting of cigarettes to children via advertisement and product placements in movie. Many academic researchers have suggested that exposure to cigarette advertising leads youth and children to view cigarettes as a positive consumption symbol and to be more likely to smoke. What pushes more children to start smoking is not the ad itself, but the issue of seeing the ads, handling the cigarette packets and the offering of gifts, all this reduce their resistance, so they will be more willing to accept a cigarette offered by someone else.
Additionally, many advertising use subliminal cues and primes to influence consumer behavior in a subtle way. The only concern of the marketing communicators is to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the children and exploit them so consequently the society loses while the marketing gains.
The problem is that the children can not understand fully what advertising is about, so for that reason they are considered as potential consumers, also because they have a huge influence in their parents. As far as I m concerned, this is not ethical at all because marketers manipulate verbal and visual images to influence children. I believe that advertising to children is immoral and ethical, and it has become a huge business. Marketing communicators consider people as a means rather than ends, and this is something immorally. Either they find a way to do business ethically or stop doing business.


Reference:

Integrated Marketing Communications in Advertising and Promotion.(7th ed.) Thomson :
USA.

The Vitruvian Man

you may not know his name, but you've seen him plenty of times before. You know, that multi-limbed man in the square and the circle. This master piece is probably known by everyone, hence I guess no-one knows it has a name! It was drawn around 1492 by Leonardo da Vinci and is about architecture and the proportions of the human body. The man is called after the Roman architect Vitruvius, who believed — like Leonardo — that the proportions of the body should be taken forward into architecture. The drawing is now located in the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, Italy. There is a nice article about “The Vitruvian Man and the plannng of temples”

The "Male Gaze"

when we look at a specific object, what we are seeing is more than the thing itself : we are seeing the relationship between the thing and ourselves. Some objects are made to be looked. an image is formed, and everyone can own it, so the person can own the image of the object. the gaze is a term used for anaylsing visual culture that deals how an audience views the people presented; however, the gaze are primarily categorized by whho is doing the looking.

the image of the female nude has been alwayn inactive, traditionally reclining,or sometimes even showing admiring her image in a mirror, and all this to nurture the spectator owner's sense of ego and possession. the painting of femal beauty offered up the pleasure of her appearance for the male spectator owner's gaze. but the spectator owner's gaze sees not merely the object of the gaze, but sees the link between the object and the self. He sees her as a creature of his domain, under his gaze of possession -- simultaneously admiring and pejorative, but always as an object of his desire in his domain.
the male gaze is so dominant in ads that it is assumed or taken for granted. Females are showing their feminity for the pleasure of an absent male spectator. "Men act and women appear" states berger.
lately, we have noticed the extension of the male gaze into ads for men's product adressed at male audiences. as you can notice in the pictur above, they have extended to young men the pose of a women aware of herself on display as an object of vision, the picture is a typical of a new genre : men who don't act but merely appear. just as the women who cant never take the position of the absent spectator-owner.

Voyeuristic vs. Imaginistic

we do all watch different movies and series, and we tend to disagree about some television programs. while I like to watch Grey's Anatomy, Desesperate Housewives and House, you may like watch Lost, Heroes and Prison break.
The shows we like are make-believe and that is why they comelling to us. Personally, I dont want to watch "the real stories " drama because I get enough real worl drama every day. Through the news we read or watch we do understand that there is a great amoint of sorrow, sadness, brokneess and dysfunction within the world without having to watch it. this is voyeurism
Does this mean that we are trying to escape reality and built our own little world?No, there is no way to accomplish that outside of mind altering prescriptions. You may call me optimistic, but I do like shows were the characters are pitted against challenges that can relate to, set in creative and imaginative "worlds" where they rise above the pains and sorrows they face, and this to better stimulate our imagination.
some poeple try to read in order to use their imagination to create characters and worlds through their minds-eyes, but some poeple they just can not. why is there a loss of wonder and imagination amongst many today? could it be because we are too much bombarded by the "real world" that we lost the ability and turn to coping mechanism because of strees?
Imagination is the ability of the mind to be creative, innovative or resourceful, it is the action of forming new ideas and concepts, and it help us to reduce strees, it stimulates mental activties, it breaks new ground and help us to look to problems and issues in a creative fun. Imagination is Fun!!!
So what about you? are you voyeuristic or imaginistic?

Media Effects on peopl's life

it is obvious, and proven also, that people's perception of reality has been altered by the information they receiv from different channels of manupulation like TV, Radio,Ads...and so one, and all those factors affect directly our tasts and choices also.
we are easily swayed to accept many things that they may nor normally have unless expressed on TV or elsewhere since most of us think that everything we hear on TV is true. the effect of Media on us today has embeded our life and changed our way of leaving. As I read a Newpaper, the ads takes up the whole page,and I search for the rest of the article, hidden back. We i turn the Radio on during, verses if songs can overwhelm me with the vulgarity and crudeness, casting me into a foul mood for the rest of the day. as we drive down to the road, we are still being contacted by advertising. The bilboards tell me all the time where to stay, the new shop, and the last version of the mobile phone to buy. As i read a magazine, the first thing I look at are the ads...in brief, media touch us and affect our way of acting. that was the purpose of the marketing practitiners, and I think that they acheived their pourpose, since media has become such an important thing in our life that we can not live without it.

what do you really see?

are those real pictures or painting? are they fake or real?
personally i couldn't believe that those are painting, it is amazing, isn't?so here we can raise the question of is all what we see real?
those painting is a piece of art done by "Aymane El Malki" considered as one of the best painter in the world. He stated that he sees a picture with his mind thousand of times better than with his eyes, and once he start drawing he feels like his eyes are closed and his hands follows what his mind order.

Is what we see what we really get?

I love optical illusions and we all use them to show that we construct our reality. optical illusion are charecterized by images percieved visually and those images in reality are mnisleading. our brain percieve the image in a different way. illusion trick us in a way that we percieve something differently thant it actually exists. in other words, what we really see does not correspond to a physical realuty. I remember that in class we saw a picture of optical illusion,everyone was able to see the old lady, but i couldn't,no matter how hard I tried, I was not able to see what I was supposed to see. I guess that my mind choose to see the young ladyI have tried to focus but no way, so illusion show us one thing in a picture, while someone else can see something different in the same picture.

Let us try this out guys, can you belive that in the first picture the lines below are complety parallel?would you imagine this? or for example in the second image, the face on the left looks angry while the face on the right does not.But, if you stand a little bit away from the screen, and start looking, you will notice that the expression will appear to change?
So I start asking, is what we see in front of us right or it is just our own interprepation? are we missing something out??Optical illusion it is like life, we do see things from different direction depending on which direction are we looking at things, so many different views and perception of things.