Advertising Techniques

Advertisements are all carefully constructed to appeal to your senses. You watch something on television, and think; "Hey, that looks amazing... I need to buy it." It probably isn't as great as it seems. The media and companies have carefully decided on advertising techniques to catch the eyes of certain targets, who are most likely to buy their products.

Well, there are things used for these products, such as color, camera angles, lighting, music, sounds, the product itself, and more. For example in the picture above, it shows a shiny new car the company is selling. What makes this car better than any other car? Nothing, except that its shiny, and looks nice. It probably doesn't have any other advantages that the usual cars don't have. The company hired the media to advertise this car, and they used techniques to sell this car. First off, the camera angle is a full shot of the car, and its showing the back of the car, which is the coolest looking part of the car, attracting attention. They make the lighting bright, but still showing shadow, though the brightness makes the car shine, and look pretty and appealing. The angle is overhead, and slanted slightly, because straight on angles aren't as appealing. Diagnal or tilted angles give a move

ment and exciting feel. The overhead view makes you look down on the car, but it makes it look like your main target, and you have to have it. The slightest little techniques will make a product look a million times better than it may be. Does the car below look as appealing? Noooope.

To appeal to gender, colour is often used. As described in my previous blog, stereotyping the colours boys and girls are suppose to like, takes place in advertising. Blue for boys, pink for girls. Cool, strong, manly colours for males. Pretty, bright, girly colours for the females. This car is directed mostly towards males. Its a grey/silver, and its a duller colour, not very bright, and its a truck. Directed more towards men. Also, its a bigger car, showing the strength of men. Now if you get a small white minivan, or tiny purple car, its directed towards woman. Isn't that odd? People should decide what they want no matter who its directed to, and that's what we do. Advertisements don't always work, though the techniques catch our eye, we don't fall for it all the time.

Other ways of advertising could consist of things directed to your country to show patriotism, or your background, your interests, or if your a regular person, living a regular life, there's the plain folk appeal. Other appeals would be snob appeal, card stacking (giving more and more positives without negatives), bandwagon, facts and figures, weasel words, and more. Most common in commercials is card stacking, like when they advertise Sham Wow, or things to cut vegetables in your kitchen. They stack the positives about the product, and don't tell you "They don't work as well as this product." Or "It'll break in 3 weeks and we wont give you your money back!" :D YEAH! They also repeat the product name to engrave it in your brain SHAM WOW. So when your watching television, take a look SHAM WOW at the commercials, and try to pick out the advertising techniques SHAM WOW used. You'll notice how they drew you in SHAM WOW in the first place. :) SHAM WOW.

By the way, the same goes for when the media advertises womens clothes. They make the women look sexier, so you'll buy the clothes, and that encourages EATING DISORDERS AND SELF CONCIOUSNESS! So beware, don't fall for the traps, be yourself, buy what you need, and don't give in to peer pressure.

- The Queen of Neptune.

Stereotyping and Judging.

The original thing that is stereotyped for when you're baby is born, starts with the colors. Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys, says the media, says parents, says many people, continuing the tradition thats been happening for centuries. Who says that your baby girl cant wear blue? Whats wrong with a boy wearing pink? Does that make them gay? No. Colors are colors, and we have the rights to choose, but we just continue to advertise them in a certain way for our children. Blue for boys, pink for girls. I know when I was a child, I loved blue. I loved all colors, thank you very much, but my mom did dress me in pink often.

When your married, the typical thing for someone to think nowadays is; women work in the kitchen, and play housewife, and the men get the jobs, work all day, then say "Make me a sandwhich" to their wife. Where did that come from? I dont know, but its advertised everywhere. In television shows, the internet, and even my friends say it, and laugh. Go make youre own sandwhich you lazy bum.

Nowadays, stereotypes are everywhere, and its taking over. My own friends, my mother, everyone I know, give in to sterotypes, and it leads to judging people. For example, a girl who has a bellybutton piercing. My mother doesn't like that idea, my dad would say "If it was meant to be there, there would already be a hole.", and my best friend, who wants a tattoo, has a tongue piercing, and many other things, says "Oh she's a slut for having one, if you get one Meghan, I will rip it out of you." Does having a piercing make you a slut? No. Even if you were one, the piercing doesn't make it so. We all have free will and rights to get a piercing if we want. Maybe we think it looks pretty, have you ever thought of that? Well I hope so, thats why we get piercings in the first place. Media and gossip has spread the rumors, and we have started to believe them. If you wear a belly shirt, or a mini skirt, are you a slut? Are you having sex with every guy you see? No, maybe not, maybe you just want to feel beautiful.

Yesterday, a quite scary "gangster" looking guy came up to me, and said "Excuse me, you dropped your phone." I was speechless, picked up my phone, and said "Um, thank you!" Smiled, and continued on into a store. I was shocked, he looked like he could attack someone, but he was polite, and a good person. Most people would have picked up the phone and took it, but he told me I dropped mine. The way you look doesn't affect your personality all the time. Just because someone dresses like their ganster doesn't make them a creep, maybe they want to fit in. Or someone who dresses goth, they may just like black, and the style, and they may be the sweetest person you have ever met. Stereotyping makes you unaware of these things.

A popular person at school, may have the most friends, the best clothes, and the most stuff, and they may be very pretty, but they could be the nicest girl you have ever talked to, I know this by experience. You would think most of the popular crowd wouldnt be nice to you if your not popular. Some people who look nice and innocent, are the MEANEST people you've ever met. You will never know if you sterotype. Take a chance, and ignore the sterotypes nowadays.

Some stereotypes are there for a reason, and thats because of what you see, without looking deeper into the details. Though, some sterotyepes are kind of horrible, yet sometimes true. They say, and when I say they, I mean a lot of people, including the police, think black guys are always looking for trouble, and to steal things. Then they actually go and get arrested, and the stereotype becomes more true. Then you have some really nice black guy, who would never dream of doing any of that, and that stereotype will hurt them. :( Stereotypes are awful. The big one nowadays would be directed to all teenagers. We don't know anything, we dont understand money, or work, or anything about love, its all lust, and all we do is have sex, and get pregnant, and we dont know the dangers of the world, we just make a mess, steal things, and dont care, we make a fool of ourselves. Uhhuh. Suuuree, all teenagers are DEFINETLY like that. Totally, because I've TOTALLY had sex and gotten pregnant before, and got arrested for shoplifting. NOT. :( Adults nowadays stereotype teenagers the most. Its kind of saddening to those of us who actually stay away from trouble as a living. I don't like people like that, and I dont cause trouble, so the fact that my mom doesn't trust me because of that stereotype, hurts.

Some stereotypes are common, like this;

"Asians are super smart and get straight A's"

"Black people are violent and criminals"

"Indians want everything for a penny"

"Men are the workers"

"Women are the housewives"

"Goths are all scary and evil"

"All old white men are pedophiles."

These aren't always true. Especially the last one. HAHA, but yeah, sterotypes are everywhere, and I suggest you look a little deeper before you judge. :) Thank you.

"She has acne, not because she wanted it. She is overweight, she didn't choose that, maybe she has a medical condition that makes her that way, or something else. She wears too much makeup, maybe she wanted to feel beautiful because she has insecurities. Think before you judge."

Increasing Rate of Natural Disasters? What do they mean?

(Forgot to post, only saved this in draft)

Hello again, tis the Queen of Neptune, and today, I decided to reasearch something that has been worrying me. Natural Disasters happening in the world are increasing quite rapidly at this point in time. So I looked up "Natural Disasters 2011" and found these links;

http://www.jesusblogspot.com/2011/01/natural-disasters-2011-recap-of-first.html

http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/trends-in-natural-disasters

There are currently increasing trends in natural disasters, and since 1990, trends say the number of natural disasters has gone up to 425 per year, from almost none, as of 2011. It is said that this has a lot to do with population growth. It is also being compared to global warming, and the earthquakes, and many things happening at the moment. The major disasters seem to be happening all around the same time. Does this mean something? Is it just population growth and global warming? Or could it be telling us to get prepared for more?

The story of 2012, spread by the media, says that the world will end in december, 2012, due to a number of natural disasters all happening at the same time, the oceans will rise, and flood the land, volcanoes will erupt, we will freeze, or burn up, tornadoes, cyclones, earquakes, and anything of the sort will happen, and destroy us all, and the earth will have to regenerate itself, and we will have to start all over. Basically, the appocalypse. Some believe it to be "spiritually transformative" but the common talk is 2012, we will all die. So my friends and I got wondering, could these events be building up for the coming 2012 disaster? Honestly, I don't believe so. But when you think about it, its highly possible. On the news, you hear a lot about natural disasters. Like recently, Japan and the earthquake and flooding from the tsunami. Many people died, around 15,000. It was a horrible disaster, they had two at once, and no one expected it. Haiti is still being talked about to this day, and pretty much everywhere, there has been some sort of natural disaster.

Also, whats up with all the rain? Late winters and summers? Things are changing, global warming could be a big cause of the natural disasters. Some causes are unknown, such as the earthquakes coming out of nowhere, the causes are unknown. Many websites are thinking the same about the disasters, asking if its building up to 2012, and none of us really know, its just a big scare when you think about it too much. What are we going to do about it? The media hasn't mentioned 2012 in a long time, because of recent events happening in the news, but as it approaches, we will all grow in anticipation for it to happen or not happen.

http://www.mayanpredictions.net/are-natural-disasters-increasing-as-2012-approaches/.html

This link explains the tornados that happened in the states the other day, causing over one hundred deaths. I, and others, are worrying about the increase in death and disaster. What are your oppinions? Do you think we should be worried? Even if 2012 doesn't happen, should we be worried about the disasters alone? It could hit us at any time. Tornados have hit here, floods not too far away. Should we worry, too?

Will the media start to scare us again about 2012? And is global warming going to get a lot worse? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT. Just a reminder from me: think about our earth, be kind to our home, because it may not be here in the future.

Osama bin Laden VS. Harold Camping

Hello readers, tis the queen of neptune here, and today I would like to adress a slightly older story, along with a recent one. Osama bin Ladens death, and Harold Camping predicting we were all going to be sent to hell on May 21st, 2011, at 6:00 PM. Rapture? Wrong again, my good sir.

OSAMA BIN LADEN

Osama bin Laden was born on March 10th, 1957, and died on May 2nd, 2011. Well, a while ago in the news, Barack Obama announced; "A small team of Americans carried out the operation. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden, and took custody of his body." This little announcement sent a wave of fear, curiosity, and doubt across the United States, and many other places in the world. "Was it really him?", "Is he actually dead, or is it a lie?" "Will his followers strike back!?" "DID WE REALLY LAND ON THE MOON?!" Anyway. No one was really sure, and there is still doubt to this day. There had been requests for President Obama to release photos of Osama's dead body for proof, but they recently confirmed they will NOT be releasing photos. Although, they did do DNA tests, confirming it is definetly him. There is still fear of his followers attacking the states. I've heard from people here; "If I lived in New York... I'd get the f*** out of there!"

This incident caused so much comotion, it started to bother me, so I looked into it more. Honestly, I didn't even know who Osama bin Laden was untill this happened, I had never known he was responsible for the September 11th attacks on the USA, though I hated hearing his name after I found out. Honestly, I heard about this for weeks. It was aone heck of a story, and the media did an absolutely amazing job of making sure that every single person knew about it, and that it was the talk of the... world. At the moment. Not the town, a lot of the world. The media had done it again, sending many people on a rampage. "Justice has been done." - Barack Obama

HAROLD CAMPING

Harold Egbert Camping (born July 19, 1921) is an American Christian radio broadcaster. He is president of Family Radio, a California-based radio station group that spans more than 150 markets in the United States. This is the man, that is responsible for scaring the heck out of many, many people, and making everyone else laugh at him, saying he is crazy. LOOK AT HIS FACE! He is CRAZY! Harold is a preacher, and a long time ago, he made predictions, and one of them was "The rapture will happen in 1994", well, that never happened, did it? And to my knowledge, HE did not acknowledge that he was incorrect, he moved on with his life and ignored it, and recently, we heard he predicted the rapture would happen on May 21st, 2011, at precicely 6:00 PM. That was three days ago, and it didn't happen, and now, everyone is calling him a fraud. Well, do you think he is a fraud? I definetly do. He has made predictions in the past, that have not came true, and the biggest one he predicted did not happen. We did not go to hell, some of us dont even believe in all of this, heavan, Satan, or anything else. We aren't all christian, and those of us who are, well, they didn't really believe you too much either.

The media only started letting us know about THIS one when it was approaching, all of a sudden everywhere I went, i heard; "Hey, did you know the world's gonna end on the 21st?" By the 20th, I was completely fed up with hearing about it. Every person who mentioned it got a really nasty glare or sarcastic comment. I do, and did not believe, this will ever happen, but this is only my oppinion. The same with 2012 (next blog entry, teehee.) I do not believe that event will occur. ALTHOUGH, I believe we will all eventually kill OURSELVES due to our own creations ruining the world. I don't believe it will happen for centuries, though.

Harold Camping also sent a wave of talk around the world, though mostly North America. My issue with his prediction in the first place, was he said 6PM. What time Zone? Where in the world? He didn't specify. When it was the 20th for me, that must have meant the UK, Australia, and some of Asia were already in hell! He is a horrible preacher, and should probably be sent to a mental hospital if he is still predicting silly things. I could be a better preacher than him... or a weatherman...woman. I predict it will rain later tonight, and into tomorrow. No, I have not checked the news yet, its just CLOUDY OUTSIDE AND LOOKS LIKE RAIN. I do not believe in his nonsense. Harolds words in his recent interview were; "I do not understand why..." his speech broke off and he looked at his watch. "I do not understand why nothing happened." Crazy man. He made many people give up important things, worrying them of the rapture. I dislike him for that.

The point of both of these stories in the same blog is just to compare. To compare the commotion caused, the stories, the result of the stories, and the aftershocks. I now believe two things. Osama bin Laden is definetly dead. We PROBABLY got to the moon, and Harold Camping is a psychopath. Comment and let me know what your views on these stories were when they were the most popular in the media. How did you feel about "The rapture happening on the 21st?" Let me know, I honestly want to hear someone else tell me their oppinion.

~The Queen of Neptune. <3

Gaming: Addiction? Escape? A problem?

GAMING!!! DANGER, DANGER!

Video games, one of the most popular things for kids to spend their time playing nowadays. 65% of households in the USA play video games. 18 Hours a week if the average time spent playing games for gamers. In millions, 154 game consoles are sold compared to 36.4 computers. Videogames are getting more and more popular. It's kind of scary...

I have noticed that 'most' males nowadays (though girls play games, usually that not their topic of conversation) either base their conversations off of gaming, or girls, and sadly, its usually gaming. It's becoming the hot topic everywhere you go. Pokemon, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Mario, Zelda, Halo, Gears of War, etc.. I hear talk about ga

mes all the time, and these are just some. Don't get me wrong, I'm a gamer myself, and its a really fun thing t

o do, to a point. I have seen all sides to this fun 'activity'. You see that word in there? 'Active'. Well, most games, are the opposite of this. I've seen people get highly addicted to playing games, and I keep seeing it, every day. It's unhealthy to sit and do nothing but play games all day, so I'd just like to adress the issues, and the positives to playing in fantasy worlds.

As said, gaming is great to a point, its really fun, and a great way to spend time with friends for a little while, but many are getting addicted. Even my friends, some of them have gaming addictions. My boyfriend even plays them a little too much, but he kn

ows when to stop. Gaming is a distraction to every day life, and school. You wont do your homework, you wont study, and you wont pass, if you don't take a break from

gaming once in a while. I've even hea

rd of some people getting some of these side effects due to gaming for hours and hours each day: developing eating disorders (see last post), getting really sick, having a strange withdrawal, migraines, lack of sleep, weight gain, heart attacks, having seizures and much more. Personality and mood change is common, and it can effect you in ways, physically, and mentally. Addiction is a very serious thing, no matter what you're addicted to. It can always harm you. Maybe there should be a danger label on game cases, haha! :) No, really... I love horror games. They are amazing...

FLIP THE PAGE, some people, like me, play video games to escape the stress around you. As long as you limit your game play time, and don't take it too seriously, its fine to play games for an hour or two. There are many types of games you can p

lay, and one of the most played, are RPG games, and some others are; Action games, shooter games, Action-adventure games, adventure games, Simulation ga

mes, strategy games, and more. Shooter games have become a lot more popular nowadays, though I don't have too much interest. I

enjoy RPG, some action/adventure, simulation, etc. Anyway, games can be used as an escape from our world, and we can put ourselves into another world, that we can control. Its actually a big stress reliever, though play too much, and you'll just add more stress to your days. Playing RPG games are fun, because you can be another character, and live someone else's life. Its actually very interesting to play games sometimes, its a great feeling. Everyone has different taste in games, and that is fine, but I enjoy RPG. Personally, I play weird RPG games with romance, because I'm a girl, I like that kind of thing, but it helps me relieve stress. Its fun when I have nothing else to do. I use to be highly addicted to video games, though. Now I hardly play, because I realised I was being too lazy. Now I'm on the computer a lot... but I'm not addicted. I have learned the consequences. Even computer games can be addicting.

Now, back to the addiction topic for a moment. Time to bring up ADVERTISING! Along with other types of ads, you find video game ads around a lot, too. There are a lot of ads online for games, and in stores, magazines, an

d even in television commercials nowadays. I remember when I was younger, and I thought hey you Pikachu and Pacman was cool... now its shooter games, horror, and the quality of everything is amazing. There is a much larger variety of games to choose from, its like a little kid in a toy store, trying to decide which toy to buy. Due to advertising, even more games are being sold nowadays. The media usually doesn't talk about the problems in gaming, and the addiction, and health problems. They just advertise, so of course games will be a po

pular product to buy. Someone has to bring up the negatives, so I wanted to write about it! Also, did I mention how much money you waste on games? Good games can go up to around 60$ per game! Its outrageous. I know when I walk into a game store, and buy 4 games, I've blown over $2oo dollars in about 5 minutes, its stupid. So, I limit myself, and don't buy many games.

Next thing I want to address, is the number of new game systems. Recently, the Xbox 360 has come out, PlayStation 3, the 3DS, and now new game systems are planned to be coming out, and one pretty soon. Game systems can cost around $300 dollars, and the price range can go from $200-$500. If you don't have the latest game system, your not 'cool'. The Nintendo Wii is the latest game system I have, and as much as I want to play certain games for Xbox360 or PlayStation 3, I doubt I will ever buy them, because its a waste of money, and then, you'll want to buy games for your system, and that will cost another 50$-60$ dollars per game, and then BAM, you've lost your pay check, or, all of your pay checks for the next year. The amount spent on video games is horrifying. If I was to add the prices up on all of my games, I know for a fact my house has spent over $1000 dollars on games, probably over $2000, because we have a lot of them. Buying games could make you go broke very fast, so we don't buy many games any more. We focus on bills, food, and clothes. I recommend any gamers to think about the issue of MONEY when they want to buy the latest game that just came out. Please, just be aware of how much you are spending on games. Advertisements for gaming are a little too successful nowadays. They are making more and more games and systems to make even MORE games. It just keeps moving forward, and the game companies are very successful.

Now, I will list some of the negatives I've mentioned already:

• Many Health Concerns
• Waste of money
• Distraction to everyday life
• Distraction to SCHOOL
• Addiction
• Effects you Physically and Mentally (negative)
• much more!!!
• 
  

The positives would be:

• Escape from stress
• Something to do with friends or when bored
• Experience new things that you aren't able to do
• ITS FUN!

Please, remember, if you are a gamer, set limits for yourself, please do not develop a game addiction, and if you have one, please get some help. :) Or just GO DO SOMETHING ACTIVE!! BE HEALTHY OR NEMESIS WILL COME EAT YOU. >:(

Black Ops... haha. :)

What IS perfect, nowadays?

How skinny is TOO skinny? Is being skinny unhealthy? Well, we're not really thinking about those questions nowadays, are we?

The media, and pretty much everywhere you look, you are encouraged to be skinny, to look sexy, and due to this, we are convinced that super skinny, is super sexy. For example, the media uses only skinny models in television ads, magazines, and anything else you look at. You dont even see curves anymore, for clothing ads and modeling, the models are flat, and skinny. Most people cant even look like that, models use a lot of drugs to look like that, and starve themselves, bringing in the issue of eating disorders.

So basically, the media is encouraging us to be skinny, be unhealthy, and turn anorexic? Yeah, thats pretty much how it seems, and its working. Many girls are currently stressing about their weight, if their 100 pounds, or 200 pounds, they want to be skinnier. One of the main reasons, is some people will bully, make fun of you, and reject you if they consider you 'fat'. If you feel fat, you'll be afraid to be rejected, and try to lose weight. Some people take pills, throw up, starve themselves, or do other dangerous things to their bodies. Men nowadays also mostly look at appearance, they look for skinny, because 'skinny is sexy'. Curves may be sexy to a lot of men aswell, but if they are in the wrong places, they usually wont even blink an eye, because the media brainwashes us to believe being skinny is the only good thing. Even being average isn't looked at as much. I believe the new idea of using healthy looking women in ads is great, to encourage women to be healthy, and reduce the risks of eating disorders, like anorexia and bolemia. Things like this will hopefully help a lot.

Young children are even at risk of future eating disorders, and being self concious about their bodies.

One of the main toys that put them at risk are barbies. Barbies are older, but still very popular among young girls. They have extremely small stomachs, skinny waists, skinny legs, and huge breasts, all topped off with a big, unfitting head, that shows how small their bodies really are. Technically, if thats how real girls looked, we wouldn't be able to stand up and support our bodies, and would probably suffocate ourselves when we lied down. Other dolls made are the same, bratz, and cheap ripoffs of barbies, are all very skinny, and young girls will want to look like them, because they are 'pretty'. From a young age, the media messes with our minds, and gives us unhealthy messages about our bodies, and its putting eveyrone in danger, especially women, though men can feel self concious too, and could go to extremes to be skinnier, or work out untill they are all muscle, and nothing else, which could be very bad for you.

Sadly, the media is succeeding in their advertising, because even I have become quite insecure about my weight, and I feel I need to be very skinny to look pretty. Someone in my family is twice my age, 116 pounds, and thinks she is very overweight, so she isn't eating properly. The media is dangerous, being SUPER SKINNY is dangerous, and can lead to permanant harm, serious injury, and eating disorders. I could go on forever about how awful the media is for advertising this. I thought advertising clothing was about the clothes, not the bodies on the models underneath the clothes. Sadly, thats all that catches our attention now. 90% of the time, our body is the most noticed, and judged thing, usually by the opposite sex, but it can be by anyone. If we let the media take over our view on this issue, like it has been, it will have serious consequences, and coming from personal experience, depression. Though, if you see the truth behind this, and ignore the photoshopping, and the super skinny models' perfection, and find just one person who agree's, it will make a big difference in your life. To find people nowadays that wont judge you for the way you look is hard, but its possible. Personality is key in people. And most ads are just mind controlling, so dont fall for them.

I just wanted to get my oppinion across on the media advertising unhealthy body images. It needs to be reduced, because its harming us. Healthy, is beautiful. Skinny... well, if your scary skinny, its kind of scary, and unhealthy, so please go to a doctor, get some help, dont harm yourself. Thank you for reading~