The following You Tube clips show the Rescue Heroes cartoon, video game, and toy commercial. As in chapter 13 it discusses how sometimes the advertisement is the entertainment, these cartoons were developed in order to sell the toys. My son had these videos and of course we had to get the action figures.
Another example would be Care Bears. These were my generation of must have toys. When my daughter was about three they came out with Care Bears again at the store. In each box with the bear was a video of the Care Bear cartoon. The marketers knew their target would be women who grew up with these adorable bears and would nostalgically want to introduce them to their children in turn. It worked. I got her about five of them and then moved onto Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite. My daughter was not nearly as enthusiastic about these items as I was...
The more I think about it, it seems as almost all entertainment functions as advertisement as well now. Looking to examples in my regular media consumption, Cosmopolitan and The Hills, both seem to be built around selling the ideals, products and lifestyles to the target demographic for which it is intended. In Cosmo, even the articles are thinly veiled attempts at selling the newest mascara or miracle bra. The Hills seem to be MTV's way of building an audience for up and coming musical acts.
ReplyDeleteMaybe as we as a society become more media literate advertisers have to become more savy to "trick" us into paying attention to their message.