Advertising for Teens

I was browsing through some of the online versions of teen magazines when I noticed a trend in advertising for teen girls: "beauty" products and sweepstakes. I visited the sites of Seventeen, ym, and Teen. Clearly, the ads on this site are geared toward adolescent and teen girls. The most common ads were those for subscriptions to the magazine and any other they're affiliated with-- such as Teen Vogue and CosmoGirl. (On a side note, all of the websites of these magazines look and feel pretty much the same, so it's no wonder their ads are similar as well.) But besides advertising the magazine itself, by far the most frequent ad was for beauty products-- especially lipgloss and eyeshadow. This came as no huge surprise, but what I found really interesting was the number of ads that display the phrase "You Could Win!" Over half of the ads on the main homepages of these sites had some sort of a connection to a contest. In just one minute of browsing, I was able to find the following: "Win $250,000" next to a picture of their magazine; "Win This" next to a gown, "Text Win!" inserted into a CoverGirl add for lipgloss, and "Enter to Win a $25,000" shopping spree. What is it about teen girls that elicit this kind of ad?

My initial analysis of this "sweepstakes" kind of advertising is that, in order to be effective, the audience must believe they have a chance to win. A younger audience is likely to be more gullible, or at least less skeptical, which would explain why these ads are so prominent in teen magazines. It would be interesting to take a look at magazines for older audiences and compare the frequency of these contests or drawings-- I would guess that as the intended audience ages, the less common "sweepstakes" ads would be. Also, I think it's important to take note of the prizes being offered. In these teen magazines, the prizes are always glamorous-- either in terms of the products (cosmetics, name brand clothes, etc.) or money (often intended for "shopping spree" money). As girls become adolescence, there is an explicit and pronounced focus on physical appearance. Glamour is admired and beauty if sought after. The advertisers for these teen magazines are capitalizing on teen girls' desires to be fashionable, beautiful, and glamourous (are any of those things different?), and what better way to become those things than winning them? Finally, another commonality among these sweepstakes ads is that they're all brightly colored (with bright pink, of course, being especially prominent), they all use big, bubbly text, and they often feature a pretty, smiling teen girl. What does this portray? That when a girl wins these great products (or, really, when they don't win them and buy them anyway), they will become beautiful and happy.

Romantic Comedies

My partner and I are exploring the genre of romantic comedies-- and wow, there are a lot of films that classify themselves in this way. But as I've started to look at different trailers and different ads for these movies, it's interesting to see that only some of them explicitly market themselves as "romantic comedies"-- these are the ones most frequently coined "chick flicks," I think. Just taking an informal overview of which ones explicitly state this and which ones don't, it seems to me that the self-proclaimed romantic comedies are usually the ones in which the main character is a 20-something female and there aren't any obvious plot twists or variations-- films like My Best Friend's Wedding, The Holiday, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, etc. Films that focus more attention on male characters though, like Wedding Crashers, or ones that have a significantly unique element to them-- something like 50 First Dates-- those movies tend to be marketed in a slightly different way to avoid the instant "chick flick" classification.

In romantic comedies, relationships are central. Obviously, romantic comedies take up the majority of the time, but family relationships (especially parent/child relationships) and friendships also surface a lot as secondary plot lines. These movies are usually set in just one or two main locations-- a wedding, a work place, or a family's home seem to be common settings. The most common theme I've found in this genre is that "love is all you need." There is always a problem, a misidentity, a lack of communication, or some other obstacle like distance or parental approval that stands in the way of a potential relationship-- but more often than not, the conclusion overcomes this obstacle and the two live happily ever after. And nearly all of the romantic comedies I've come across portray the lives of 20- or 30-something white heterosexual couples. Of course, I haven't seen anywhere near all of the romantic comedies that are out there, but it's striking that I really can't think of any that deal with main characters from any other demographic.

Facebook

I just did an informal media enthnography study on the use of Facebook. I found this video on YouTube as an after thought, and I posted it mostly because I appreciate a good silly song. What this video portrays some common complaints people have about frequent users of facebook--namely, I think, the point that facebook users no longer have to be physically present to feel like they're being social and making friends. They can instead log on to this virtual social world and become "friends," a friendship based more often than not on the fact that two people know each other rather than any type of emotional significance. While I think this is certainly a real aspect of some people's Facebook Culture, I think it's only one side of the coin.

I interviewed one of my friends, a self-proclaimed frequent user, about her habits, her thoughts, and her overall experience with Facebook. I found that she is part of a completely different Facebook Culture, one that I think is more common than the one portrayed in the video. Mostly, Facebook isn't a replacement for seeing people face-to-face for her-- rather, it's an extension of socializing that makes it easier for her to keep in touch with people and schedule social events. The features she says she most appreciates and uses on her profile are photos, the wall, her courses, events, and work info. She frequently uses the "Events" feature to set up gatherings-- anything from an outing to a bar on a Friday night to attending a senior recital with her fellow music majors. For her, sending out the event to people is in addition to actually talking about it with people and doesn't replace the interaction of inviting someone to something. She says that it's just a good way to make sure everyone has the same information-- the when, where, what time, etc. Also, she likes that you can post pictures in albums and associate them with certain events or times. For similar reasons, she's also a member of several "groups." The "group" feature on Facebook is interesting, because it seemingly serves no purpose whatsoever. When I asked her about why she chooses to accept membership into some groups and not others, or why she sometimes create groups herself, she said she uses her groups to reflect who she is. She doesn't think about it in terms of what other people will think of her, though it seems likely that some users probably do think about it in this way, but rather, she uses photos and groups and events as a record of what experiences she's had and what she associates herself with. For example, she's a member of "Students against U of M Students that Wear Badgers Crap." What's the point of this? "Nothing," she says, "but it's just so true. I hate when people walk around with stupid big red Wisconsin shirts!" I think for her, Facebook is a tool that merges socializing, self-expression, and entertainment. If you think about it, that can be said for a lot of other things that don't take as much flack as Facebook does. What's the outside of a refridgerator door for, for example? People write in their schedule on calendars, post phone numbers of people they need to call, invitiations they need to reply to, and stick up pictures, comic strips, and quotes that mean something to them. Socializing, self-expression, and entertainment... okay, it's a stretch, but perhaps we could start thinking about Facebook as an interactive, online refridgerator door instead of dismissing it as a tool for non-social stalkers.

What Old People Do For Fun

Here are some images of the "elderly" from Flikr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14827439@N04/favorites/