In-Class, Feb. 11: FAILED ADS

In-Class Prompt, Feb. 11th:
Topic: Thinking rhetorically / thinking critically

FAILED ADVERTISING

Today, we are going to talk about FAILED ADS, where the creator of the advertisement has messed up in expressing his/her argument.

At first, we are going to read pp. 102-104 in our light blue textbook about old Bob Dylan making an ad for Victoria’s Secret which wasn’t received well by the audience, because it created a bad effect. Then, we will talk about media critic Seth Stevenson (p. 103), who had written a response to Dylan’s advertising. Which words does Stevenson use to ridicule the ad? How does he debunk the mistakes made by Victoria’s Secret in hiring the old country singer to pose for their ad?

Then, we are going to look at three examples of bad advertisings that caused a negative customer reaction.

EXAMPLE 1:This is an ad that encourages people to become vegetarians.


Here’s the criticism:

So I ran across one of those PETA “All Animals Have The Same Parts” ads again today, and I got to thinking. This ad could be a lot more effective. Basically, the way it is now they are trying to get you to not eat meat by associating the various cuts of meat you would get from a cow, pig, etc. with the same parts on a human body.

This could be effective, but I think their choice of a model is what kills the ad. They use an attractive model that is opposed to eating animals and label her various parts as they relate to the cuts of meat of those animals.

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but this doesn't make me want to stop eating meat. Heck, the only thing it might do, is make you consider cannibalism (just kidding, of course)!



EXAMPLE 2:The second example offended the public because it appeared to be racist. I’ll give you two examples, one by Sony, the other by Intel. Both companies failed to convey their message in a politically correct way.

Race RelationsUsing people to convey a black and white message is a fine line to walk in advertising. And so far, two companies have found themselves failing miserably in this area.

In the summer of 2006, Sony learned that having a white woman holding a black woman by the jaw to promote its ceramic white Playstation Portable wasn't a very good idea. The billboard only ran in the Netherlands but the controversy sparked debates around the world.

At first, Sony defended its billboard. The company said it only wanted to "highlight the whiteness of the new model or contrast the black and the white models." Later, Sony pulled the ad and apologized.

Apparently, Intel didn't get the sensitivity to others memo, though. In August 2007, the company found itself in the center of controversy over a print ad showing a white man surrounded by six sprinters.
What's the big deal? The sprinters are black and appear to be bowing to the white man.
Complaints caused Intel to remove the ad and they issued an apology through the company's Web site, saying the intent was to "convey the performance capabilities of our processors through the visual metaphor of a sprinter." The apology goes on to say, "Unfortunately, our execution did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be insensitive and insulting."



EXAMPLE 3: alluding to 9/11
This Starbuck's ad was offensive because its imagery resembled the twin towers, and the word "collapse" equally alluded to the World Trade Center.



PROMPT: Creative writing assignment (visual and textual)
Now, it is your turn: invent an ad that is completely mismatched. You have three tasks:

1)
Create the mismatched ad (a poster like we did for our songs). Get pictures from the Internet, copy and paste them in a word document, and invent a slogan for your ad so it’s clear for which product or service it is. You MUST integrate a famous person (like in the Bob Dylan ad; or the model who represented the vegetarian ad)or event (like the World Trade Center).

2)
Pretend you are Seth Stevenson. You are writing a short criticism (1 page maximum) that will be published in the Daily Egyptian about how mismatched this ad is. Make sure to “think rhetorically,” and “think critically.” Answer the following questions in your text: Who created the ad? For whom? Why is the ad mismatched? Why doesn’t it APPEAL to the audience? What argument did it try to make? Where was it wrong? (like an old country singer making panties’ ads) Try to make your text sound professional. For example, Stevenson writes: “The answer, my friend, is totally unclear, the answer is totally unclear” (103), which is in reference to the song “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” He does this to be satirical.

3)
Email me your picture ad. The ads will be published in a slide show on our blog. Post your criticism on the blog as a comment to this entry here. Make sure it is free of mechanical errors before you publish it, since it will be read by the whole class.

If you don’t get done in class, the rest will be homework and is due before class on Wednesday (your criticism has to be published on the blog by Wednesday 10:00 a.m. You need to email me your picture ad by Tuesday, 8 p.m. (deadline!), so that I can scan it and insert it in the slide show.) If your works of art are not on the blog on Wednesday, you won’t receive full credit for them, since we cannot talk about them.

Have fun!