Sunflower Seed #11: Advertisements

In this weeks class we learned about advertising and how companies link fear to products. One advertisement I found is one by BMW targeting those who drink and drive. They linked the fear of drinking and driving to their car sales by using a real fear of losing limbs in a car accident to boost product sales. Companies use this horrible platform of drunk drivers by making people fear the road and coning them into trusting their car brands. In this ad they are selling a cure to drinking and driving if you buy a BMW and don't drink and drive.  Another advertisement I found was about Shave Butter. This product is a mens shaving product that uses the fear of not being sliced by your razor when shaving your privates. Within this ad it exaggerates being cut like fruit by having the fruit resemble private parts shapes and men can solve all their issues by using this product.

Sunflower Seed #9: Tattoos

Tons of people around the world have tattoos. For thousands of years the art of tattooing has been around for people to mark their bodies. In our reading this week titled, Secret Ink there is a mixed message that is still being sent out in our culture. The mixed message our culture sends about tattoos is the fact that many musicians, athletes and artist have tattoo and are excepted widely by the public. Where as average individuals with tattoos are not as easily excepted.

 Average individuals unlike many athletes can even get fired for having tattoos, "In addition to private corporations, state and local governments have also terminated employees solely on the basis of tattoos"(Roberts 156).  Employees that refuse to cover up their tattoos can be fired if it interferes with the uniform of the job. But for athletes this is not the same. Depending on your job your tattoo may be okay to one employer but not the other. Another way we know that tattoos are excepted in some cases and not in others is from the history of tattoos. Tattoos used to be a sign of wealth but now they are associated with people who have been incarcerated and have a lower social status. "Though tattoos were a fad among the upper class, sailors and soldiers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they became unacceptable by the 1920s, leading to academic research framing tattoos as deviant or symbolic of mental health disorders" (Roberts 154). Tattoos have made a clear shift in society from once being accepted for the wealthy to being unacceptable even today by some people. 

SunFlower Seed #9: Marketing Children

In class this week we watched a video titled, Consuming Kids.  This video was about how children are now being viewed from a marketing standpoint. While watching this video I noticed three very important points that were being discussed such as children are influencing everything, personalized ads, and the keep asking method.
In the video, Consuming Kids it talks about how children are now influencing everything. Back in the day parents used to make the decisions but now kids have a say in just about everything from vacations to family vehicles to phone processors. Kids control almost everything! Another thing that the video talked about was personalized ads. Now a days when we surf the web we see ads for things that that are personalized based on our age and gender. This is another tactic companies use to get you to buy there products. The final thing that I thought was the most important was the keep asking method. When parents say no to their kids instead of the child excepting the parents decision they will continue to ask until they get what they want. This is just one of the many reasons why marketing has taken such a shift because parents just give in and instead of being a parents decision its the child's. I used this tactic too with my parents!

Sun Flower Seed #8: Gaming

This week in class we learned a lot about games and the motivations behind why we play them. In the article we read titled, "Why We Play" we ran into two very important motives for why we play games known as challenge and mastery, and flow. Within the article we learned that challenge and mastery refers to a personal sense of getting better. As humans we love to know how we are acceding and improving our skills. Flow on the other hand is a known feeling for almost everyone that has played sports. This refers to the feeling of being in the zone or playing at the top of your game. Jane McGonigal a speaker in the video we watched titled, " Gaming Can Make a World Better" also had things to say about these motivations.

Jane stated in the video that games appeal to the motivation known as challenge and mastery because it is right at the tip of your level. Children that play games such as World of Warcraft are constantly playing at their own level and mastering skills before they reach the next! Jane also discusses in the video how flow is also another important motive. Many children get into a "flow" and don't come out of it for a while. They even skip dinner to keep playing like they are hypnotized to the game. This is one of the down falls to playing video games. Children can get hooked!