Columbia Pictures and agenda setting

I am a Vietnamese student and I arrived Fort Collins about 2 months ago. Actually, America is not really like what I have imagined, or at least what I have “known” about it through the media. With the impression that violence might occur anytime and anywhere (as what I saw in many American films with my dad on Star Movies, HBO, etc), I have some fear before coming here. However, I finally realize that what arouses my anxiety is not the USA itself but things called “cultivation”. And one of the most popular American film production and distribution studio I know and wanna send message to today is Columbia Pictures Industries (CPII).

Cultivation is known as the theory about the impact of media on audiences. When we watch entertainment programs repeatedly, we begin to internalize what is portrayed on TV. What I have observed from films especially the products of American films in general and CPII in particular is that brutal scenes take places very often. You could easily find a film with the scene of killing people, fight, hijack, kidnap, etc on the internet, the cinema or on TV. Of course, this has huge impacts on people from all ages. In my opinion, watching violence film could help adults release stress in some ways because we could reveal our hidden emotions inside when stress in our daily life could be accumulated over time However, in daily life, people try to keep calm and avoid the “explosion” as much as possible. Through imitation of films, adults might have the tendency to get into fight and “explode” his stress in many ways including violence when he loses his temper. They might not be aware of that watching violent films on regular basis could cause them to act more aggressively and uncontrollably. Violent films also raising fear of the society on audience. Is there much violence in reality as what is shown in action films? The answer might be “Yes” if we take a look at the online news. The main topics founded from different online news pages are politics, taxes, wars and violence. If the real world is portrayed exactly on the online news channels, we are living in such a dangerous world! Actually, what we see on those media has been affected by the agenda setting theory.

The theory of Agenda setting said that press and media does not reflect the reality. They filter it and shape it. The media concentrates on few issues, make people believe that something is more important than the others. That’s the reason why by the exposure to news about violence on the media, people tend to pay more attention to violence and we may believe what is portrayed in entertainment programs.

But why should CPII show concern about the relationship between cultivation theory and agenda setting? That is because their products are negatively and directly affected by the frequency of news about violence on the media. How many action films of Columbia Pictures Industries are produced each year and on TV every month? What is the number of violence news that a citizen catches in a day? The audience might be getting more and more tired of the “violence-everywhere”. We could easily find many violent movies in the list of Columbia Pictures Industries : Salt, Django Unchained, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Ghost Rider, Total Recall, The Equalizer, etc. As one of the biggest film industry in America, CPII is supposed to offer an escape from the stress of everyday life by their products. They are expected to bring more love, friendship, hope and happiness to their customers instead of too many brutal scenes. The short- term gain could be the increase in sales and revenue from such films, but what might be the long- term lost when people are fed up with the world full of aggressive behaviors and conflicts? What if adults realize negative impacts of Hollywood films on themselves and their children?

The suggestion is that Columbia Picture Industries should try to estimate and control the frequency of their violent products. The simplest solution, of course, is to reduce the number of violent films and scenes in their products. In such films, the cost of violence and punishments should be shown more obviously, the contextualization should be better. What about reviews from the customers? Yes, they also play an important role. The producer should pay more attention to the rating and comments of the audience so that they could know what they should focus on when making their products. We live in a stressful world, you know, and entertainment programs should offer a way out of tough time instead of being stuck in violence and crime. If CPII do realize that our lives are “boomed” by enough violent news, and many other producers are producing the same tons of action films, and if they considers about introducing films with more “peace” and happiness, they might become a leader for a new trend. It does sound good, right?

When the expression troubles

Race is one of the most controversial topics over years. I’m glad to see that the racist ads have significantly decreased on the media recently. But it is still a good choice to use carefully any image related to this sensitive issues to promote your products. Today I wanna talk more about this with the example of Dove’s Visible Care Body Wash advertisement.

We are in post-racial society today, that’s what many people say! By “post- racial”, I mean the time when people of color no longer have to face the obstacle of race. The inequality in the society now is thought to exist because of the economic or political reasons, and does not base on ethnicity anymore. To an advertiser, the idea of making our advertisement to match and reflect this new era sounds great.

Let’s take a look at the advertisement of Dove’s Visible Care.

The background is divided into 2 parts: “before” and “after”. The before part on the left describes the skin in bad condition and the “after-Dove” skin on the right is smooth and moisturized. In addition, there are 3 women- one black, one possibly Latina and one blonde- standing in front of the background from left to right respectively. In the view of a customer, this design implies that using this product will make the black women skin “visibly more beautiful” and might turn her into the white women. This advertisement is said to insult customers having dark skin because it implicitly suggest that lighter skin is much better than dark one. The reply of Dove's PR in this case is: "The ad is intended to illustrate the benefits of using Dove Visible Care Body Wash, by making skin visibly more beautiful in just one week. All three women are intended to demonstrate the "after" product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience.”

By taking advantage of the ideology of “color blind”- the deliberately effort to not pay attention to thoughts about race in the post- racial society- using models from various ethnic groups to emphasize the idea: “real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes, colors and ages” in the advertisement seemed to be a smart choice. That buyers appreciate the effort of the company in supporting the social equality could earn more love for the product in particular and the firm in general. When using this idea, Dove has to consider the negative aspect of the color blind ideology that it ignores and overlooks the privilege in the society. (Privilege is defined as particular advantages, permissions, rights or benefits that just an individual, class or caste could afford. This means that when the white has privilege, they have access to many things that people of other skin colors don’t). According to "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, one of the most popular white privileges on the media is people having it could “easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazine featuring people of their race, while others could not.” Congratulations! Dove did a good job to avoid this privilege! Unfortunately, they fail to put that interesting idea in an appropriate context. There is no direct link between two messages of the advertisement when they try to inform the effectiveness of the product and appreciate the real beauty of women from different races simultaneously. The combination of these two does not make much sense to the customers. Moreover, the truth is that, race is still a controversial topic and using racial image needs much more attention even when we are considered to be in a “post-racial” era. It might be a waste of effort and money to spend on advertisement for the “post-racial” society when our society have not reached that yet.

So the only advice for Dove is: Stop using this advertisement as soon as possible. The explanation to correct the misunderstanding of this advertisement should be clear and widespread on the media. Dove should never make this kind of mistake again if they do not want to lose their world’s top cleansing brand right now and affect the leading position of Unilever on the market. What is written binds the writer, be careful with whatever you pose to the public. It is much better to look at the “real” society rather than the ideal one when making advertisement. Catching the new social trend is good, but please ensure that you convey your message clearly to the customers. If you are not sure about this, please focus on the product itself, any irrelevant extra information shouldn’t be added.

Barbie dolls in a critical analysis

Have you ever seen a Barbie girl? Is she beautiful? Is she charming? Oh, it sounds so obvious. A pretty and smart girl always stays in shape and looks fashionable, what could be more perfect? Barbie is really a successful case study in doing marketing. To capture the bigger market, Mattel- the producer has come up with a variety of designs and changes for their dolls. Today I wanna uncover some secret about one of the latest version of the collection “Barbie Dolls of the world 2013”.

With the intention of creating “the significance of introducing new cultures to girls in a relatable way”, the collection helps “exploring the world and learning about different cultures through play”. However, while it might be clear that the producer concentrated on “celebrating the cultures and diversity represented within each country”, it’s not a good idea to me when only featuring the native fashions in the collection. There are many different types of dolls in “Barbie Dolls of the world 2013”: Mexico Barbie is “dressed for a fabulous fiesta” in a pink dress with ruffles, ribbon and lace; China doll wearing a red sink embroidered gowns, India Barbie with a sari…Let me be frank, how many times have you seen this image of a India or Mexico girl on daily magazine wearing the same outfit as the dolls? Have you met any Chinese girl recently? Oh God, I could not remember what is the last time I see a “normal” people wearing such kind of clothes daily, maybe just on some films or old pictures. Foreign women is now fashionable and much more different.

Barbie is considered as a life inspiration of smart feminist who could do everything she wants: an astronaut, an army ranger, a presidential candidate, etc as long as she is assumed to be an American. But when she takes on the cultural appearance of others, she is very restricted. The question is why Barbie dolls from other countries have to wear the native clothing (especially in comparison with US where there is no traditional costume)? That is exactly when these dolls plays into stereotype.

Stereotype is known as an unintentional activation of the fixed image or response shaped from the past coming up in your mind when understanding a type of people or things. By using the image of those “foreign Barbies”, buyers might believe in the image of people in other countries as the same as what dolls represent while it might not be the case. If I were a kid who knows nothing about the world but what is described by these dolls, I could not realize is not the cultures but the differences in lifestyle and people among countries. It’s not progressive to implicitly suggest that others could not keep up with the changes in our modern world through those outdated image, right?

Could you imagine “To what extend did the producer unHave you ever seen a Barbie girl? Is she beautiful? Is she charming? Oh, it sounds so obvious. A pretty and smart girl always stays in shape and looks fashionable, what could be more perfect? Over 50 years of development, Barbie has come out with a variety of designs and changes. Today I wanna take an in-depth look at one of the latest version of the collection “Barbie Dolls of the world 2013”.

With the intention of creating “the significance of introducing new cultures to girls in a relatable way”, the collection helps “exploring the world and learning about different cultures through play”. However, while it might be clear that the producer concentrated on “celebrating the cultures and diversity represented within each country”, it’s not a good idea to me when only featuring the native fashions in the collection. There are many different types of dolls in “Barbie Dolls of the world 2013”: Mexico Barbie is “dressed for a fabulous fiesta” in a pink dress with ruffles, ribbon and lace; China doll wearing a red sink embroidered gowns, India Barbie with a sari, etc. Let me be frank, how many times have you seen this image of a India or Mexico girl on daily magazine wearing the same outfit as the dolls? Have you met any Chinese girl recently? Oh God, I could not remember what is the last time I see a “normal” people wearing such kind of clothes daily, maybe just on some films or old pictures. Foreign women is now fashionable and much more different.

Barbie is considered as a life inspiration of smart feminist who could do everything she wants: an astronaut, an army ranger, a presidential candidate, etc as long as she is assumed to be an American. But when she takes on the cultural appearance of others, she is very restricted. The question is "Why Barbie dolls from other countries have to wear the native clothing?" (especially in comparison with US where there is no traditional costume). That is exactly when they plays into stereotype.

Stereotype is known as an unintentional activation of the fixed image or response shaped from the past coming up in your mind when understanding a type of people or things. The image Mattel created for dolls are some kind of "outside of history", "something that is placid and still and eternal"- "which is simply contradicted by the fact of history." (Edward Said) . By using the image of those “foreign Barbies”, buyers might believe in the image of people in other countries as the same as what dolls represent while it might not be the case. If I were a kid who knows nothing about the world but what is described by these dolls, I could not realize is not the cultures but the differences in lifestyle and people among countries. It’s not really "friendly" to implicitly suggest that others could not keep up with the changes in modern world like us through those outdated image , right? 

Could you imagine “To what extend did the producer unintentionally affect our products and company?” Let’s put ourselves in the position of a foreign buyer who finds that the doll does not express his"real" and up-to-date image in the society. If I were him, I will seriously consider not to buy the product or even deny using it as a gift for my kids or especially international friends. Moreover, overseas purchasers could feel that the way people making and designing Barbie is not respectful enough to their culture when using such old- fashioned images, which could lead to the rejection of buying any Barbie doll. Nowadays, when the producer tries to reach the overseas market as much as possible, that product itself limits the accessibility to foreign consumes is not good at all. And maybe, the feedback or complains about the product available on webs could also negatively impact the decisions of American consumers to buy the collection. Moreover, using the outdated image of others in a big series of products revealed the poor understanding of the producer in cultures, which discourage purchasers to buy the product when they are willing to learning about the "real culture".

Is it fair to foreign countries when creating such kind of staying- the-same images like being stuck in the history and force other culture to stop developing in our mind while Barbie is well-known as a dare-to-do model? Is it really progressive to implicitly emphasizing the differences by comparing between modern and traditional images of nations? It’s time for differences to be truly respected and fully comprehend by offering more “real” products. I might just have come up with some constructive ideas about dolls with the more modern clothing such as vest and skirt suit with the national symbol on it or cultural gesture that both offer the “real-world” view and the cultural characteristic.

P.S : “Dear Mattel,

Please, never underestimates the importance of researching and understanding what you are representing in products!”

intentionally alienate their potential customers?” Let’s put ourselves in the position of a foreign buyer who finds that the doll does not express their "real" and up-to-date images in the society, I will seriously consider not to buy the product or even deny using it as a gift for my kids or especially international friends. Moreover, overseas purchasers could feel that the way people making and designing Barbie is not respectful enough to their culture when using such out-of- image, which could lead to the rejection of buying any Barbie doll. Nowadays, when the producer tries to reach the overseas market as much as possible, that product itself limits the accessibility to foreign consumes is not good at all. And maybe, the feedbacks or complains about the product available on webs could also negatively impact the decisions of American consumers to buy the collection. Moreover, using the outdated image of others in a big series of products revealed the poor understanding of the producer in cultures, which discourage purchasers to buy the product when they are willing to learning about it.

Is it fair to foreign countries when creating such kind of staying- the-same images like being stuck in the history and force other culture to stop developing in our mind while Barbie is well-known as a dare-to-do model? Is it really progressive to implicitly emphasizing the differences by comparing between modern and traditional images of nations? It’s time for differences to be truly respected and fully comprehend by offering more “real” products. I might just have come up with some constructive ideas about dolls with the more modern clothing such as vest and skirt suit with the national symbol on it or cultural gesture that both offer the “real-world” view and the cultural characteristic.

“Dear Mattel,

 Please, never underestimate the importance of researching and understanding what you are representing in products!”

Toyota Prius advertisement- what might be hidden?

"You cannot walk down the street without being bombarded." (Bob Garfield, advertising writer).

It’s no exaggeration to say that nowadays advertising is one of the most powerful tools in doing marketing. Companies use mass media as an effective way to bring their product closer to consumers. And of course, this is extremely costly. However, not all advertisements deserve what it is paid. Do I mean that there is a problem here? Yes! The fact is that on the one hand advertisements successfully catch the attention of audience; on the other hand, it might still alienate some potential purchasers in a “natural” way. Are you sure that you are not making mistakes? Let's take a look at this.

Today I choose a New Prius Toyota car advertisement as example. On the advertisement, there is a smartly -dressed man standing next to a New Prius car reminding us of the typical businessman in daily life. That is the intention of the producer to entice purchasers by designing the poster showing the luxury and elegance, which invites shoppers to have their own pleasant experience with their product. The poster also clearly illustrates technological improvements of the car such as the back monitor, glass roof with solar system, etc.

I don't have to spend much time to realize that the target customers here is men, and I'm sure that you share the same opinion. Have you ever wondered why many advertisements of cars using the image of male businessman or images related to men instead of women? The issue is not usually raised because most of us consider that as natural, as driving car in particular and using technology in general is seen as advantage of man rather than women, . But  let's think about that a little bit. Have I just confirmed that there is a "truth" that men is better in women in using car and technology? No way! There is no "truth" like that exists, what does exist is a problem called hegemony.

Hegemony is known as a power of a group dominating over others. In our life, cultural hegemony- the domination of the ruling class’s idea making their world view as norms in normal life- is practiced widely. It is introduced to other classes unconsciously not by force but by the system of consent overtime so that sometimes it is seen as natural and inevitable. One of the most popular cultural hegemony is patriarchy- a kind of supporting the rule of men in society.

So how does cultural hegemony become a problem?  Let’s come back with our Toyota Prius advertisement. With the detailed description of innovative technology on it, the advertisement is good at showing the advantages of the car for shoppers. However, because the poster explicitly pointing out the target customers as men, the attraction of it to women significantly decreases. By doing this, the poster has both reproduced the dominant viewpoint of man using technology in the society and extended this dominant culture, which put limits on the effectiveness of the advertisement to reach female buyers. A good advertisement is costly, so are you sure that the producers want to spend a huge amount on an advertisement alienating the consumers itself?

Now the question is "What advertisers should do to make sure that the problem of cultural hegemony in media is reduced or eliminated"? The suggestion is that the producer could use the image of the whole family with both husband and wife satisfied with the product. Or why don’t they make enjoying the car become sweet shared moment between lovers while hanging around together? This could attract men by persuading male to make his lovers happy (as they always try to) and also become much more inviting to women. Even when female does not directly make decision of buying the car, they could support their man in doing that. What about  the idea of a heterosexual family or the image of a woman alone? You know, a hot woman always attracts men, and using our car makes a women much more beautiful and attractive sounds cool to both genders, why don't you give it a try? Just keep in mind that advertisement needs to be as “fair” as possible, is it too hard to do?

A good advertisement is not just expected to successfully access the right buyers, but at least to arouse the curiosity or stimulate the demand for the products. It is important to catch attention, but it is more essential to make sure that the advertisement could reach as many customers as possible. The market is now increasingly competitive, and in our busy life, the opportunity to make the product attractive to more people is limited. So do you want to miss a chance?