When I thought about the post that I wanted to submit for my midterm I couldn't think of one that that was more interesting than the one I wrote the other week on Animation Marketing. This is the origional post below.
In class last week, we looked at a cartoon character known as Buster Brown. What was interesting about this was that it was the first instance in which an animation was used in the marketing of a product. This was a revolutionary way to be able to get consumers to buy a product. This has since been used to promote what seems as an infinite amount of products. Everything from cereal all the way to types of clothing are being advertised nowadays by animated characters, there are even some characters that are thought up just to market that one product. This is all fine and dandy, but there is one thing that happened with marketing and animated characters that was a setback.
This instance that I am referring to is the character that was created to advertise Camel cigarettes known as Joe Camel. Throughout the 1990s when I was a kid I could remember seeing this character always looking as cool as possible with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Now I am not against smoking, I know plenty of people that do, but these comics did look like they had a likeness that could appeal to children. These ads were in any magazine that an adult would usually read and some of them do in fact look amusing, but when you are dealing with kids who try and hang on to everything that they read or see on television it becomes a problem. The problem that usually generates out of these ads is that the kid wants to look as “cool” as the character on the ad. Due to this they are convinced that in order to be “cool” they need to smoke. The point that I am trying to make out of all this is that things like this should not fall into the hands of kids it is just another thing for them to try and hold on to. This is why advertisers need to be a little more careful as to what they use in order to advertise to people. So, this poses the question is animation marketing always a good thing?
Following this post there were a few comments that were posted to this that I would like to take time to acknowledge.
The First is the comment on The Flintstones advertising for Winston Cigarette company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdHSIquSHMw. I do agree that animation does appeal to all, but this particular commercial was in a time where many things were not known about smoking. But as time went on, more research was done and now we are trying to make sure that our kids don't pick up the habit. It is very interesting as to how these commercials make you think. On one hand you see your favorite cartoon character getting ready to light up, but nowadays it is something that almost seems to be taboo for television. It really is amazing as to how times have changed.
As for the second comment, I could not agree more with the fact that there are some cartoon shows that are all about pushing product. that video game cartoon is a very good example. The show is titled "Captain N: The Game Master." I did not even have to get through the opening segment when I saw little hints of marketing. Part of the title was written in the very same characters that Nintendo uses to brand themselves. So I can see where there is a way that advertising through animation can appeal to all, but both of these cases are not the best for children. For the cigarette ads, there has been enough research conducted to show that yes they can kill you, and now we see all of these ads for smoking and what it takes away from you. Obviously this is so kids do not even want to start. As for the video game show, this is a problem that has been taking toll on kids since I was growing up. Yes video games are ok but, there needs to be moderation and time taken for physical activity. This is why there has been an ongoing spread of the idea of the World Wide Day Of Play idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImEuVrgK8Qg. This was started up by Nickelodeon and has some animation mixed in with live action to show just how much fun it can be to get out of the house. So have there been instances to say that animated advertising is not too god of an idea, which is what I agreed to before. But now I am having second guesses I believe that there is a massive sweep in animated advertising that is leading to healthier lifestyles based on what is being shown. With that being said, I believe that there was a lot of bad in animated advertising but now there is a new wave of advertising coming in trying to repair that of what most of us saw when we were all kids.
The First is the comment on The Flintstones advertising for Winston Cigarette company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdHSIquSHMw. I do agree that animation does appeal to all, but this particular commercial was in a time where many things were not known about smoking. But as time went on, more research was done and now we are trying to make sure that our kids don't pick up the habit. It is very interesting as to how these commercials make you think. On one hand you see your favorite cartoon character getting ready to light up, but nowadays it is something that almost seems to be taboo for television. It really is amazing as to how times have changed.
As for the second comment, I could not agree more with the fact that there are some cartoon shows that are all about pushing product. that video game cartoon is a very good example. The show is titled "Captain N: The Game Master." I did not even have to get through the opening segment when I saw little hints of marketing. Part of the title was written in the very same characters that Nintendo uses to brand themselves. So I can see where there is a way that advertising through animation can appeal to all, but both of these cases are not the best for children. For the cigarette ads, there has been enough research conducted to show that yes they can kill you, and now we see all of these ads for smoking and what it takes away from you. Obviously this is so kids do not even want to start. As for the video game show, this is a problem that has been taking toll on kids since I was growing up. Yes video games are ok but, there needs to be moderation and time taken for physical activity. This is why there has been an ongoing spread of the idea of the World Wide Day Of Play idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImEuVrgK8Qg. This was started up by Nickelodeon and has some animation mixed in with live action to show just how much fun it can be to get out of the house. So have there been instances to say that animated advertising is not too god of an idea, which is what I agreed to before. But now I am having second guesses I believe that there is a massive sweep in animated advertising that is leading to healthier lifestyles based on what is being shown. With that being said, I believe that there was a lot of bad in animated advertising but now there is a new wave of advertising coming in trying to repair that of what most of us saw when we were all kids.
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