Pop Culture or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Escapism

This ad for Listerine uses the fear of bad breath and how it could supposedly affect your social life and future.  They use statistic to make it seem more legitimate, yet how does the opinion of a group of hairdressers count at a credible source?  The ad claims that if you have bad breath, which about a third of women do, that it is not only offense, but people have to make an extra effort to be nice to you because of it.  The ad is appealing not only to a person's desire to be socially accepted, but to also seem attractive. This commercial SimpliSafe home security systems plays on so many tropes of fear-based advertising, from the unknown, to food, to smart technology listening to everything you say.  Even though it's making fun of our fears, it's still an ad for a security system and is using the same tropes that marketers have used for years.  It's using your fear of fears to sell you security.

It's hard to throw a rock and not hit someone that has a tattoo, they're everywhere.  However, no everyone is accepting of this form of body art/modification.  In his article, Secret Ink, Derek Roberts talks about the history of tattoos and their place in American society.  Celebrities, athletes, artists, military...people from all walks of life and background have tattoos.  Those that are proud and unashamed of their ink freely show it off, but where do we draw the line on what is acceptable? "The media's shifting views of tattoos have been linking to greater participation in tattooing, but the sanctioning of tattooees by nontattooed individuals shows that American culture has yet to fully embrace tattoos." While more and more people have tattoos than ever before, it is still widely unaccepted in the business world.  Many businesses have stipulations in their employee dress codes either banning tattoos or requiring them to be covered at all times. "In re...

The documentary, Consuming Kids , talks about the purchasing power of children.  Children have tremendous influence over what their parents buy, whether its the type of car, food, clothing, or even phone plans.  Marketers rely on this when designing their ad campaigns for children, especially when it comes to nagging.  The more a child nags their parents about certain products, the more likely the parents are to buy them. In the late 1970's, there was an attempt to ban ads on children's television under the Federal Trade Commission.  By 1984, the Reagan administration passed a law that took away authority to control ads directed at children, completely deregulating children's television.  This allowed advertisers to market directly to children.  The idea was to get to them as early and as often as possible.  In the 1980's and 90's, every cartoon had toys associated with it, insinuating the brands into children's lives through the characters. ...