Academic Articles

Abstract -> Advertising and marketing managers spend a great deal of money to have celebrities endorse their product. Some view it to be an effective form of advertising as evidenced by the number of celebrity endorsed advertisements that have increased. Despite numerous amounts of research on celebrities endorsing a single product, little research has been conducted regarding the use of multiple-celebrity endorsements in advertising.

http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/handle/2263/5163 - link one Media effects

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmscobbcelebrity/ - link two - representation

“Celebrities have been involved in politics for a long time, but there is an increasing interest in the role celebrities play in presidential politics,” says Dr. Michael Cobb, associate professor of political science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the studies. “We set out to determine if celebrity endorsements influence voting decisions, particularly among young people.”

The researchers did two separate studies including more than 800 college students, evaluating whether endorsements from celebrities – including Angelina Jolie and George Clooney – would affect voting behavior if they endorsed a political candidate. The results? The studies found that celebrity endorsements do not help political candidates – but they can hurt them.

5 issues and debates which link to my critical investigation

Issues/Debates

• Repesentation -

· a presentation to the mind in the form of an idea or image

· a creation that is a visual or tangible rendering of someone or something

· the act of representing; standing in for someone or some group and speaking with authority in their behalf

http//www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30820/represent.html

Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.

The term refers to the processes involved as well as to its products. For instance, in relation to the key markers of identity - Class, Age, Gender and Ethnicity (the 'cage' of identity) - representation involves not only how identities are represented (or rather constructed) within the text but also how they are constructed in the processes of production and reception by people whose identities are also differentially marked in relation to such demographic factors. Consider, for instance, the issue of 'the gaze'.

• Stereotyping -

• pigeonhole: treat or classify according to a mental stereotype; "I was stereotyped as a lazy Southern European"

• - a conventional or formulaic conception or image

• http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/stereotypes.htm

• Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.

  But stereotypes can be problematic. They can:

  • reduce a wide range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations
  • transform assumptions about particular groups of people into "realities"
  • be used to justify the position of those in power
  • perpetuate social prejudice and inequality

  More often than not, the groups being stereotyped have little to say about how they are represented.

• Media effects - Media influence or media effects are communication theory and sociology to refer to the theories about the ways the mass media affect how their audiences think and behave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_influence

Media effects: advances in theory and research By Jennings Bryant, Mary Beth Oliver - book source

Theories

• Marxism -

  the economic and political theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that hold that human actions and institutions are economically determined and that class struggle is needed to create historical change and that capitalism will ultimately be past it by communism.

  http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/what-is-marxism-faq.htm

• Audience theories - A text is classified in a genre through the identification of key elements which occur in that text and in others of the same genre.

http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/genre.html

Three pieces of research on text :

http://www.coolavenues.com/mba-journal/marketing/celebrities-advertising

http://www.watoowatoo.net/mkgr/papers/nf-mk-icoria2006.pdf

http://www.celebrityendorsement.com/article.htm

Celebrities in advertising is a marketing vehicle that will likely continue well into this new millenium, and as long as there continue to be new stars introduced into our entertainment arenas — with last season's stars being ushered out gracefully — there will be no shortage of talent to fill the need. Doing it right is the biggest challenge, a challenge that is answered in better response and higher sales volume.

he reason behind the popularity of celebrity advertising is the advertisers' belief that brand images built through celebrities achieve a higher degree of attention and recall for consumers, which will eventually lead to higher sales. Although the potential benefits of using celebrity advertising to promote brand images and products are significant, so are the costs and risks.

The inherent upside of attaching a celebrity to a brand is that the brand literally has a face, name and personality that immediately projects an image of a living, breathing, credible person as opposed to a faceless corporate entity. The downside is that individuals are not as stable or as easily controllable as corporate entities.
As fame comes and goes, so goes the brand.

- Media Effects

- Representation and stereotyping

- Media technology and the digital revolution – changing technologies in the 21st century

Final critical investigation

How effective is using celebrities such as CHARLIZE THERON in the J'ADORE DIOR advert in selling products or services.

Production : producing a 30 second advertisement for a car advert of a high class brand. And a 3 page spread magazine advert for the product.

Critical Investigation

1. How the media influences people using adverts to reflect their personal lives.
- Car advert, which represents peoples lifestyles

2. How adverts are represented to influence males.
- Perfume advert, which shows the personal taste in choice

3. How adverts differentiates gender
- advert on typical stereotypes by a typical product targeted at them

Best Idea

Migrain

Media Language- The Iconographies would be a wealthy looking atmosphere which would be represented with diamonds jewellery,expensive cars of a high brand and the typical conventions of what rich high class people are stereotyped to be.

Institution- The company of the car branded names Aston Martin.

Genre- Advertisement

Representation- powerful, rich, strong dominant person

Audience- if its a male in the advert and its for a car then main audience would be males aged 30+

Ideologies- Male Gaze

Narrative- advertising a product by adapting the product into a males life style and having it represented as a must have product, form its use of mise en scene.



SHEP

Social - How males adapt their life to adverts

Historical - how people in adverts change according to society

Economic - how money and the 'free market' has influenced the way a consumer can live their life

Theories linked

Hypodermic Needle Theory - Do audiences believe everything they see?

Uses and Gratifications - Escapism, Identification

Marshal Mcluhan -
http://www.nndb.com/people/869/000047728/ -
" McLuhan had stated, "Print is the technology of individualism." In War and Peace in the Global Village, he predicted that the newly emerging electronic network (i.e. extended neural net) would recreate "the world in the image of a global village", in which people understood instantly the impact of their actions and shared knowledge about possible solutions. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan -
"In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is the global village."

http://www.artbook.com/9053494480.html -
Global Village: The 1960s plumbs the depths of those planetary echoes as they resonated throughout the decade in the fields of visual arts, decorative arts, fashion, and architecture. Along with a wealth of images, it contains interviews with diverse key figures of the time.

1. What is the Guardian 100 and who are the panellists that create it?

The Media Guardian 100 is our annual guide to the most powerful people in the industry. Candidates are judged on three criteria - their cultural, economic and political influence in the UK. The list was takes in all sectors of the media, including broadcasting, publishing, new media, advertising, marketing and PR.

The panellists are a panel of experienced media watchers from the worlds of politics, journalism, advertising and the internet judged entrants using three criteria: cultural influence, economic blow and political power of all candidates.

· Lord Waheed Alli is chairman of entertainment content company Chorion, which owns the rights to Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Noddy and The Mr Men.

· Daisy McAndrew is the chief political correspondent for ITV News. She previously co-hosted BBC2's Daily Politics with Andrew Neil and presented the daily drivetime show for London talk radio station, LBC.

· Jamie Kantrowitz is senior vice-president of marketing and content for MySpace.com in Europe.

· Richard Park is an executive director of Chrysalis Radio parent Global Radio.

· Sarah Sands is a consultant editor of the Daily Mail. She previously spent a decade at the Telegraph Group, first as deputy editor on the Daily Telegraph, assuming responsibility for the Saturday edition, and later as the first female editor of the Sunday Telegraph

· James Scroggs is vice-president, consumer business of SpinVox, the voice-to-screen messaging company. He was previously vice-president of marketing for MTV Networks UK and Ireland, where he was responsible for all advertising, digital events, products and brand experiences.

· Janine Gibson is executive editor of Guardian Unlimited and editor-in-chief of Media Guardian.

· Matt Wells is editor of Media Guardian and presenter of the Media Talk podcast.

2. How many women are in the top 100?

18 women

3. What companies do these women work for and in what roles?

• Daisy McAndrew is the chief political correspondent for ITV News.
• Sarah Sands is a consultant editor of the Daily Mail.
• Janine Gibson is executive editor of Guardian Unlimited and editor-in-chief of Media Guardian.

4. What percentage of the 100 is women?

18 percent

5. How would you assess the balance of power in this list and why do you think it is this way?"

Society is the biggest influence upon the balance power people , the power has been dominated by males and women power has slowly increased however females are still the subordinate gender. You could assess the balance of power by the amount of high paid and high status career men have as apposed to women.