DirecTV wants YOU to upgrade!

To what, though, I'm not sure. Their recent ad "Upgrade" features pop star/actress Beyonce in two particularly compromising positions. In the ad, Beyonce is trying to convince cable customers to upgrade to DirecTV for their HD package, but the theme of the ad doesn't say that. In one shot, Beyonce is sprawled out on a bed of gold, practically bathing herself in the luxuries while making sensualized face expressions. In another, she actually has a gold necklace in her teeth that says "Upgrade" that is a peculiar length across her lips. After asking a few people for confirmation, the necklace appears to be similarly shaped to a particular male appendage.
So what is the ad asking you to upgrade? Obviously your cable service, but are they using Beyonce as an upgrade to the current spouse you have? Her tone in the ad follows the brown sugar stereotype we have talked about, and she suggestively moves and poses throughout the ad. It's very disappointing to see DirecTV go this route; they tried a similar campaign with Jessica Simpson last year that confused customers on what DirecTV actually offered* (see below blog entry). Their other ads have also been very confusing, using popular stars to convey their benefits, but they use wording that constantly confuses customers.
Companies need to be more responsible in their messages, especially how graphic they are. When you use a strong graphic, but also HAVE to convey a message that consumers need to know about, you have to be sure the message is getting across.

*=The Jessica Simpson ad said DirecTV used HD broadcasts in 1080i, which was arguably no different from the 720p that everyone else was currently using. Customers were tricked into thinking that 1080i equaled 1080p, which is a better resolution. Many televsion companies have caught on, and actually display on their TV's that they offer "Full HD 1080", which is still only 1080i, but consumers believe the TV's are top of the line when they aren't.

Awkward Situation

At the beginning of the semester, we talked about how people have become accustomed to describing people by color, not by personality traits or other looks. We also talked about how some people, whether they are white or not, get incredibly offended by describing someone only by color.
I got a text message last week from a co-worker. To be anonymous, we'll call him Steve. His message read (other names also protected by anonymity), "Wow, Chris (a white employee) just said n----- in front of Jeff (a black employee.) It was really awkward for me because I was standing in between them. Jeff either didn't hear him, or acted like he didn't hear him, but I left to do something else anyways."
There are a few things that stick out about this situation. On one side, I know that Chris lives with two of his black friends. When they are together, everyone's okay with everyone using that term. So on that end, I can see how Chris doesn't think of it as anything out of the ordinary, and if you met Chris, you probably wouldn't think it was out of the ordinary by all that much either.
On the other hand, and far more importantly, the rest of us were offended by his remarks. Just to think, if we were offended, who knows what Jeff is thinking. We don't really know him that well because he just started working there in October, and he's a pretty quiet guy so we don't have any idea what he is or isn't okay with hearing. I have tried to talk to him about several subjects, and he is beginning to open up. I know that the best thing is to get him to feel comfortable working there, and hopefully we can work past Chris's comments without having to talk about the whole thing with Jeff.
These kind of situations happen all the time, especially in the media. The best outcomes for them are when people are chastized for making racial slurs and have to pay the consequences. On an episode of South Park, one of the characters goes on "Wheel of Fortune." He makes the final round, where he gets the category of "People Who Annoy You." After he gets his four consonants and a vowel, the board reads "N_GGERS." The crowd is silent after he gives his answer (take a guess at what that was) and sees the correct answer, "NAGGERS." He gets booed off the stage and everyone hates him afterwards, especially his kids. So maybe if there's the message out that making racial slurs is the embarassing thing to do, less people will do it.

A Positive Spin On Music Videos

I was thinking about this subject and how often music videos are criticized for their demeaning nature. However, I was reminded by a positive spin that a show put on music videos.
VH1 showcased a new series, "The Next White Rapper," earlier this year. The show was about exactly what it sounds like, a group of male and female caucasian rappers who wanted to make it big. Each week, the artists were put through challenges to see who was the most talented and dynamic.
When the show reached its final six contestants, they were faced with the challenge of making a music video. They were split into groups of three, and had to compete in a quick challenge to see who would get first dibs on the props for the video. The group that chose first selected the "glamorous" pop culture items: the scantily clad girls, the big necklaces, the dollar bills and the fancy clothes. The group that chose last was stuck with three older women (presumably in their 70's), a bicycle, and lawn chairs.
When the groups produced their videos, and songs to go with them, the results were what you'd expect for the first group: three guys throwing dollar bills in a club scene with girls dancing all around. The "grandma group" took things in another direction, and produced an 80s style rap song with the grandmas dancing and riding around on bikes as the stars of the video. Low and behold, the "grandma group " won. And why? Here's what the host said to the losing team: "You fell into the trap. That's why the scene sucks today. Everyone wants to be in the club. Not everyone really wants to be there though."
In the world of media and advertising, it's very easy to "fall into the trap." Liquor ads with subliminal porn messages. T-shirt ads on exotic islands (see Izod). A group of white guys, because that's what white America is used to seeing. If you can think outside the box, you can create something better, something unique, that people can remember in a positive way.

Jacquielynn Floyd's outlook on murder

I wasn't aware that you could admit you were wrong for doing something, then admit you weren't going to change the next time you told a similar story.
Jacquielynn Floyd begins her article (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/101607dnmetfloyd.341673a.html) concerning the death about Sarah Walker by saying she was wrong. It was blown out of proportion. We assumed too much. She referenced a "celebrity medical examiner," which left me wondering if you can get that inscription on a degree. But she didn't acknowledge that she would treat a similar story any differently come next time.
Unfortunately for those of us who want to see everyone included, we have to deal with around the clock news networks. The DMN is no exception a group that includes CNN 24 hour news, Fox News, and the rest. Everytime there is an attractive looking murder, at least in the eyes of the people telling the story, the story just won't end. We spent about two months talking to every single person involved in the Natalee Holloway case last year. How many murders were committed in the U.S. alone during that time? As I recall, nothing else mattered to newscasters during that time. My apologies go out to Natalee and her family, but no one deserves that much press coverage over anyone else.
So Floyd realizes that she was wrong. However, something makes me think that she has no problem getting it wrong again, all in the name of a "compelling" story.

Porn in Ads

Finally, it's here. The day to write about porn for a class. I thought it would feel different.
The Ravenstoke documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNnkIww7Gwk) is another extension of America's uphill struggle for giving into temptation to make ads so ridiculous that they just aren't in good taste anymore. The Axe ads for "Bow-Chika-Wow-Wow" are behind a funny concept, but their website, www.axebcww.com, is just ridiculous. I do see the point of making ads that are crazy enough that people want to do their own imitations and ripoffs, but it doesn't mean that you can make any ad without thinking of consequences.
Even as a guy in the popular 18-34 demographic for advertisers and marketers, I can't even get into half of the scantily clad female ads that are out there. There have been great ideas that some people find distasteful, such as the Coors Light "twins" ad and the Bud Light "wingman" commercial, and even Axe has a funny idea every now and then. But women who are rooting around a town because men sprayed a scent is dumb, and the only thing that's dumber is animals having sex in the ad. It's also an insult to men's intelligence, like we can't understand an ad that doesn't have scantily clad women in it.
That having been said, I would like to address the Heineken keg girl commercial. It was referred to in AdAge as the most offensive commercial ever made. Although it is offensive, there's something about the ad that's attention-grabbing. When I close my eyes and think back to the ad, I don't see the girl. I kind of remember her face, but all I can think of is the color green and that dumb song behind it with the words "Heineken draught keg." With a different graphic, it's an excellent subliminal ad. You can't get it out of your head. Almost like sub-lymonal advertising from Sprite, but it associates Heineken further with green.

Diversity in Advertising. Sorta.

I was going to write about porn this week (how many times do you get to write about that in a class?), but I came across this ad in the process (http://www.aclu.org/graphics/4july_ad_lg.jpg). It's by the ACLU, so it must represent equality, right? Wrong. There are so many unequal scenes in this ad it's ridiculous.
The first one I see is with the gentleman in the middle with the turban on and how it corresponds to the copy. The copy reads, "In these difficult times, we must stay true to who we are." What the hell does that mean? Who are we talking about? Is it because we're at war? If we are, we should probably try to avoid alienating Middle Easterners and Asians at this time, thank God we've got the ACLU. But oh wait, the focal point of their ad is a Middle Eastern guy who no one is paying any attention to and is being alienated. Yeah, everybody's equal now. Thanks ACLU.
The second thing I see is that there are two different sizes of pictures. Does this mean the people in the lower pictures are less important and less comforting to look at than the people in the larger picture? Why are the only people who are communicating the people who are from the same ethnic background? My personal favorite is where the black family gets stuck in at the last second into the bottom right corner. I think about the group that put this together, and I can see them now. "Oh crap, we forgot to put more than one black person in. Is there room above the logo? Super."
Last, but not least, there is the terrible ad execution. Why didn't they make this one big portrait with everyone arm in arm smiling at the camera? Instead, it's a bunch of people Photo-shopped together that don't tie in together. People who are looking to the left and right aren't looking at the person next to them, they are staring off into space. As a result, people look even more separated. But, hey, it must be ok, because it's done by the always-correct ACLU.

KKK vs. Nazis-at a deaf college

I've seen a lot of weird stories over my lifetime, but I'm not sure I understand this one. According to CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/04/deafschool.racial.incident/index.html?iref=werecommend), a group of seven students at Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. held down a student and drew KKK and Nazi signs on him. Apparently, a dispute had risen between two groups in the dorms who called themselves "Nazis" and "KKK," according to the story.
What makes the story interesting is that probably not that the student who was held down was black, but that one of the kids holding him down was black. Was it a misunderstanding of history by that student? Was he part of the Nazi group and supporting the swastikas being drawn, and then there goes a KKK symbol, but hey who cares? Is there a chance that some of these teenagers are possibly mentally deformed and don't really know what's going on?
Two feuding groups can have a good time, but there is a line. That line was crossed when they named their groups "KKK" and "Nazi." Does this school not have any kind of active RA supervision? How in the world these kind of things happen is beyond me, but schools that are for the hearing impaired have to stay on top of these kinds of situations before they ever happen.

Ken Burns: An Accurate Reproduction of an Image or Leaving Out A Group?

The Ken Burns documentary "The War" (http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-fftv5382202sep23,0,2620347.story) is an interesting example of "Everybody matters." When stories came out about World War II, they mainly focused on the white male who left home at a young age and how he either returned home or didn't. But, in this documentary, Burns has been criticized for leaving out the Latinos who fought in the war. He did add a couple of shots that showed pictures of the Latino soldies in the war, but what I find puzzling is that Burns is the one taking the heat for something that previous films and documentaries didn't have to face nearly as much for making a film about something from 60 years ago. If Burns was making a film about the Iraq war and leaving out diversity, I could understand the criticism, but on this topic we are making somewhat uninformed conclusions as to how predominant each ethnic group was in WWII.
Now, that having been said, we have to realize that "Everybody matters." I think that instead of attacking this documentary for not featuring enough Latinos, it would be much more powerful to have a documentary that only featured Latinos from the war. From an outsider's perspective, I just don't see how one full scene in a documentary would make the Latino community any happier about Burns documentary. There would be a sentiment of "Why were we only in one scene?" However, if the Latinos from the war were featured in, say, half the documentary, it would be an inaccurate portrayal of the war. So why not have a program that featured just the Latinos from the war? For one, we would learn much more about their story than we would from one scene in Burns documentary, and we wouldn't be hearing the same old story that every WWII documentary has.

Disability Stereotypes

In the media, news coverage hasn't established very many stereotypes about people with disabilities that come across to me as negative. That's not to say they aren't out there, and I am not saying I'm the expert on the subject, but if I sit and think about it, I can't think of anything that news coverage does that portrays people with disabilities negatively, which may mean they are under-covered. The only example I can think of is in the form of autism, where kids with autism are portrayed as smart kids who have good physical ability, but can't function well with other children. I'm not sure if that stereotype is correct or not, but that seems to be the constant story that the news feeds. Mass media, on the other hand, is a much different story.
In mass media, there are more stereotypes about disabilities that keep popping up. The most popular has been for people who are handicapped, specifically people in wheelchairs. In the mid to late 1990s, there were two movies that created the stereotype that people who are in wheelchairs are grumpy and think everyone else's problems are miniscule compared to theirs. They were put across as rude and out of line. In "There's Something About Mary," Ben Stiller helped his boss move into his new apartment. His boss, who was in a wheelchair, had Stiller carry ridiculously large pieces of furniture, while hounding him for complaining about the items being too heavy. In "The Big Lebowski," Jeff Bridges, who plays Jeffrey Lebowski, meets a man of the same name who is in a wheelchair. The second Lebowski talks about how he was able to accomplish twice as much as normal men without the use of his legs and no one can understand that.
I don't know that the stereotype is completely true or false. I have met some people in wheelchairs who fit the stereotype, but several more who don't. However, it's true that you meet rude people everywhere you go, so I don't think it's a stereotype that they are fitting into. The new stereotype has been the one by Joe in "Family Guy," who is handicapped, but good-natured about it. The show does go over the line with his handicapped jokes sometimes, but his character in the show is a good friend who has strong values and lives a normal life. The critics of his character can say what they want, but would they rather have Joe be who he is or see him as Jeffrey Lebowski?

Playing a little catch up on the blogs this week, after this they will be updated once a week as planned.
When I get news, I will either go online (almost always CNN.com) or I'll turn on MSNBC on the television. I have found that if I take the time to read up on a story in the newspaper, I get too aggravated if I sense too much of a liberal or conservative twist on the story from the writer's perspective. If I only read the headlines before it gets too in depth, I'm more likely to form my own opinions about the story before it gets too watered down or too twisted.
I usually only get the news when it's an out of the ordinary story. My top 3 I can think of in recent memory, in no particular order, are Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shooting, and Steve Irwin being killed by a stingray. I'll glance at CNN once or twice a week, but I don't turn the news on and leave it on. I'll probably get into it around July of next year when the presidential race is finally narrowing down into two candidates. I am sure the reason I avoid the news so much is because both of my parents can sit around the television for hours just watching the news, and by the time they're done, I don't get to hear their views on anything, just their news anchor's opinions instead. So, I usually try to avoid the news, but I will check it out occasionally.
As far as news media towards different races, genders, sexualities, and disabilities goes, I think it varies. It's amazing that whole groups of people could be left out, like Native Americans. We only live an hour from Oklahoma, home to several Native American tribes and nations, but the only thing most of us know about those tribes is what casinos they own. One problem that contributes to the polarization between white America and the Hispanic, Latino, Mexican, and South American communities is that the media fails to differentiate between the different groups. There is usually an umbrella term, which seems to switch between Hispanic and Latino depending on what a style book decides is correct that year. Even if I don't tune in that much, I tune in enough to see that there's a problem.

Final Web Tracking Report

Over the past month, I have reviewed two car manufacturers websites: www.nissanusa.com (Nissan) and www.acura.com (Acura). I decided on car manufacturers because I am in the car market and thought that I might find enough information on one of the two that I could possibly find a car that I liked enough to purchase. The two are competing Japanese auto manufacturers who constantly have to stay one step ahead of each other, as well as Honda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and others. I selected Nissan as my primary website to follow, but first I will discuss the merits of each website as I first came to them.
When I first started, I knew that website speed was going to play a major factor in my decision as to who my primary website would be. When I first visited the two sites, Nissan appeared to be much faster, used a variety of design principles well (and not so well), and stood out to be a web site worth reviewing. Acura, though well laid out, was very slow to load, and offered a very limited array of options to go through on the site. One thing I particularly liked about Nissan’s site was its interactive ability. On one page was a square box with a thumbnail of each of their cars inside, so you could scroll over MSRP without having to click and wait for another page to load. If you didn’t know which car you wanted, they had a “Need help selecting your vehicle?” page where you could see the various gas mileages of cars, their seating capacity, and price as well.
At the time that I started reviewing, both companies websites were geared towards their 2006 models, but as the month moved on they began to feature many of their 2007 models, which in turn led to the website being somewhat redesigned. On Nissan’s website, the 2007 models were labeled as “Shift 2.0”, and the website seemed to change to a Web 2.0 as well. Actresses walk and talk you through the new Shift 2.0 car features and explain credit basics, you can sit in cars and do 360 degree viewing, and almost everywhere you scroll, icons pop up at you and change color.
As far as the design principles go, contrast is easily the most different between the two. Acura’s website features a black background with white drop down menus with red highlights as you move the mouse down the menu. The cars really stand out on their page and give them more of a luxury look. Nissan’s website utilizes a fairly weak contrast between their white background and gray drop down menus, but utilizes strong contrast between the background and all of the various icons you can scroll over that are various colors. Their logo on the website is a silver complimented by a bright red that really stands out. Most of their icons have a strong opacity until you scroll over them and they turn into full bleed thumnails full of color.
The two websites also differ greatly in proximity. While everything appears to be very close together on the Nissan website, the Acura website is very spread out. This could be attributed to the fact that Nissan has roughly two to three times more car models to offer than Acura does, but the Nissan site does seem a little cluttered at times. With Acura, there is blank space, but it doesn’t seem like blank white space. It’s utilized more to highlight the cars. But on Nissan’s site, there seems to be white space because they ran out of things to put in an exact spot. Another interesting thing that I noticed is that Acura’s site is formatted in widescreen, and will fit most of the browser page, but that Nissan’s is formatted in 4:3 full screen. Furthermore, if you stretch the Nissan page out, it will not fit the contents to the size of the browser. Instead, it will keep everything the same size.
As far as alignment, it is informal all the way across. If something looks like its aligned, its just off by a pica or two. It almost looks like on Nissan’s website that they told the design team to throw as much as they could on the page, but to put a big interactive picture in the middle and it will look great. The only place where there is strong alignment in both sites is the one place it definitely needs to be: in the drop down menus. Everything else may be all over the page, but they got that part right.
Repetition comes through very well in both websites. Every page you go to has the exact same feel and look as the last one. The drop down menus have the exact same fonts. Several of the links you can click have the same fonts, creating a uniform look to the site. In the car design sections, you get a great array of options no matter which car you pick in the same menu style as all of the other cars. No complaints about repetition on either of these sites.
Navigation ease through the two websites really varied depending on which day I went to the site. The Nissan site started out much faster, but as they converted to a Web 2.0 format, it was evident that the site became much slower with more movies and interactive features that weren’t there before. The Acura site started out slow, but after the first page was downloaded after 5 seconds or so, all of the dropdown menus moved pretty fast and the time it took to get from link to link was pretty fast. The one thing that I didn’t like about the Nissan site was that even thought their home site was reasonably fast, as soon as I went to the dealer websites, they were either incredibly slow or very difficult to navigate and find what I really wanted. I realize that Nissan themselves do not design the websites, but maybe they should if it’s their cars being sold. The Acura dealer websites weren’t much better, but they were slightly easier to navigate and find out where I was going or where I wanted to be.
Both sites were well up to date on change with the two manufacturers. This included up to date financing options (confirmed by local dealerships), information on the new 2007 models, and plenty of sources to reach if you want to purchase one of their cars or at least get information. I like how Nissan integrated the Shift 2.0 theme in with their new vehicles into the new change with their website, it was a unique idea that many of the other car manufacturers had tried to come up with but had yet to succeed in recent years.
The sites were organized well for the most part; it didn’t take too many clicks to get where I needed to be. The drop down menus are of great assistance, it kept me from having to go to too many multiple pages. Of course the downside is that if your mouse falls off the menu you have to start over again, but there weren’t too many sub menus on either site. Had the alignment been better, the site could’ve been very well organized.
The sites were both pretty impressive. After taking a look at some other manufacturers websites, it was noticeable that these two stood out from the crowd. Other sites seemed to be either much more dull or harder to navigate, or in the case of Ford, both. It was much easier to judge what was good and what wasn’t after reading the textbook from class, it helped me notice that the contrast and proximity really made websites unique and different from each other in their design. It will be interesting to see what direction these sites take from here.