Media Mindfulness

Click to enlarge image
A Spanish journalist researching a book emailed me some questions about advertising, and this is how I responded:
1) Does advertising work at a subconscious or conscious level?
Both, but mostly subconscious (in general I don’t like to separate the two). First it stimulates the nervous system to trigger an emotional response. Ads seek [...]

Adage’s Jonah Bloom has an interesting column in which he discusses David Verklin’s lecture circuit. Though I think futurism is kind of dumb (I’m more into “nowism”), I like the question he asks: What is your favorite future? Read on:
Advertising Age - Learning to Love Change: What’s Your Favorite Future?:
As a journalist, my favorite future [...]

You can thank the media literacy movement for this:
Advertising Age - FTC, HHS Call for Strict Standards in Children’s Food Marketing:

Two government agencies are calling on advertisers to market only healthier food products to children in the continuing clampdown on children’s obesity.

Sphere: Related Content

I found something kinda creepy about this ad. Here we have a pluralistic panel of various demographics with each person donning a t-shirt inscribed with “me,” presumably as a way of appreciating the uniqueness of our highly individualized society. The ad copy states:
“Find your target with Boston Globe Media. From a narrow target segment [...]

Ad Council’s new support the troops ads are a thinly veiled pro-war campaign. Its tag line, “Don’t let their enemy’s presence be felt more than yours,” with a classic war movie silhouette at sunset, reaffirms all the noble stereotypes of war. When ever the war gets unpopular we always get hit over the head with [...]

**Update**

This whole Chevy thingy is going crazy viral.

**

Democracy can be dangerous… to car commercials. You can remix the Taho ad at Chevy’s Web site. But if you blink, it may be too late. Catch these unwitting culture jams before they get tossed down the memory hole:

Here

Here

Here

Sphere: Related Content

One of the least discussed aspects of media is the extent to which the auto industry actually shores up programming and content. In our ad-based media system, car commercials represent the single largest group of ads. My non-scientific estimate is that car ads account for roughly 25% of primetime airtime on television. With a slumping [...]