YOUNG ADVERTISERSA 4-SEMINAR PROJECT FOR STUDENTS AGED 10-12

Kieran CoffeyShawn TanKevin Koh

CMNS 428Stuart PoyntzTA: Masayuki Iwase

SEMINAR 1

Learning objectives: Introduce students to the mechanics and techniques in advertisement production. By the end of the seminar students should be able to recognize and understand signs and signifiers, advertisements as texts, and the techniques involved in their production.

Plan: Drawing a lot from Len Masterman’s work, we will address these core concepts within the 5 themes discussed in his essay. There will be roughly 1 activity for each theme, and within these activities we will ask questions from the core concepts.

The question format will be group based. Young students will break into groups to discuss the questions, and then re-convene together as a group. There are no right or wrong answers, and discussion after the groups present their answers is recommended.

SECTION 1

Intro: To introduce students to the seminars, begin with a mash-up of advertisements. This will engage the younger audience as it will be quickly paced and exciting. The idea is to grab the attention of the students right from the beginning with a series of ads geared towards them.

Activity 1:

Question 1) what do you see in this picture?

It can be expected that many people will say that the see a horse. However what they are really seeing is a representation of the horse, not the horse itself. It is important to get the students to understand the distinction.

Activity 2:

Get students to make a list of advertisements for anything that they see. Give the students 20 minutes and get them to go around the school searching for advertisements. Have them fill out the form below. This will allow them to search out ads in a ‘natural’ setting (the school) on their own.

COMPANY WHERE DID YOU SEE IT?

 Pepsi Vending machine

 Doritos  In the hallway

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

1) What is this advertisement getting you to do? [want them to identify that the ad is trying to persuade them to buy something]2) What is the location of this advertisement? What is the setting? 3) Who are the people in this advertisement? Do they act/dress/etc like you do?4) How do these ads make themselves seem natural? Does this look like a normal setting? 5) What is the advertisement trying to get you to know?

SECTION 2

Activity 3:Show an advertisement geared towards kids (pizza pop commercial) [ad later] – Naturalness. Basic questions. The beginning questions serve as a stepping stone into the more advanced questions:

1) Why do you think that advertisers would want and ad to seem natural (provoking questions of technique) [idea is that we can relate to it, it reflects ourselves]2) Can you see yourself in the same situation as the ads portray? (can you see yourself eating pizza pops/kelloggs?)3) How is there a familiarity? Does it resemble your home or neighborhood?Activity 4:

Set up the ‘taste challenge.’ Both Pepsi and Coke are poured into plain unmarked cups, and then are scrambled so that only those administering the test know which is which. Have the students choose which one they prefer, then jot down why they chose one over the other. Experiment with different combinations; such as having both cups contain the same product. If the students still choose one over the other, this can be a great place to start discussion. How have two products that are so similar led you to believe they are very different?

Activity 5:

Dominant techniques and codings are employed by the advertisement media to convince us of the truth of their representations. Try playing the ad without the sound for the students, or play the sound without video. This way you deconstruct an ad sense by sense. Some questions to consider asking:

1) [look at the visual aspects of the advertisement and discuss how it is affecting them] What do you feel when you are watching this ad?2) How are the actors speaking? What slang are they using? How does it make you feel to hear that kind of talking?3) Why wouldn’t advertisements speak technically about products?

Each sense that you’re using is being manipulated by the ad.

Activity 6:

Show an ad that is distinctly tied to a product, then we ask them ‘what product is this? Before showing the end of the ad’

1) How did you know/not know what brand was tied to this product?2) What are you wearing that is branded?3) Why did you buy it? (what reasons)4) How many people do you know that have the same thing that is being shown in this ad? 5) Where do you see brands around this building? Around your neighborhood?

Ways in which media constructions are read or received by audiences:First watch an ad, vague, from a particular product. After these questions, show them 3 or 4 ads back to back of the same type of product being advertised but from different brands.

1) Where do you think you see the most advertisements?2) Did you like this ad?3) Do you think you might want to buy this product after watching this ad?4) If yes why? If no, why not?

SEMINAR 2

Learning objectives: In this seminar, we intend to build on the advertisement techniques and structures that were discussed in seminar 1. The objective is to allow students to explore how advertising and commercial culture affects their social and cultural worlds. We will use a series of videos followed by group discussion to stimulate conversations about how ads affect us outside of the broadcast media. We’d like to see how the persuasive intent of advertising is affecting kids where they don’t necessarily expect it to.

SECTION 1

Intro: First, show a few clips from the movie Mickey Mouse Monopoly. For around 10-15 minutes, selected areas of the film will be shown. Mickey Mouse Monopoly deals with branding culture. It shows how companies really angle in on kids, how corporations hold power over production of film and products, and how these products affect kids and commercialize youth culture.

Activity 1:

Discussion:

Ask the students if they have all seen Shrek. Discuss the idea of movies and cross promotion that they notice other than Shrek.

Example questions1) What other movies can you think of that have cross promoted? What example?2) Have you ever bought any items that came out after the movie?3) Do you think Transformers is a good example? Perhaps for selling cars?4) Did you ever go to McDonalds for the Shrek toys, or for a happy meal that

featured a toy that you wanted? Was that toy linked to a film?5) Do you agree with the movie Mickey Mouse Monopoly?

Activity 2:

In groups, brainstorm together a marketing strategy for cross promoting a movie that’s coming out soon. How would you promote products related the new movie if you could use any companies/restaurants/themeparks/etc?

Then, in groups have them take a large canvas paper and create their ads. Get the groups to present their pictures when finished.

SECTION 2

Intro: Using the film Merchants of Cool, we will expand on the marketing and cross-promotion that was discussed in Section 1. Merchants of Cool provides a very good example of how culture industry, marketing, and youth culture work together. It also provokes a critical perspective. We want kids to see how its not just about a commercial, its about how it goes through many Media like MTV. We want them to see that they are the generators of culture, but that on the other end companies sell them back their own culture through products. But not only physical products – also popular music, TV shows, etc. They have links into many parts of their culture.

Activity 1:

1) So, what do you guys think of MTV/Much Music now?2) What do you think of your current favorite popular music stars? Are they

influenced by the system presented in the film?3) When you are watching MTV, what do you think is being sold?4) Do you realize now that you are being sold something whenever you are watching

your favorite stars? 5) Have you ever met a person you think might be a ‘correspondent’ or someone

hired to find out about what’s popular to you and your friends?

SECTION 3

Intro: We’ll show a mash-up video from our 323

SEMINAR 3

Learning objectives: This is the seminar in which the kids will get hands-on learning through creating their own advertisements based on the theory learned in the first two seminars. By creating their own ads, kids will be able to get a hold of the concepts through group work, creativity, and participation. As producers, Sefton Green (1995) argues that students will learn how media texts are made through constructing them themselves. Also, practical work has great entertainment value apart from the educational aspects of the work. It is of little value in itself unless it is used to encourage students to become creators and critics.

SECTION 1

Activity 1:Obective: By interviewing other kids, they will see how advertisements affect the lives of other children around them.

Using a product that we have advertisements for as a base, kids will spend break time at their institution interviewing friends and students who are not in the program. They will use digital cameras and then upload their footage to their computers.

Questions to consider/ask:1) Have you heard of product A2) Would you recognize an advertisement for product A?3) Where do you usually see these ads?4) How often?5) If you have seen the ad for product A, why do you think this ad is good or works?6) If you never saw the ads at all, do you think you’d know about product A?7) If yes, where did you hear about it?

InstructionalHow to upload footage from the camera onto the computer.

[Show Instructional Video included in package]

Activity 2Kids are divided into groups and begin working on their videos. The role of the instructor here is to assist children in their production.

“Students will recognize their own power as learners and cultural producers to use media as tools to educate and create reform in the community.” – Goodman

Using the footage they get from their fellow students, students can create a video. They can create a mashup, a documentary, a mockupmentary, or whatever they like. It is up to them to get creative with an idea.

SEMINAR 4

Learning objectives and overview: In the final seminar, the students will have a chance to critically engage advertising through participation in culture jamming. This seminar will encourage the students to build on what they have learned in the first 3 seminars and then take a critical approach. This follows Masterman’s advocacy of participation and development of a critical awareness. By actually creating a culture jam, students will work with the signs, symbols, and meanings that they understand in advertisement to be critical. They will build with the techniques developed from seminar 3 in video editing and this will be the bulk of the 4th seminar.

SECTION 1

Activity 1:

“Freedom of choice refers to the channels” – Derry, M. (1993)

Have the students get into groups and map out a TV program list. The idea is that they may get to see ‘freedom of choice’ from the perspective of those who control the choices for consumers on TV. You can only have 5 channels.

Ask them to think about how many TV channels they have and how many the watch/like. Based on this for those who watch more channels, it may be correlated to their ‘freedom.’ Ask them what happens if there’s nothing good on TV – what do they do?

1) How many channels can you come up with?2) Compare the channels that you came up with those of another group3) Can you see similarities? How many common channels do the groups share?4) For the conglomeration and final of the activity, get rid of all channels that are

erroneous. This will demonstrate the limits of programming.

Activity 2:

For activity 2, show the Shrek Mashups available on TimandEric.comThese fake promotional ads throw a twist on the actual Shrek cross-promotion ads shown before. They do a great job poking fun at cross-promotion and corporate branding, and both Tim and Eric are hilarious.

Following the authentic Shrek promotional ads, show the short Tim and Eric spoofs:

URLs for videos:http://www.timanderic.com/movies.html Videos 6, 12, and 13

Questions:1) Whats different about these than the other Shrek ads you’ve seen?2) Why do you think they decided to do this?

Activity 3:

Pick an ad out of the archive, but do a voiceover of that ad. Students can use music that they choose from the archive as well as the ad.By voicing over, they should adopt a critical view in the style of the culture jam ads shown. They can be as creative as they like with it.

Points to consider when guiding the students:

1) What are the corporate intentions that are not explicit in the ad that you could make explicit with the voiceover?

2) How can you convince your audience that the ad you’ve voiced over is trying to persuade them? What words/tone will you use?

3) How can you de-naturalize this ad by changing what is said?

After the movies are complete, show them all to the class on the overhead video screen.Upload the videos (or all together as one) to Youtube, and encourage students to link the video to their friends in other classes etc.