Exploiting the Network: Synergy, Product Placement, and Celebrity Endorsement

Ever since the start of commercial radio in the 20’s and the since the first silver screen entered the market, broadcasting messages by celebrities has been a tool employed to endorse products.”Just about every star was associated with one sponsor’s product he or she plugged.”(1). Over the years celebrity endorsement became an essential part of marketing (more than 25% of television ads feature celebrities)(5), for the endorser it became an easy way of generating an income while for the endorsing company it became a guaranteed way to reach a wide segment of potential clients.

In the article, Every nook & nanny: the dangerous spread of commercialized culture, written by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor, the authors argue how corporations have had great influence on schools, television, movies, internet and other forms of media culture through advertising. Prior to 1989, advertising was not accepted in schools. Chris Whittle convinced schools to accept adverting by offering to loan TV sets providing children to view 10 minutes a day of news, banter and at least two minutes of advertisements through Channel One. Food and beverage companies soon entered the schools with ‘sponsored educational materials’ fed in their TV advertisements to the mass audience. Companies began ‘Ad creep’ because

In Sarah Banet-Weiser’s “Kid’s Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship”, she analyzes and dissects how Nickelodeon became a dominating media empire among children. In the early stages of television and media, the child demographic was often overlooked and viewed as powerless agents in relation to the media, as they failed to have direct purchasing power. What many media companies failed to realize was that children can influence their parents into purchasing products, making children have a prominent indirect purchasing power. Nickelodeon was one of the first media channels that designed a network entirely for children, promoting childlike ideologies, values, and providing entertainment all day long.

Television is an electronic telecommunication device that transmits pictures and sounds. Since its inception and release into society, the Television has grown to become extremely popular. The undying devotion to this medium has helped shape many aspects of human life. It has become a tool for education and entertainment. Businesses have found an efficient means to access the wider public through advertising. Advertising is a paid form of publicity aimed at a large audience by businesses with a view to increasing sales. Advertisements, unlike propaganda, have clearly stated sponsors. Through advertising, businesses can communicate with the user of their goods and services. The television allowed for the exponential expansion of advertisement. While older media is still used for advertising, Television’s ability to transmit moving picture and sound put it well above print media and radio (Messaris 2)

In this video of TEDx, Anna Lappe, an author, explains how the food industries uses different marketing tactics to target children. Lappe’s main claim in this video is to tell food industries to leave the parenting to parents, and gives many reasons as to why. One of them is that the food industries are now using cartoon characters on their food such as Dora, Shrek, and many others in order to appeal to kids. By doing so, food industries have now created a brand loyalty among children, meaning that now kids will only buy the food just because of the cartoon character on the box cover, that brand loyalty may last years. In other words, kids are being brainwashed by the food industries. Another reason as to why the parenting should be left for

The Walt Disney Company is a diversified international entertainment company (Disney, 2010) with ownership of many media outlets including radio, cinema, television and literature as well as consumer products such as stationary and toys. The Disney brand has huge recognition globally especially in the category of children’s entertainment with over 80 years of productions in this sector. With an obvious predominance and market leadership in children’s entertainment and consumerism, The Disney Company has an unparalleled capability to reach

According to Professor McNamara, children’s television was the “niche television” in that it was the first genre a network branded itself around (McNamara). The first experimentation with branding began in cable television with Nickelodeon. Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of “The Nickelodeon Brand: Buying and Selling the Audience,” states that Nickelodeon successfully branded itself as the network of “kids’ empowerment,” which was crucial to building a loyal audience of children (Banet-Weiser, 235). The channel’s consistent branding was valuable to its success because it allowed Nickelodeon to produce unique content for an audience that had not been recognized, and it allowed advertisers who targeted children to have a more direct reach to their targeted demographic. Since the emergence of Nickelodeon, branding has become prevalent in cable, broadcast and streaming television as a method to develop core audiences, redefine programming strategies, and attract niche sponsors. As Banet-Weiser writes, “Combined with the continued reach of the cable industry into more and more niche channels...the brand identity of channels...have achieved a new economic significance” (Banet-Weiser, 235). The significance of brand identity makes it crucial for networks to establish clear and cohesive

For many years, corporations have targeted adults, but as the years progressed their main focus and targeted audience have been children. Countless corporations often focus their products such as toys, clothes, and drugs to children in order to increase their own economic gain. In Juliet Schor’s article, “ Selling to children: The Marketing of Cool”, she mentions how products are accepted and interpreted by children in today’s society. However, in Eric Schlosser article, “ Kid Kustomers”, he emphasizes on the constant antagonizing strategies through ads and televisions shows to target kids. Although Juliet Schors and Eric Schlosser are both speaking about corporations marketing to children, their articles differ quite significantly. While they both speak about corporation and their marketing directed to children, Schor maintains her focus on how society perceived these products as cool or geeky, while Schlosser focuses his article on the negative way corporations have marketed their products to underage children.

There are different ways on which brands can reach their customers and connect with them. Online Screen channels are becoming of main interest for brands to advertise in. From this, Youtube has become one of the main platforms on which brands decide to promote their content, not only because it is cost–effective, but because it can achieve a high impression by reaching a large audience. Different campaigns such as Volvo’s “The Epic Split”and Carrie’s Telekinetic café prank, prove the efficiency of such platform, and how different brands can take advantage of this to achieve viral marketing, such in the case of Bud Light’s Super Bowl “Up for whatever” campaign. The way in which the business approaches the consumer by taking advantage of

Imagine sitting down on a Saturday night to relax and watch your favorite show. As you turn to your show you begin notice that the whole thing is full of ads, everything from the billboards in the back ground, to the logo on the coffee cup that the main character is drinking out of. This is exactly the kind of thing you can expect to see in the future. In his article Damian Ward Hey argues that it is in the best interest of the television and advertising industries to keep the balance between appropriate advertising and content. He uses evidence and examples of virtual advertising that relate to the audience as well as his well-educated tone of voice to make his claim, and

In today’s world many customers are reached though media, whether it be online or on television. It is almost impossible to avoid commercials. Commercials are viewed in-between regular television stations, social media sites, Netflix, radio, and YouTube. Commercials are always trying to persuade consumers to buy the product that they are advertising. As generations have grown and changed so have the sales strategies that are used. For example, when the Disney movie Frozen was released in theaters, the main characters were quickly plastered among products such as clothing, fruit snacks, cereal, etc. Putting popular children’s characters on products is just one major marketing strategy used today. Wal-Mart is a well-known

Although seeing one’s favorite celebrity on television can be exciting for children, it can lead to a misunderstanding between the child and the representation of the product. For example, in the article “Kids Finally Speak on Celebrity-Based Ads for Food and Beverages,” the authors state that children can misunderstand a product that is unhealthy for them as a product that can make them as fit and healthy as their idol. Although celebrities are useful in the marketing strategies used in business on a daily basis one must look closely at the impact the advertisement will have on the target audience. This impact includes health impacts on the children today and the future generations to come. For the reasons that follow, celebrities should not advertise or endorse products that are unhealthy for children or teenagers because the motivation of the celebrities to endorse such products are in question and children are

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Do you recognize that intro to one of the most influential TV shows of all time? Or should I say what used to be one of the most influential shows of all time. Over the years, the main characters such as Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward have been downgraded from their original characteristics.

“Are you ready kids? Aye aye Captain!” The famous jingle runs through the head of both adults and children alike. Spongebob's impact can be seen in the everyday culture of the world. From books to balloons, Spongebob and friends can been seen in an everyday environment. This small time show has grown to become the leading kids show of all time. Spongebob Squarepants, the critically acclaimed multibillion dollar Nickelodeon television show, has captivated millions around the world with its creative development, unique animation, and interesting controversies.

Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio