Demonstrable demographics

      After reading several of my classmates’ blogs I have noticed a few similarities among hailing/interpellation strategies. A few of the blogs I read mentioned how the ads are aimed towards the stereotypical idea of what the demographic audience would be. As mentioned in Grace Burgoyne’s blog  “media is very tricky but when creating advertisements they are very knowledgeable and always have a certain demographic in mind such as race, gender, culture, lifestyle or occupation when creating it” the example she stated was how the Victoria’s Secret ad was aimed at young girls so it was meant to be cute and fun and flirty since that is what people believe girls in that age category to be. They do not advertise for the other types of teenage girls like the edgy or athletic type they only appeal to the girly girls.

     Something similar to this was said in Charles Austria’s blog. Charles talks about a Grand Theft Auto ad that shows a girl in revealing clothing being arrested. Charles states “the highly sexual nature of the ad targets a male audience” This game is advertised towards a teenage/young adult male demographic not female so by showing a young girl in revealing clothing it is going to attract the attention of the young males since the stereotypical idea of a young male is a sexually charged boy who only thinks about women and video games. Both of these advertisements used the same interpellation strategies of aiming their ads at the stereotypical idea of their targeted demographic.

     Another strategy for hailing was mentioned in Efe Osazuwa’s blog. She talks about how advertisements try to target the demographic and make them want to feel a certain way and get them to believe that if they buy/use their product they will feel this way. Efe states “these ads stand out in a way that makes the buyers want to have that same feeling, they make it in a way that almost says “if you wear this certain brand of clothing you can feel this certain way”. This is a different strategy then the above examples as instead of targeting the already existing demographic that they know will want their product they are trying to pull all possible buyers in by promising them a positive change in their life and that if they used/bought their product it will make them be like the people in the advertisements.

     In terms of how our demographic is represented it means that generally our demographic is represented as the stereotypes of young male and females and does not include the wide variety of different types of people that are that age. It also represents our demographic as easily coerced as mentioned in Efe’s blog. These ads are able to draw people in and make them buy their products by convincing them that it will change their life when in reality it most likely will not. To be honest as sad as it is to admit I do believe that the second representation is accurate. Young people are very easily coerced into buying things that they do not truly need just because they think it will benefit their life in some way whether it’s making them more attractive or making them feel powerful.

Classmates Blogs:

http://dcharles10.wordpress.com/ - Charles Austria

http://souspression.weebly.com/blog.html - Grace Burgoyne

http://eo09tm.wordpress.com/ - Efe Osazuwa