The Pursuaders

What are some things that you learned about advertising after watching this video?
The video had great descriptive language in it and it really made you think how advertising really is all over the place. My favorite line was comparing Times Square to a Las Vegas pin ball machine. I learned that focus groups are some of the first steps in advertising. Marketing teams create people that would be the ideal customer in the "Song" campaign. My favorite line was the "Carrie" character who "Has Neimas Marcus credit cards but still shops at Target"

What are some of the main problems that plagues contemporary advertising?
Advertisers say that they are paying more to reach a lot less people. TiVo and other things like that have people fast forwarding through commercials and ad's. So now products need to be incorporated within the shows and they become characters. In the film "I Am Sam", Starbucks becomes its own character. Absolute Vodka was very creative with a storyline involving the vodka with the tv show "Sex & the City". This is dated and the problems with contemporary advertising are always coming up. For example, YouTube has you watch a commercial right before you want to watch a music video or something.

What are some of the ethical concerns about advertising that we need to be aware of?
One of the ethical concerns is that people always take crap, they eat it, watch it, and participate in it. This was according to one of the analysts in the video. Something else that does not seem ethical is that Bob Dylan was selling and starring in Victoria's Secret ad's. That just does not make sense to me. Also, the Acxiom corporation seems to have everyone's information in their database. The statement that really creeped me out was that they even had whether or not you liked cats or dogs. This to me is taking it a little extreme. Most people do not know that this is happening so that is not fair to them. They should be made aware that people have all of this information.