Seeing is Believing - Advertisements Doing Their Job

Ads, commercials, public service announcements... they are everywhere. All are meant to get consumers to do something. Buy this car, wear those clothes, don't pollute, vote for this guy.... if you didn't know you wanted it, now you will when you see it. Some ads are funny, some are serious, and some just don't make sense. I think it is funny to watch old TV ads from when I was a kid. I can't believe that what they were trying to sell back then was important, but it must have been. I can remember when all the toy commercials would start being blasted about mid-November.. that was how I learned what I wanted for Christmas. I believed I needed all those toys to be as happy as the kids playing with them on TV. I didn't realize back then that those ads were geared to do just that, using Pathos, the appeal to emotion. I guess they also used Logos, because I perceived from seeing them that if I had certain toys, I'd have as much fun and be as happy as the kids in the commercials. And, guess what? They worked! I wanted a Baby Feels so Real, and Santa brought me one! I wanted a Speak and Spell, and he brought me one of those too!

I could never be a salesman. I've tried, and I just can't be convincing enough to persuade someone that they need something. I have been suckered in though, to other people's persuasion talents. I am every ad-man's dream! I can watch an infomercial and become convinced I need the Slice-O'Matic or any of the other kitchen inventions Ron Popeil tells me I can't live without. And don't ever take me to one of those time-share meetings! I went to one once in Gatlinburg for the sole purpose of getting free tickets to take my kids to the aquarium, and those peoples' sales pitch was so persuasive, that I pretty much convinced myself and (almost) my husband that we could figure out how to come up with $26,000 and buy the vacation home of our dreams. Good thing my husband isn't as gullible as I am!

I have been thinking about all these instances, and looking at ad after ad on the internet. I have to admit, the topic for this paper and what I am going to write about has been difficult for me to come up. I want to use an ad that is "beefy" enough to analyze for me to fill a 750-word paper. I also don't want to use one that I will have a hard time trying to sell to the class. I think I'll be more successful in persuading others, if I myself believe in what I am selling, and am truthful about that to my audience. That reasoning (Ethos)is what I think is most convincing in any form of advertisement. If I can tell that the author, or sponsor truly believes in their product or plea, it shows, and then others begin to trust that and then believe in it too. Finally, since I will need to come up with a new, unique way to market the product or service depicted in the ad I choose, I am considering every ad that catches my eye, and really brainstorming. There are so many out there, about any and every subject imaginable. It is crazy how many times a day humans are subjected to advertising, and how much we actually retain of what we see, whether consciously or not. That fact alone seems to make it harder for me to find something and think of a new idea about it. I'll keep looking, because I know I will find the right one, and it will be appealing to me all the way around!

Half way there, yet the hardest is yet to come.

When I think about how long school has already been for this semester, it feels like an eternity sometimes! But, in reality, its only been about 9 weeks! So, a class a week, for those 9 weeks seems like very little time to learn. The funny thing though, in that short time, I've learned a lot! If not for anything else, I've learned more about my spur of the moment writing skills. This blog is a great example. We are given a topic, and we have to write. There's really no rules to it, just do it. I have surprised myself with how varied I seem to write. I tend to be very long-winded, both in talking and writing, and seeing a blog on the screen that's super long really shows me I need to still work on conciseness. I may never learn to keep my verbal "stories" short, but I am determined to get my writing style more condensed and to the point.

I keep saying I want to write more, yet there's always a reason that I don't take the time. Even though I am not entirely thrilled to have to write papers, research, find sources, and cite, at least it is writing. And so far, the topics for our papers have been pretty fun. I'd much rather get to write about something I made up (our ala "A Modern Proposal" paper)than something with a boring topic that's no fun. Learning about different writing styles, genres, voices, those are things that, for aspiring future writers, are good things to know. I know I will start writing eventually. I'll stop finding excuses, just sit down, and start. And I am confident that what I've learned thus far in this class will help me write my story!

For now though,I will focus what time I make to write on to the next paper that's soon to be due, and all that goes with it!

Searching for information....and my lost motivation

So, writing this first essay has been interesting. I knew I was in trouble when the class spent some time in the school library researching ideas for what we were going to write about. My paper is completely satire, with some descriptive/informative information, and I have an argument in there somewhere. Since my "solution" would be awesome in the real world, it is likely to never really happen, so finding the right information to use on the internet was a little strange. I am writing about creating a device that will shock rude people, so piecing together an invention to do this meant searching about tasers and stun guns. I searched for dog shock collars too, and boy is there a lot of argument for and against using those. I was stuck for about 20 minutes reading one website that was nothing but posts from people slamming other people for what they thought was right/wrong with shocking your pet. I looked up how garage door openers work, and that was actually interesting! Then I wanted to research societies and customs that used pain as a form of punishment. You would not believe the suggestions Google comes up with when you merely type the word "pain" into the search bar!! It's really funny. After I sat in front of the computer for an hour, it occurred to me that my search history was very weird, and whomever sat at the computer next and saw all the links in the history might question what the heck someone was doing before them. I thought it was best to clear the history, just to keep things school-appropriate!

I worked on research a little more throughout the week, and wrote all kinds of ideas in my head, but nothing really on paper. I sat down Sunday morning, and decided I would start to write. Boy was it hard to just come up with my first sentence. I watched football,did some laundry and thought to myself that I was start writing then too, but 3 hours later, it hadn't happened. I knew I had to start, and felt I had enough information to really have some good pages, but I just couldn't find the motivation. Finally, after supper was done, other homework done,all the Facebook games were played and all the other things I did instead were taken care of, I made myself open Word. It was all over from there! I started writing, and in about 2 hours, I had almost 3 pages!! At that point, I quit and went to bed. Monday night, I got home from school, and started right in writing again. At 12:30, I typed my last sentence, 7 1/2 pages full! It sure did feel great!

Now, I know this is just the rough draft, and I am sure I'll get lots of suggestions for changes in our peer to peer review tonight in class, but just knowing that I have the general idea makes me feel like I am ahead of the game, and will get to enjoy a little bit of a break over Fall Break next week...