Marketing Campaigns and Humor

Everybody loves a good funny ad. We enjoy the creativity and originality that comes with a well executed humorous one. Unfortunately, however, sometimes these sought after humorous ads can go too far. They can use stereotypes of race, religion, and gender past the point of funny venturing into offensive.

I included some print and video advertisements that have received backlash from audiences around the world.


In this ad Ashton Kutcher plays an Indian man in a Pop Chips commercial. Many people thought his "brown face" and stereotypical Indian portrayal was extremely offensive. It was especially noted that the commercial had nothing to do with Pop Chips in the first place which made the problem even worse with some audience members.

Women in advertising still has a long way to go. They are still being used as sexual props in advertisements that don't call for a sexual prop at all. Even in this ad a woman is portrayed as a prop for a man.  

This was a video advertisement for Mountain Dew created by Tyler The Creator an African American entertainer. It was about a crazy goat who beat up a young white woman. This is a screen shot of the lineup shown to the white woman. Many people were very offended by the whole commercial but especially this shot. The entire lineup is comprised of young African American men. 

So when is humor in marketing and advertising a smart strategic move and when is it not? In my opinion, it is the marketers job to have the sensitivity of race, religion, and gender when creating or allowing ads to run. These kind of advertisements show that there is still a lack of sensitivity with many issues that our society has been facing for far too long now.  

A Pandora Without Commercials?!

It never fails. You are driving in your car listening to a Pandora station that is consistently feeding you the perfect songs when the current song comes to an end. You can't wait to see what song will qualify within the metrics Pandora has set, upon your request, and play next when a commercial comes on. Some annoying voice is blaring through your speakers telling you to get your prescriptions through Walgreens. It's a horrible occurrence that one company has an answer to.


Samsung has just announced its creation of Milk Music. Milk Music is an ad-free radio service with a library of over 13 million songs. That's right, ad-free!!! Another characteristic of Milk Music that is sure to excite the music lover is that you don't have to sign up through Facebook or create an account to have access to the service.


This seems too good to be true, doesn't it? Well it might very well be for some. Milk Music is only offered through the Google Play store if you have a Galaxy smartphone or tablet.


As a Pandora and IPhone user this fact was not easy to accept. This is just another reason Samsung and the Galaxy brand keep giving Apple a run for their money.


Samsung has not dismissed whether it would be offering the service to non-Galaxy phones in the future or not. I, as well as all of you ITunes Radio, Pandora, and Spotify users I'm guessing , pray it will be in my near future. If not, my curiosity of changing to a Samsung phone might just get the better of me.

Crime in Crimea

The situation in Ukraine has been going on for a while now and it can be difficult to understand. Throughout my research on the topic I found helpful "lists" on the important factors to remember when trying to understand the happenings.


I decided to combine the many lists and share with the hopes that this will clarify more effectively.

• Crimea is a part of Ukraine but hasn't always been.
• Three ethnic groups in Crimea: Ukrainians, Russians, and Tatars
• The Ukrainians and Russians do not get along
• The Russian Navy has a fleet in Ukraine
• Ukraine's parliament has called for action by the U.N. claiming Russia is threatening Ukraine's sovereignty
• Russia has sent in troops in an attempt to protect Russian citizens
• Russia and Ukraine had a treaty saying Russia would respect Ukraine's borders while Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons

It is something to think about seeing as if Russia is going to detach parts of neighboring countries through impunity, other countries like China could decide it is okay.




So should the U.S. become involved and if so, how?


The possibilities include

• President Obama not attending the G-8 summit and ask other countries not to as well
• NATO consider talks of providing assurances

This situation is riddled with a long and intricate history. Hopefully this list of important facts to consider make what is happening much easier to comprehend.