The Office is one of the shows that reflects both racial and gender diversity. The show has both racial and gender diversity. The show includes people different sexes and background origin.
While the show has all this diversity, it still has racism involved in it. This show uses stereotypes and racism in the name of humor. For example the gay character in the show receives a lot of mistreatment and gets mocked for his sexual preferences. Or the Indian character always faces different racist assumptions by her coworkers. Its important to have diversity in shows because it lets the show be appealing to all people.
Racially stereotyping in done in advertising to shock people into buying stuff. In one incident that I have seen this be done is a commercial by Kool-Aid.
This commercial is racist towards the African American population. It stereotypes them as people who just play basketball and hangout in basketball courts. There is no other races seen in this commercial which leads to the stereotype that African Americans love Kool-Aid.
Based on their customer demographics, Kool-Aid discovered the majority of their customers are African American, therefore reaching out to them in their advertisement. This shows that racism in advertising is still happening now and not a thing of the past.
I believe advertisers have an ethical responsibility to not discriminate in their work. While something could even be a positive stereotype, it can still put pressure on that group. Advertisers should reach their customers without stereotyping against them.
Semiotics.
This is all about the study of signs. Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Pierce, and Roland Barthes all helped shape and form semiotics and later relate it to advertising.
Semiotics helps us learn the difference between whats a symbol and what is symbolic. For example a flag. What is an icon and what is iconic. Like what picture is chosen the be the icon of and iPhone app. What is index or indexical like footprints.
We learn that signs are polysemic and hold different meanings depending on the context, culture, and the individual.
Brands do not really mean much when it comes to clothing because I believe it is up to the person to make a brand work for them.
Brands that are important to me are products that need to have a good quality. For example cars or other technological things. Obviously I would rather have an iPhone instead of a Nokia.
Getting a good name out there for your brand is important. People will choose a Mercedes over a Ford even if they have never had either one because based on our society a Mercedes in a better car.
The guest speaker, Dietmar Dahmen, was one of the best speakers I ever had for a class. He kept his audience engaged and interested. He mentioned when we buy something, we buy that object with the hopes it comes with. For example we buy a dress because with the hopes of wearing it and looking great. He compared advertising to giving people hope. I thought that was one of his really interesting theories. Another thing he mentioned was the fact we invent technology, and then we take that technology to reinvent ourselves. In our society people are so used and accustomed to their phones that its hard for us to take vacations with out the use of our phones. Seeing Dahmen has encouraged me maybe pursue a career in advertising.
