Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Post 17: Help End World Hunger... and have a Snickers Bar!

So on Saturday after doing some homework (while at my job) I decided to take a break and sit with the residents I work with and spend time with them in front of the television. They were watching a movie on the USA Network, and this station does this thing called "character fantasy" in between commercial breaks of the movies they show. I typically think these are okay. They essentially respond to a person who writes into the network saying they are interested in particular jobs or duties they they are curious or interested in learning about. So today's character fantasy was a woman who was curious about how the food donation, organization, and shipping procedures take place. She currently donates food to many organizations but she doesn't know the intricacies and behind-the-scenes work that goes into it.


All of that was completely fine with me, but there was something that bothered. me. They decided to put a product placement ad into each break and what's worse was that the product was not only food but it was junk food (Snickers to be exact). I don't know but for some reason the talk about ending hunger, supporting charitable causes to meet that goal was diminished when this sponsor to Snickers kept popping up saying "Okay now that we have done that, lets take a break and have ourselves a little snack! I love my Snickers bars!" and the camera zooming in 200% so that the bar in his hand with the logo was taking up the entire screen. I was suddenly growing more and more offended by this each time. There wasn't even any benefit to Snickers being promoted! They weren't helping the cause to end world hunger. They weren't feeding people with good nutritious food. They were obviously placed into the program because USA got paid a lot of money by Snickers to be shown in the advertisements and they are advertising a product that not only has no nutritional value but are contributing to the Nation's obesity problem!


I know this doesn't have anything to do with minorities being represented on television or movies but it was still something that bothered me and an example of the way the media injects its products into something with potentially good goals and reasons that could make a difference in the world.


Here is more of a reason to get into film and television... and get involved with people who speak against consumerism or profits or money making ploys. I know that its near impossible to avoid it in some way but dammit I can try... and do my best to help make changes and differences.

5 comments:

  1. Actually, interestingly enough, Snickers DOES have something to do with trying to end world hunger. Bizarre, isn't it?

    http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=104833237105

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  2. Okay so they participate in it. It would help to make mention of it in the ads wouldn't it though? What I saw wasn't kindness or a genuine desire to help, it was the blatent selling of their product as a brand name sponser. Hell, the person that was having her character fantasy fullfilled had a face of uncertainty as she was chewing on her Snickers bar on camera with thehost and the sponser! To me that's rubbish.

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  3. Mike I totally agree with you here. Advertisement in this country has gotten way out of hand. You can't go anywhere without seeing millions of them. They have even started to have advertisements on the big screens at stadiums like Fenway. I was absolutely disgusted when I went there this summer and they put advertisements with Red Sox players and staff on the big screen in between innings I mean, the tickets and food are already expensive enough, but you have to subject me to commercials and ads when I am there as well. It it really ridiculous.

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  4. It is pretty ironic. It's right up there with like Philip Morris supporting Lung Health Week. If they were serious then they would promote what they are doing.

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  5. Okay I am glad I am not the only one offended by this haha. While Liza did correct me about the Snickers "helping to end" world hunger... I think we are all smart enough to know that not only is this done to strictly benefit themselves as a company, but to achieve what ALL companies desire: profits.

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