Have you Thought About your Relationship with Adversitsing?

After watching last week's movie on branding, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the concepts that were discussed throughout the movie and physically nodding my head while watching. It's interesting because coming from a marketing/sales minor background information overlapped nicely. It solidified topics/ideals that we discussed in my undergrad program.

Branding is everywhere whether one can tell or not. When the main character talked about NASCAR and how they do a great job branding, I went home after and looked at videos/pictures. They plaster the brands that are sponsoring on them in huge fonts and logos everywhere on their drivers and cars. Making them appealing to people and enticing them to engage on some level. When drivers wear a logo, they are working with a company as a sponsorship to get money. When we see these pictures or commercials, it “flips a switch” in our minds subconsciously to want that product. Sponsorships make profit off that. This intern gains revenue to a company and increases sales. The other night I was watching Transformers and Mark Wahlberg's character asked for a Bud Light in a movie. It panned solely to the bottle being passed with perfect lighting and bright colors. It's a strange tactic to make it the one moment when someone sees this moment and goes to get a beer or thinks if Mark Wahlberg is drinking it, I want to be like him. This is how movies and branding make profit, they promote a certain movie during or before production so people know this company is a part of it.

I've certainly fallen victim to branding tactics, whether I like to admit it or not. As a person who has studied this topic, I felt I was prevalent to these schemes but just the other day I saw the Canadian Team wearing their Lululemon sponsorship outfits in the Olympics and guess what I did next. Yup, went and bought the red color vest they wore on opening night ceremony. Those athletes had them on and looked amazing in them, So I thought well if they can wear and look athletic, I hope I will too. Although it is not an American form of branding the example I used above; I would say when it comes to branding in America, it can be ugly. In the movie he talks about the bad side of branding and how ridiculous it has become. No offense but it's not something we should be proud of. There is so much time, money and effort put into branding these days and it's very ugly. When the main character went to see how susceptible he was to brand and they put him in an MRI machine and blasted him with various commercials I was disgusted. This is because we see how effectively and regularly, we are being plastered with ads on our phones, tv’s and computers and it never stops. It has affected the way we think and sometimes act. I also believe it is ugly because after the main character obtained all the different companies to sign up for his movie, there were so many guidelines he had to follow. They basically controlled him and skewed a lot of content for the movie with the contracts he had to follow.

I know that the branding world is only getting worse and will continue to grow and I’m not saying I hate it but, I'm nervous about it. We’re moving into a world where social media is becoming a major part of life and I’m curious to see how marketing and branding will fall into that more.