Your favorite movie or advertising space?

The Sandlot, a very popular movie about a boy's journey to play baseball. I have watched this movie well over fifty times and every single time I find something new. I recently watched it again and picked up things I had never found before and I was shocked to find the amount of advertisements within the time frame of one hour and forty one minutes. This movie is set in the 1960s with a group of nine boys who spent the summer together encountering many obstacles along the way. We meet the Sandlot gang but along the way we also meet advertisements for coca-cola, P.F. Flyers, Spalding baseballs, Big Chief chewing tobacco and many others.

Even though this movie was released in the 90's the advertisements within the film still attract the attention of its viewers. Who are these viewers? The younger generation. People who are older have the ability to overlook these things because they know that those advertisements are being put there fir a reason. Children are more likely to subconsciously absorb what's being put in front of their faces without even realizing it's there.

P.F Flyers, to you they may just look like a sneaker, something very similar to a converse. Within the movie The Sandlot they don't just show this sneaker a bunch of times but it is actually talked about. At the climax of the movie as Benny is putting these on we hear the voice over say "P.F. Flyers a sneaker that was guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher." That phrase was incorporated into this story. We see ads for coca cola and that is the only thing the boys drink, Spalding baseballs are the only type of baseballs they used and when the camera zooms in on the baseball we can clearly see "Spalding". Even as the team is trying out chewing tobacco, one of the characters says, "Big Chief the best" and all we see is the package. I am sure that Big Chief is not the only type of chewing tobacco but the character didn;t even need to tell us what it was. There is one point in the movie before the plot comes into play, the voice over of Smalls is telling us about the "biggest pickle they could ever get into" and the camera zooms in to an ad on the side of a building for dog food. For years I never understood that part and questioned myself as to why i never understood the meaning behind that. It was the most recent time that I watched this movie that I came to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't me just not understanding all those years, but that it was just advertising.

Every day we notice new things, whether it be in the movies we have seen numerous times or in our everyday surroundings. It came to my attention that advertising is everywhere, and yes it is more apparent in recent years. In this movie advertising wasn't done in a way that it compromises life's morals, it was just put in there to do it's job. Sometimes we don't realize things even when they are put right in front of our faces, advertising is known for that.

Children and Persuasive Advertising

In life each of us has our own path to travel upon, our own road to journey down, obstacles to hurdle over and sometimes stumble upon. We don't like to watch anyone get left in the dust, left behind. In this world we put blinders on our peripheral vision, like those people in the mall that keep their chins up to the ceiling and use their own children in their strollers like battery rams, we don;t stop to see what is right in front of our faces. The problems that this world is facing everyday, and since the reason we don't see them is because we are all on the computer, watching television, playing with our blackberry, advertisers have to get our attention somehow. It is no secret to the advertising industry that we cater to those who we believe can't stand up for themselves, animals and children. Even though society has turned a blind eye to the problems within these categories advertisers know that if they put it right in front of our faces we will react. If we don't react we always have those familiar faces of Robin Williams, Jennifer Aniston, Ray Romano, Bernie Mac and Antonio Banderas all compiled into one single commercial to help catch our attention.



St. Judes Children Research Hospital uses celebrities, recognizable faces that even if you look up for a second and go to turn you attention back to what you were doing you snap your head back. You have the voice of children and the familiar voices of these public figures put together into one thirty second commercial. Each celebrity interacts with one patient showing that they are not just preaching for some organization but that they are actually participating in it and interacting and changing the lives of these patients. Wouldn't you want to do that too?

Invisible Children, Not Just Any Documentary

There's a documentary. You watch it. You hear what it has to say. You more than not believe in what it has to say. It empowers you. Does it empower you enough to act? Does a documentary usually ask something of you? The answer is no, documentaries are usually made to get a point across but they usually do not expect there viewers to act upon what they've seen. They don't normally ask you to raise money, make bracelets, take trips to Uganda, a movie doesn't normally ask that of you.



The documentary Invisible children does. It asks it's viewers to do more than just see it and feel and then go home and go on Facebook, it asks you to act. This documentary was not made by some middle aged man with a hired camera crew and a simple message of "This is how bad McDonald's is for you", not that that documentary didn't impact me because I got sick afterward and won't eat it, but Invisible Children asks you to feel enough to do more than just feel for them. Today's generation, we don't act enough, we don't get up off of our new found technology and go out and make a change. This documentary was made by teenagers, some of you may wonder "why would they do a stupid thing like just get up and go to Uganda?", but I'm asking you why not? Why is it so hard to believe that if someone believes in something enough that they can get up and do something about it?

My senior year in high school I was in a class called Senior Experience and we started raising money for Invisible Children. No we did not have the funds nor the permission to go over to Uganda but we didn't just throw our hands up in the air and do nothing. We made the bracelets they sell online, we put on a fashion show, we locked a boy in a show case (willingly), we went around to every classroom and explained the concept of Invisible Children. Word of mouth goes a long way in the advertising world but this Documentary asks you to act. We raised money for Schools for Schools where your school competed against other schools to raise money to give these children new schools and textbooks. The class of 2007 started a trend in Calhoun High School because three years later it's still going on and one student one the trip to Uganda.

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

The website of Invisible Children shows you all the different ways to fund raise as well as to donate. Each color bracelet they sell represents a different child that had been a part of this movement. This isn't any old documentary, it's an advertising documentary, advertising it's product as well as it's fund raising aspect.

Current Events and Advertising

In today's world we are often looking for substantial reasons to buy a product, this economy prevents a majority of society to go out and buy something because it's pretty. Persuasive advertising is the only tactic that seems to be working to get consumers to buy a product. In this world we have had a series of events occurring that are sparking advertisers attention, oil spills, cyber-bullying, animal cruelty. If advertisers use these current events are we going to be more likely to buy their product?

The recent oil spill sparked the attention of Dawn, an outlet for them to come up with a brilliant new commercial.


There are no words spoken in this commercial just a happy sounding song and by the advertisement being 90% visual it catches your attention. Without saying a word this commercial guarantees you that every bottle you buy, one dollar will go to help save animals. This society caters to those who cannot help themselves and we see that to be children and animals. How can you deny this helpless little creature from going from oil covered to it's happy original state? Most of us can't. A Pedigree commercial tells you a story a very powerful story and takes Dawn's story one step further.


In other advertisements for Pedigree we meet furry friends like Echo, Bailey, King, Archie, Mary Grace, Maggie, Oliver, Dixie and buddy, to name a few, the first parts of their commercials show us their sad story about not being adopted, may it be last picked in the shelter, or a family moves away from home. What we get to see in their next commercial is their success story of adoption, the viewer finds the happy ending that we were all searching for. This shows the consumer the idea of promise, the idea that, "sure if I buy a bag of Pedigree dog food, money will go to an organization, but now it will definitely make a difference". In life we are all searching for something to believe in, this commercial grants us that, the idea that we can make a difference and I can see how.