Author: Ali Chapman

A Deeper Look Into the Super Bowl Commercials

“More Than Ok”

If I asked you “Coke or Pepsi?”, I’m probably not the first person to ask you this. While some don’t seem to care which one they drink, others prefer one over the other. But when it comes to seeing which one celebrities choose to drink, that might influence some people’s decision. In Pepsi’s Super Bowl commercial “More Than Ok”, Steve Carell answers the waiters question “Is Pepsi Okay?” since they sell Pepsi, not Coke. Being each others biggest rivals, this commercial clearly supports Pepsi in saying that it is “more than okay” than Coke. Due to Pepsi’s cast consisting of Steve Carell, Cardi B, and Lil Jon, consumers that are fans of these celebrities might choose Pepsi as well.

“Bud Light Corn Syrup Commercial”

The Bud Light Corn Syrup commercial, in this ad the king get a shipment of corn syrup. The commercial proceeds to call out Miller Lite and Coors Light for having corn syrup in their respective recipes. The implication, it would seem from outside the creative team that built the commercial, is that corn syrup is bad, therefore those beers are bad for using corn syrup. Who wants sugar in their beer? The suggestion is that, though it’s unsaid in the commercial, the criticism was that competitors use cheap products. It doesn’t deny any other implications but seems to set aside any accusations that it was misleading about the role of corn syrup in brewing. The question here is that should they be calling out their competitors out like that?


“The Elevator”

Hyundai’s commercial, “The Elevator”, that aired during the 2019 Super Bowl caused a bit of controversy within the vegan community. In this advertisement, guests are riding on an elevator that seems to be stopping at “bad” floors; each floor has a name, and each one seems to be just as bad as the next. For example, they stopped at floors called, “Root Canal”, “Jury Duty”, and “Middle Seat”. One of the “bad floors” they stopped at was called “Vegan Dinner Parties”, where they questioned “Is that even a thing?” paired with a man making a grossed-out facial expression. This came off as offensive that the company made a negative connotation out of the word “Vegan”. Some may think that the commercial meant no harm, but others took the commercial as controversial and unnecessary.

“NFL 100 Commercial”

This commercial is was presented during the Super Bowl this year, in order to celebrate 100 years in the league. It was rated as the #1 rated commercial from this years event. It included many legends of the game reacting to a ball falling on the floor. The football fell on the floor and all of the players go crazy over it. A controversial point comes up during then when in midst of all the chaos and tackling of one another the ball ends up in the hands of a woman. Instead of tackling her Richard Sherman who is a top cornerback in the NFL today asks her nicely for the ball. She refuses and says “come and get it”, the reason I find this controversial is because it is in a way diminishing the presence of women in sports. Since the NFL has never really included woman in the sport this female questions that by say come and get it.


InstaJob

When scrolling through Instagram you may see those random ads that have no correlation with your interest and just scroll over them. What you may not know is that your favorite celebrities are in a way advertising specific products and getting paid an absurd amount of money for including such a small product. For example, Selena Gomez posted a picture of her sipping out of a coke bottle through a straw and it received over 7 million likes… You may completely ignore the fact that she is advertising a certain brand/product and just like the photo because you are a fan of hers. The question about Transparency arises, many people are unaware of this brand advertising through social media outlets like Instagram and many people are now asking is it manipulating to the viewers of these hidden advertisements.

Is this strategy of celebrity advertising through social media, specifically Instagram posts, considered fair to the public? This is a controversial topic of discussion, and opinions vary. Some may not mind that they are constantly influenced by the celebrities they know and love, however, some believe that they are being manipulated to be drawn to these products. This idea also relates to the idea of product placement in TV shows and films, as many argue that making a script revolved solely around a brand is messing with artistic integrity. However you may view it , both company AND celebrity greatly benefit from these brand deals.

So what other celebrities are getting paid for simply posting a picture with “#ad” in their caption? Per sponsored post, Kylie Jenner makes $1 million dollars. This makes her the highest paid social media influencer, according to the 2018 Rich List by Hopper HQ.  Michael Heller, CEO of digital marketing firm Talent Sources, claims that social-media posts now make a 25% contribution towards the Kardashian’s wealth. But Jenner and her Kardashian sisters aren’t the only ones making money off of sponsored posts. Checkout the YouTube video below to see who else makes hundreds off of one post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfWKYhaSns0

What’s Happening?

In our COM 201 class was watched the film The Internet’s Boy about American computer programmer and entrepreneur Aaron Swartz. The film is relative towards our course as we are learning about copyright, creative commons, rational justification, moral failures, etc. Also known as an Internet hacktivist, Swartz hacked JSTOR by downloading locked files into his hard drive that could only be accessed through payment. Why did this genius want to get his hands on to these files? Because they were millions of texts of scholarly journals and recycled law papers full of knowledge that could benefit the world as a whole. So, Aaron did not do this for himself, he was making an idealistic decision by putting himself at risk for others. The results seemed ridiculous as many thought that he should not have been given the attention similar to the criminal system, he was just trying to make a point.

Throughout the film, we are familiarized with the words copyright and creative commons. It is important, especially for us as bloggers, to give credit to those whose work we are using and to not make money off of it. Later, we come across issues regarding ethical decisions and moral failures. In Swartz case, as mentioned before, he made an ethical decision for the sake of others as the locked knowledge had great potential of benefitting the world. Moral failures are shown as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made a moral failure of taking the wrong stance and helping the government when they really could have made a better decision.

WELCOME

On our blog keep calm, we will talk about ethics and morals what each means and how certain situations in the world are affected by our ethics and morals. Specific situation, examples and readings will be referenced in our post in order to give readers the knowledge that we are obtaining in class. Important and key points that we discuss in class will be posted on our blog, the different types of ethics such as virtue ethics, duty ethics and etc. will be related to the world we live in. Overall, this sites main purpose is to inform people on what the creators of KeepCom feel should be shared to the public when it comes to ethics.

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Source: www.provplace.com