Unit Four Blog Two

Both of the Youtube videos are advertisements for McDonald's, but they are selling different products to different groups.

The first commercial is selling McDonald's fries to young children. The whole commercial is cartoon like and absurd. The fries are the product mentioned, but the fries are presented to seem fun and exciting. As though the fries and not the ball pit or slide is what would naturally draw a child into the restaurant. The commercial features the Fry Kids who are so rambunctious that ADHD is almost suggested. These little miscreants steal the fries advertised and then run around like the Warner Bros. road runner. In the end Ronald McDonald snatches the fries back after he apparently teleports into a cab and magically summons a cabby hat to wear. Watch the commercial the first time I could not even understand what was going on. There were small furry Muppet knock offs running around and Ronald McDonald was perfectly okay with being robbed and in the end he magically appears when physics says he could not move so fast, and if he can move fast than light why didn't he get the fries back earlier. But that was not the point to a small child the commercial is just like any of the shows they watch. The company know it does not have to convince children of the situation and set up, because according to child psychologist Piaget child under the age of seven have difficulty separating fiction from reality with television programming. So the child truly believes that they brightly colored monsters run around with a real Ronald McDonald chasing after. The child concludes that McDonald’s fries equal fun Technicolor monsters. Suddenly they want to go to McDonalds because that is a fun place. Thereby roping in a new generation of McDonalds customers, because six year olds are convinced McDonalds is fun.

The second commercial is also for McDonalds, but this time the target age group is older. The message is to advertise a new breakfast sandwich. But you do not find that out until 12 or so seconds into the commercial. The beginning might be an unofficial commercial encouraging voting for Obama with the way the word “change” is tossed around. The main premise is that McDonalds is not as scary and icky as some documentaries and new stories may have told you the company is. This sandwich and McDonalds itself is now more young, hip, and in tune with social issues than ever before. The ad has actors of multiple ethnicities and even includes an almost normal looking family, minus the whole McDonalds in bed bit. The whole image screams wholesome, they even go so far as to claim the biscuit the meat product is wedged in between taste like it was homemade. It like McDonalds got a facelift and wants to show off the fresh face at a singles bar they are way too old to be hanging at. The message is how rebellious and cool and outside the box the massive conglomerate has magically become. So now the rebellious, young, noncomformists, skaters, struggling artists, and salarymen-living-for-the-weekend are going to stop by McDonalds because now the company is part of the change our society is egear to embrace.

Unit Four Blog One

An argument is simply trying to convince another party that your perspective is right. Argument occurs on a regular basis with things obviousl things like politics and less obvious ones like choosing restruants. Any time you attempt to persuade or compromise you are arguing. Arguments are subjective usually, the argument comes from an attempt to project an opinion on to some one else, trying to get others to follow your line of thinking. Sometimes there are clear winners; Mark got to pick the restruant but you get to pick the movie. He won the argument about where to eat while you won the argument about what to watch. Sometimes no one wins; Mark and you fought so much about dinner and movie that neither of you feels like being in the same room together let alone going out in public together. In the end as long as there is individual thought there will be arguments.