MEDIA BLOG ENTRY NUMBER 1

          I was just flipping the channels, searching for an entertaining television show to watch, when something catches my eye. Strangely enough, it was not an action movie, but a simple commercial for a clothing store. There was a family, who were all happy and smiling at the gifts that they gave each other, and were dancing around. It seemed like a normal commercial to me, but then I sat down for a while, and broke it down, and when I was done, what seemed like a simple commercial at first soon became a big, brainwashing conspiracy.

          The reasons this commercial caught my attention in the brief second I saw it before I flipped back to it was that there were many bright, sparkly colors, and there was a catchy tune playing, while showing these visuals. Throughout the whole commercial, there were several different Christmas trees in the background, each one of them in bright colors, and sparkly. This was definitely a good way to catch someone's attention, and draw their eyes to the products they were selling, which were hanging on the tree. Also, when I flipped back to the commercial, I started unconsciously humming the charming, audibly appealing tune that was being sung throughout the brief commercial. Only later did I realize that this was a song solely made for the advertising of this company. The short song got stuck in my head, and every time I started humming it under my breath, or just flat out serenading it to those who were unfortunate enough to be near me, I thought back to the commercial, and that it was for Kohls. I was amazed that they managed to control my mind like that in such a brief amount of time, and I wondered if that was the producer's goal.

          First of all, the commercial used the major upcoming holiday, Christmas, as a sort of incentive for people to buy whatever they were selling. The clothes for example had many Christmas-themed clothing styles, from a group of friendly looking reindeer sewn on the front of the red sweater to flashy green and red scarves. The prices were also cranked down to an "all-time low" because of Christmas sales. This made me want to go buy some clothes, which were extremely cheap, and I would be nice and cozy with my nice new clothing, full of holiday spirit. When I asked my brother, he said that he would not buy these for himself, but would rather buy them and wrap them up nicely for a great, personal Christmas present.

          Something else I realized was that all but one of the actors were white, the other being black. This got me wondering if the target audience was meant to be white, or they just unconsciously chose mainly white actors. I know in the past, whites were easily considered superior to all the other races, but in this "racially equal" country, different ethnicities should be treated the same. That is why I was surprised at this extremely obvious use of a single ethnicity. I feel they were trying to be racially diverse with by adding the African American woman, but subliminally, they are appealing to the group of people who would probably spend the most money and buy the most products from them, which would be whites. Additionally, there were four females in the commercial, and only two males. I feel this means their target audience is not only whites, but white females. The clothing in the commercial definitely seems more feminine based, and not something men would buy for themselves, but something again  that would make a great gift to a friend or loved one.

          The actors themselves were always smiling, and not once did they have any expression that was not negative. I think the producers of this commercial want the viewers to believe that when shopping or buying items from Kohls, they will be happy or surprised at the great deals, and never feel like they were getting ripped off, or that they did not have what the customers wanted. This could be a little bit misguiding, however. For example, at the end of the commercial, it says "Dream Gifts. Dream Sales. Dream Savings." When saying "Dream Sales" and Dream Savings", that could mean something completely different in someone else's mind. When I thought of "Dream Sales", I thought that most items would be around 60-70 percent off. However, when I asked my mom the same question, she said 40-50 percent off. That is a substantial difference, and the commercial is being vague by using the word "Dream", so they would not have to specify, maybe because the "Dream Sales" would not be what everyone else expected it to be. This to me is an obvious use of weasel words, as they are telling people that there are great deals, but not saying how great.

          This commercial was very effective in catching my attention, and getting across what they were selling. It took me a while to eventually break this commercial down and see behind the true message it was sending to massive amounts of people. I was amazed  that even though I take classes such as critical thinking, that inform you of these deceptions, I almost completely believed what they stated in the commercial. Then I thought of the majority of the audience, who probably did not take a critical thinking or psychology class, and was not surprised at the popularity of Kohls. Their commercials were very effective, and kind of brainwashed people into believing what Kohls wanted them to believe in.