The Economist - The net generation

"The kids are alright"
From The Economist print edition
Nov 13th 2008
source

The Internet contaminates today's youth. In this article, the writer of "Growing Up Digital" Don Tapscott disagrees to that statement about the young people of today and backs his points up with a worldwide study. In his opinion the problem is that the baby-boomers do not recognize the change among the youth. For that reason he compares the generations over and over again. He says that the new, first global generation ever is better and more active than the older, TV-watching couch-potato-generation. In his view, gamers, bloggers and instant-messagers are better at multi-tasking. Tapscott is equalizing the ban on facebook at work with the ban of rolodexes. His worries, on the other hand, relate to today's education and youth's lack of regard for privacy. Tapscott finishes by saying that the new generation has improved it's family life through family conversations about the Internet and it's dangers.

One World

Our world is globalizing, or not? Economies are becoming more integrated but are they really as integrated as it’s said? There are debates whether globally integrating economies are good or bad? One positive aspect is a better division of labor and increased living standards. On the other hand some say it destroys jobs and pushes down wages in rich countries. This is not the first globalization, before WW 1 railways and steamships caused a large cross-border trade. But international trading didn’t boom again until after WW2. Governmental trade-controls were abolished to recover from WW2, it was the rebirth of the global capital market. There are to rebuilding forces: technology like communication development and liberalization which lowered barriers to foreign trade. The extend can be exaggerated. Product markets are still nowhere near as integrated across borders as they are within nations. Financial markets were more integrated at the beginning of this century and labor is not mobile enough to become more internationally integrated. But due to market-friendly reforms and steadily falling communication costs many countries are becoming more and more integrated. Globalization has its bad and good sides. It’s supposed to boost average incomes but those will be unevenly distributed. For some governments it will be harder for to keep their economy in a fair condition. Protectionist governments may even keep their economies from growing by setting up trade barriers and controls. But an economic backlash is less to expect because of today’s technology and the trade freedom.

NO LOGO Chapter 2

Brands are turning children into walking billboards. They noticed that if they get them now, they will have them for life. Everyone wears clothes with big labels on them, to show: “I am a cool kid because I wear this cool brand!” But corporations have evolved to the next level. Before you used to go to a concert because of the bands that you like. Today you go to concerts because it is sponsored by Red Bull, MTV or Sprite. The big brands now have their own shows, their own events and festivals. Why? Because on their own festivals they can make as much adverstisement as they want. Another thing that Naomi Klein writes about in this chapter is how brands unite with celebrities. People now associate Nike with Tiger Woods, Cristiano Ronaldo and Michael Jordan. They are living ads and bringing their sponsors loads of money by showing their fans what to fear. Companies invaded the TV as well. Dawson’s Creek was sponsored by J.Crew. Brands are everywhere, they have become our culture, our way of life.

Grunge

A wikiHow article about How to Be Grunge (for Guys and Girls).
Definition 1: Grunge: A subgenre of the alternative music scene, emerging from Seattle, featuring distorted guitars, whining vocals and flannel-shirt-wearing band members.
Definition 2: Grunge: dirt: the state of being covered with unclean things

You want to be considered as grunge? This is how you have to be! This Article is a tutorial for boys and girls on how to dress and act like if you want to be grunge. The first thing you have to do is listen to grunge-music. You should not wear fancy or expensive clothes. If you do so, you are considered as a poser. The text continues with several things you should or should not wear to be grunge. The girls section points out the dress-code for girls. The third section is an advice for both genders. There are some pretty strict rules like point 8: • “Draw on white t-shirts with black permanent marker.” What they are doing is pretty much stereotyping the grungers. The fourth section says: “• Don't care what other people think.” And also: “Most "grungers" were rebels. They disliked society and media and didn't trust large firms and corporations.” There are three self-contradictory in those two points.
1 If you don’t care what others think, (or what they tell you, they think) then you should not listen to what the Article is telling you.
2 If grungers disliked society and were rebels, how can you be a rebel in a scene that has become society itself.
3 If grungers disliked media, you should not like this article, because it is media

Source

The Economist - "World of Dealcraft"

“World of Dealcraft”

from The Econommist print edition

September 16th, 2008

source

“The biggest-ever video-game deal shows how the industry is changing” This is the header of an article in The Economist from Dec 6th 2007. The text is about how big media corporations extend more and more into the video-game business by elaborating with/or buying big game-companies. Vivendi, for example, joined forces with Activision and forged the biggest-ever video-game deal. The Activision people got their long desired “World of Warcraft” and Vivendi got Activision’s talented management team to run it. The trend is clearly going to online gaming and the so-called “social gaming.” “World of Warcraft” is one of those games and has made huge profits. Also it is said that they are trying to build new audiences for the industries: combining music with online gaming. This opens many so-called “cross-marketing opportunities.” Viacom the MTV media giant acquired “Harmonix”, the creator of “Guitar Hero”, and later promoted a new game through their MTV channels.

It is always going to be a battle between the big media corporation. They are pushing each other to always look for new audiences, new technologies and expanding their media-empires. There is no end in sight. In fact, with every new innovation on the media market, the battle restarts again.

Product or Lifestyle?

Our task was to find two advertisements. One that sells a product and one that sells a lifestyle.


PRODUCT SELLING COMMERCIAL:
I found THIS ad on YouTube by coincidence.
The company CWS (Complete Washroom Solutions) is selling its self-cleaning toilets. The commercial is funny in a spiteful way (as long as you are not a drug addict I guess).

They are showing how clean their toilets are in two ways:
1. The woman put her magic powder directly on the seat.
2. The toilet shows its function, cleans the seat and gets rid of the powder which most people detest and thereby think it is funny.
Funny commercials are remembered easily, the products in them are more likely to be sold. CWS has used this tactic very well.


LIFESTYLE SELLING COMMERCIAL:
Axe commercials usually deal with hot women being attracted to some ordinary guy because of his Axe deodorant or shower gel.
THIS is also an ad i found on Youtube.
Axe (an Unilever brand) is selling you a deodorant called ‘dark temptation’. But that is not all. What they are trying to show you is that as soon as you (male persons) spray yourself with Axe you are turning into a chocolate man. Everybody loves chocolate and specially all the gorgeous looking women around you suddenly want to literally eat you, lick you or else. A dream comes true.
Axe wants the viewer to think: “If I buy this I will smell so good that all the girls will want me”.

NO LOGO

The first chapter of NO LOGO is divided into three sections. The first one is called ‘The Beginning of the Brand’. In this section Naomi Klein talks about the difference between advertising and branding and how everything started. The first advertisements tried to convince people that a car is better that a wagon or a phone is better than the mail. Back in the old days you used to go to a shopkeeper and buy two scoops of oats. Today you have to choose between different brands, their lifestyle and image. Brandings first task is to put names on generic goods like Quaker Oats, Uncle Ben’s rice, Heinz Pickles, Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemina. Branded products replaced the shopkeepers. The industries also put ‘soul’ in their advertising by associating their products with people’s feelings. With the purchase of KRAFT for $12 billion Philip Morris pushed branding to a new level. Brands were worth more than products.