Adolescents who are now referred to as the millennial or Generation Y are perceived by large internet marketing corporations as the “sometimes elusive marketing demographics of adolescents,” and as such, they have since embarked on a carefully designed and well orchestrated marketing strategy to capture that market. Internet companies such as AOL/Time Warner, Microsoft, and Yahoo believed that they have hit the jackpot with Instant Messaging (IM) with regards to reaching that elusive target market.
They began with the use of robots, or “chat robots/chatter box” which are artificial intelligence driven computer programs, and designed with artificial intelligence to hold conversations. The first widely known robot used to sell a product was “Ellegirlbuddy” in 2002. However, what this does is that it uses the artificial voice it was designed with to mimic the tone of a teenage girl in order to have a conversation through IM and a visit to ELLEGIRL on line magazine site. This site offers products such as ACUVU brand contact lenses that an adolescent may actually be interested in.
The IM carries advertisements such as banners, spim, bots wallpaper and icons. Some of these carry flirty, sexy, teen models like the one at Yahoo’s BPNordstrom. This is certainly not appropriate for adolescents. It appears that these marketers stereotype adolescents as shopaholics, and are trying to exploit such misconceptions. I say this because they cannot say for sure that all their electronic robotics strategies are a success. I agree with some of the old fashion critics who claim that women are marginalized. They do not have this same kind of aggressive marketing for young men.
I agree that thy see girls as shopaholics, but they also try to ensure tha the young girl think they are supposed to be shopaholics. Throughout 2.0, the author talks about the ways in which this new type of marketing renforces the idea of gender roles and the way that youngs girls are supposed to act, which is to be "girly" and love to but things. They are supposed to want to be like the "popular" girl and buy things like makeup and clothing to make her look "popular." And these sites try to use that to their advantage as well as trying to ensure the stereotype stays the way it is.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised by the different marketing strategies that companies have out there to try and get young teens and tweens or the Generation Y to look into their marketing strategies. I agree with you that men are not marketed the same way, to look a certin way or dress a certain way. I wonder why they feel the need to do this to women only. do you feel that this is unfair to women?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting form of advertisement I read about was how they incorporated the product into horoscopes of all places! That's just ridiculous. They feel the need to only do this to women because they think that one of the roles of women is to sho and want to try to be glamorous like everything the media is portraying. So, since theyre pushing these standrads mostly on the women, then the women are the ones who are marketedd in those crazy ways. Its all really sick if you ask me. I wonder what life was like before all this nonsense.
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