Psssst! Wanna buy an energy drink?

Has anyone every tried to sell you an energy drink as you strolled across campus? Or perhaps a classmate pitched the benefits of a particular brand of energy drink and its positive effects as you were waiting for your 8am class to start. No? Well perhaps you just weren’t AWARE that someone was trying to get you to buy something! Crazy talk, right? Well, what if I told you that I know a University student who earns a commission from an energy drink company, and that he carries an energy drink with him to all of his classes with a goal of “promoting” energy drink consumption on campus. Surprised? Just the visual cue provided by the unopened energy drink can sitting on someones desk might be enough to trigger an urge to purchase a can next time you’re near a vending machine. That, my friends, is called viral, word of mouth, or buzz marketing…and it IS a reality on this campus, and across the nation.

This is clearly a growth industry. According to researchers, Americans engage in more than 3 billion brand-related conversations each day. In order to monetize this trend, marketers are looking for ways to buy and sell these conversations. They even have their own association…WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

And if you didn’t already have reasons to be skeptical of the contents of blogs, you should know that PayPerPost.com pays bloggers to promote products and services on their personal blogs…effectively making anyone and everyone an agent dispensing commercial messages. PayPerPost calls it “sponsored content” and says that they require disclosure in order to comply with FTC regulations. But full disclosure and transparency may be the exception rather than the rule since there is little practical oversight.

Want to get in on the action but don’t have a blog? No problem. The PayPerPost application can also be added to your Facebook page. Oh, and when you recommend a friend who adds the PPP application you earn $15.

Wow, who knew that viral marketing could be so…

profitable?
easy?
ubiquitous?
invisible?

Childhood Obesity and Screen Time

A couple of studies recently published confirm what we’ve suspected. Screen time and obesity are positively correlated. And the news gets worse. A study out of Canada found that children from disadvantaged neighborhoods were 3-4 times more likely to fall into these high-risk groups. Another study, this one out of SUNY Buffalo, found that kids whose screen time was reduced lost weight. According to a report in Bloomberg,

Children whose viewing was eventually cut in half ate less, spent less time on sedentary activities and developed a healthier body mass index, a ratio of height to weight. The reduction in screen time didn’t translate into additional physical activity, providing insight into how sitting in front of a television or computer contributes to obesity in children, the researchers said.

Caveat Emptor: The Bloomberg article linked above is an advertisement dressed up as news. The article spends as much space pitching a $100 electronic device called the TV Allowance as it does reporting consumer information. This blurring of PR/Advertising and Journalism is almost as frightening as a 5th grade classroom full of 200 pound screen junkies!

Genna Davis on women on TV

Genna Davis, the fictional first woman president of the US, is mad and she’s not going to take it any more. To the point, she’s upset about the portrayal of women on TV. Research conducted by Dr. Stacy Smith of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, on behalf of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, found that the ratio of male to female characters in films (G, PG, PG-13, and R) is 2.71 to one. In addition–even in G-rated films–female characters were often hypersexualized and shown with unrealistic bodies in alluring apparel. Animated female characters were even more likely to demonstrate these attributes than live-action characters.

Content analysis studies such as this one are often the starting point for further research intended to explore the link between media and public health issues such as low self-esteem and distorted body image.  While the existence of unrealistic media portrayals of gender, race, age, etc. are not sufficient for cause-and-effect hypotheses, recognition that the media fun-house mirror provides a distorted view of reality is an important first step.

More information can be found at the Geena Davis Institute website.