Reading response 3

Scrutinizing the Cybersell: Teen-Targeted Web Sites as Texts

Darren Crovitz

I have gained a new appreciation for the arguments presented by Crovitz in this article, having given consideration to the elements that were chosen to be included in the Greenpeace video advertisement that I am submitting for the Media and Visual Lit 1 assignment.

The choices that Greenpeace made both visually and textually dictate not only the message they are trying to convey but also determine the manner in which the message is consumed, the audiences to whom the ad is targeted, the responses that are being encouraged, and the way in which the brand is being articulated and reinforced. It appears to be a simple video but when considered carefully as a text as Crovitz suggests, it is extraordinarily carefully thought out and complex, with multi-layered appeal limited only by the potential responsiveness of the different audiences that view the ad.

I agree with Crovitz that such digital media merit analysis and can provide a useful context to discuss how audiences can be manipulated by organizations that are highly selective in the portrayal of their message through multimodal texts. Teens have long been identified as a prime audience for marketers of products, some of which originated as responses to the market potential expressed by the demographic, many of which not. There is no intrinsic youth appeal to Slim Jim as a product, nor to Doritos. In some respect, with the Doritos example, in particular, the focused website appeal toward the teen audience is possibly less a response to the audience per se, than a cynical recognition that product placement in school vending machines has provided a unique opportunity to appeal to a particular and large audience faced with extremely limited choice available to them as consumers, and who are still in the process of identifying  or developing brand loyalty.

While the internet has potentially leveled the playing field when organizations come to appeal to audiences, it should be noted that not all brands are equal. It is much more likely that teens will choose to visit brands online that intrinsically appeal to their preformed self image: clothing and music in particular, than to other products or brands that are merely trying to co-opt extrinsic appeal as their own. A website may make Doritos seem cool, but they are not cool, and I think that most teens would not go out of their way to express their identity through the consumption of them, and most consumers are unlikely to seek out brands like these online unless the brand is also offering something extrinsic to the product, like a sweepstakes offer. There are, to be honest, a lot more interesting and less cynical things to view online, and teens know it.

As such, I think that the value of examining websites as texts is valuable and I acknowledge that such examination does give them the opportunity to discover how visual language reinforces concepts, and texts, but I would argue that the efficacy of such messages should not be overrated. A viral video for Doritos, for example, might draw a considerable audience to the online presence of the brand but it is more likely to do so for reasons that are not intrinsic to the brand, much like the Old Spice “The man your man could smell like” ads have generated “face time” with the product, not because the product is seen to belong to a particular audience but because the text is clever, funny and novel, while the product is none of these.

Of course, the producers of all consumable brands face difficult choices in how to most effectively reach and increase their market share. I think that the multiplicity of methods utilized to raise brand awareness are possibly the most effective area of study because of the opportunity it would present to students to compare and contrast messages broadcast over a variety of media. Students are most likely, after all, to encounter Doritos marketing in the packaging of the product in the vending machine or though chance encounters on television. Perhaps the efficacy of intensive brand appeals in digital media might one day be established by such a large and comprehensive study.