In Response to Ethan Gage's Post...

How important is having a well known face for an organization?


Personally, I believe that having a well-known face on your organization is vital to marketing and advertising. It is essential to the branding process of commercial goods in services. Various organizations use distinct figures to help benefit their good or service's reputation. For example, the athletic company Nike uses a wide array of professional athletes to promote their sportswear. Nike has used sports icons such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Lance Armstrong. Using these professional athletes entices the target market of Nike because it shows sports figures that many people look up to as inspiration and motivation. Well-known faces are vital in attracting customers and establishing a brand.

Advertisements in Schools

I recently was watching a video on over-consumption in American society. It talked about several aspects of advertising and marketing. One specific marketing trend caught my eye. It was the extent of advertising in public schools. School is supposed to be a place where children gain knowledge for their future. It shouldn't be crowded with the outside interests of corporations.

Children are young and impressionable. We should be giving them the wrong idea in any sense. For example, in the video there was a school taking advertisements from various candy and soda vendors. I am very against this type of marketing because it is one of the main reasons we have such high rates of obesity in America. We shouldn't be putting the idea in a child's head that its okay to eat junk food like that.

But there is a gray area in all of this. The school that was taking these advertisements was doing so for funding. The city it was a part of was not providing an adequate budget for the public school. Was it acceptable for this school to accept the funding from these advertisements? Should advertisements that send children the wrong message even be allowed in schools in the first place?