Today in 362 we talked about how many commercials are stepping away from the old way of advertising, which focused on what the product does, and offers. The idea was brought up that because peoples values are changing and centering on self and hedonism and independence more that commercials are trying to show what your life would be like if you use the product. One of the girls in the class brought up the new JcPenney's commercial as not actually being related to the store/product and just using random things and then splashing up the logo.



I think that this commercial has plenty to do with the product and the store. The women are wearing clothes from JcPenneys and that is drawing attention from the men/ other people in the background and these clothes are adding a little magic into their lives. It's not that commercials don't have anything to do with the product as much as it is that advertisers are trying to be creative. In our textbook this week I read that creativity is one of two main factors that make the difference between a successful advertising campaign and one that fails is creativity. I feel like advertisers are trying so hard to look at things from a different angle in order to be more creative. However if most people don't look at things that way it goes from being a creative commercial to being something that people cannot relate to the product or advertising.

~Rachel Dillard

Yahoo Avataars

Until tonight I personally had no idea what an avataar was. Mainly because I do not normally use anything is related to Yahoo. When I first saw these avataars they reminded me of the little paper dress up dolls I had a child. I believe that avataars are a cute idea but just not something I would use. I think this is to due to how I relate them to paper dolls an item that a child would play with. I think yahoo could do something to disconnect the avataars with a childlike image. One thing I did like was how you how the options to dress your avataar in clothing featuring MTV and Pepsi. One thing I found to be annoying was navigating through the apparel. Although it was broken down into categories, looking through 20 pages of shirts was not appealing. I feel as though yahoo could divide these broad categories even more. Perhaps into categories to include long of short sleeve shits, or tank tops. This would help avoid the frustration of clicking through 20 pages. With only six items on a page they could feature more items to help shrink the amount of pages.