observation journal

Ad 1: Colgate: Sink Child

Ad 2: Schlage Locks: Ex-Girlfriend

Ad 3: Tide Plus A Touch of Downy: The Princess Dress

Ad 4: Carlsberg Beer: If Carlsberg Did Fitting Rooms

1. Question(s) related to how individuals are represented in the ads

The individuals in the ad are shown as high poverty and low poverty, why does the girl with the white shirt have quicker access to water.

Why do the girl with the unclean shirt have no access to water?

Why did they use the customer and his ex-girlfriend in the restaurant as a scene?

Why did the lady have to be so angry and aggressive?

Why was a breakup used for a lock commercial?

Why is there only a father and not the mother to?

Why aren’t there other siblings and she have to be alone?

Why did the man look so frustrated when shopping with his girlfriend?

Why did they use shopping to compare to the beer?

Why was there a man’s lounge inside the fitting room?

2. Questions related to how groups and group behavior are represented in the ad

Why is the girl on the bottom alone on a dirt field?

Why did they decide to use two girls in the ad?

Why did they relate the ad inside a restaurant?

Why did they use a couple to decide the reason to buy the lock?

Why did the ad make it a public breakup?

Why did they leave the mother out the ad?

Why did the little girl wear a stained-up dress for a week?

Why are the women the only one’s shopping?

Why do they have a lounge for the man to get away from shopping and to drink beer?

3. Questions related to how cultures and cultural identity are represented (or not represented) in the ad

Why didn’t they use both girl on the same screen?

Why isn’t there anything around the little girl walking?

Why did the use a blonde woman to decide them to be aggressive, unusable, and crazy?

Do all men have to change their locks after a bad breakup?

How would others see it if it were a single mother Instead of a father?

How does the ad not show culture diversity?

Why is there not no black women and men in the ad?

Why did they have to wear green to serve the beer?

4. How do the ads compare to each other?

The group of ads that I selected all seem to target white women and men. The ads all seem to show a split between high poverty and low poverty. Each one shows what we deal with and do in our everyday life. In one of the ads, it displays a clip of a young girl fetching water while an adult woman walks into her home bathroom and turns on the sink. Though the lens of a social scientist one may question why the younger girl was not accompanied by a parent or sibling. They may even question why she was the one fetching the water and not a parent or perhaps a male figure.

5. What overall observations might a social scientist be interested in studying in relation to the themes present in these advertisements?

What larger questions about human interactions might they ask?

Overall, I think a social scientist might be interested in the fact that the ads where not as diverse when it came to race and that some ads represented men as the leading role or primary features rather than women or other races. They might also be interested in the fact that one of the ads advertised a young girl doing hard labor to obtain an everyday life necessity. In other words, I believe a social scientist might be interested in any of the social relations represented in the ads.

Why is there little to no diversity regarding race or culture?

Why is there a male lead for representing a beer commercial while shopping with his girlfriend?

Can women not be into long hours of shopping and like beer?