Commercials+in+Icarly,+Robert+Weir

RQ: Who and what are the commercials shown during ICarly targeted to. Do these commercials try to take advantage of Children by manipulating them to buy their products.

Method: I will examine commercials shown during ICarly and look to find who the targeted audience is and analyze what the commercial is trying to sell kids. I will then compare what i find with the section in "Kids Rule" that talks about advertising to children and the effects it has on them and their parents. I might also interview my roommates eight year old sister who is a huge fan of the show, and ask her a series of questions about the commercials from the show.

Expectations: I expect to find a wide array of marketing strategies used toward targeting children, and i will compare them to arguments i find in the book. I expect to find methods advertisers use, that work to manipulate a young mind of a child into buying that certain product. A example would be seeing advertisers promoting junk food, and how that correlates with the problem of childhood obesity in this country.

I hope you look into the different target audiences for iCarly's advertising, and about the ratio of advertising for food, technology, Nick promos, and other products. Good topic here --- you've got the green light.

 obert Weir  Upon reviewing commercials run during iCarly, I noticed some interesting patterns and ideas. The first pattern I noticed is that the show is always promoting the next weeks brand new show, and by showing funny clips and having a voice saying you cant miss this; the producers and Nick are trying to have the audience see preferable lines and jokes to get the audience to return. The commercial following the promo for iCarly was for a Barbie doll and is strictly targeted toward young girls age group 6 to 9, and like the show it has a catchy female voice swinging over a rock and roll tune. I believe the advertisers are trying to draw young girls in on the whole “assertive girl power theme”, and to correlate with the message of “girl power” in the show.  The next commercial was a promotion for a kid’s movie, and the target audience seems to be all kids ages 6 to 12, and like the commercial before it, the commercial has a catchy tune to draw kids in. The commercial comes off being neutral, in that it neither preferred boys to girls or likewise, and is a stark contrast from the previous girl power commercial. The next commercial was an advertisement for a new game of sorry, but unlike the two before this one, it seemed to be more targeted to young boys then girls, even though it does have a young girl and her mom in the commercial. The song used in the commercial and the narrators voice comes off intense sounding, and words like “take revenge,” suggest it is more targeted towards young boys ages 6 to 12.  The next commercial is advertising honey nut cheerios and shows an animated cartoon bee fighting off a villain who stole his honey. The commercial seems to be neutral and another catchy tune is present. The next two commercial were about McDonalds, and came off with a soothing melody. What was interesting was that in one of the commercials three little birds drop an apple into a child’s happy meal box, suggesting to children but mainly their parents that McDonald’s is a healthy place for their child to eat. Though they now offer fruits with a happy meal, it still does not show the other junk food McDonald’s has to offer. Even though McDonald’s is trying to come off healthy by adding fruit to their menu, by having two heart warming McDonald’s commercials and offering a toy with the meal, I feel kids will develop a unhealthy understanding that fast food is healthy because they happened to offer some types of fruits.  The next commercial is another promotion for the show, but this time it is about Miranda Crossgroves new tour. I noticed while watching a commercial segment from iCarly, some patterns in advertising and promoting. The first is that the show in some ways is always promoting something from the show; whither it is a new episode or Miranda Crossgroves tour. The second is that ever commercial is only around fifth teen minutes long, which makes me think that advertisers know that a child’s attention span is very short, and by cramming as many scenes in a firth teen second commercial and using flashy colors, they are trying to embed the image of their product in the back of kids minds. The third thing I noticed was that after the promotion the commercials went from girl targeted, to neutral, to boy targeted, to neutral, then the rest were food commercials and finishing it up was another promotion for the show. The last thing I noticed was that most commercials had a catchy them involved, which suggest that kids attentions are susceptible to catchy tunes.``