Reflection Point 2.6

Having waxed prolific in my last entry, I'm going to keep this one very brief. I thought that David took the Nike issue as far as he sensibly could or should have. Between the research, surveys, graphs, maps, charts, posters, logs, alternative ads, and letters to the CEO, I really think they covered Nike as well as they could, and I honestly don't think much would have been gained by going further there.

Rather than going deeper with Nike's campaigns, I think it might have been profitable to encourage children to look for other ways that advertising positions people to think about (or simply absorb) ideas about class and money. Even more broadly, it's fascinating to look at who the target markets are for different ad campaigns and what this tells us.

When my son was a baby -- a year old or so -- he was mesmerized by the Joe Camel cigarette billboards. More than any other kind of advertising, these billboards caught his attention. I found it infuriating that this peddler of harmful products was reaching out and trying to grab my child's heart -- successfully! This would be a very interesting issue to consider with children, so many of whom shockingly still grow up to become smokers.

Another advertising issue that has always bothered me, as a mother, is the marketing of Huggies "Little Swimmers" diapers. These diapers are not appropriate for swimming in any sense other than that they don't absorb a lot of water and become heavy; therefore, a parent has less baby to hold up in the water. They are not sanitary at all, allowing fecal matter to leak right out into the water and potentially spread harmful E. Coli bacteria. The fact that the company is allowed to get away with marketing these products as swim diapers is infuriating, and, while not a social issue in the traditional divisionist sense, is certainly a public health issue.