Wednesday, March 28, 2012

New television channel for preschoolers

Disney channel for preschoolers

This article on Bloomberg Businessweek written by Christopher Palmeri discusses the new preschool focused disney channel that was newly launched on March 23rd. These shows are to be viewed through the Junior Disney channel aimed at 2-7 year olds and requires a specific cable subscription. The advantages of this channel is the characters are the same age as the targeted audience and they are doing good in society such as taking on the role as a doctor. These still are cartoons but more virtual and real-looking than the competing companies' cartoons such as Nickelodeon. Also, this new Disney channel distinquishes from other children networks because they will be almost ad-free, just leaving room for brief disney movie/program promotions and limited sponsorships such as a lysol commerical reminding children to wash their hands. Disney plans to reach about 30 million U.S. households and expects many parents to resonate with the idea of minimal commercial programming for their children.

*Do you think this channel will be as successful as Disney hopes it will be?

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

In response to Maggie's Post...

Question: Do you think our modern uses of advertising/marketing are positive or negative?? Why??

I think some modern uses of advertising and marketing can be positive. However, I believe most of the advertising and marketing in our world today is negative. Whether people realize it or not consumerism is so engrained into each and every one of us in society that material objects in a lot of cases have become a priority in people's daily lives. Yes, I do think there is a lot of focus on children and they are definitely the most vulnerable to these images and mindsets because their mind is absorbing everything around them like a sponge. I think adults today have been exposed to so much adversiting and marketing, thousands of times a day, throughout their whole lives that they are immune to the effect by this point. I think so much emphasis has been put on expensive, name-brand products through advertising and marketing that it is the norm. So when companies put out all different kinds of the same product or service that essentially does the same thing as a hundreds of others, consumers are more apt to buy that product just because of the branded label. I do wonder what life would really be like if consumerism wasn't the media's main focus for so many years leading up to today.