save the earth campaign March 12, 2008

• In this clip, there are effective use of verbal communication, non-verbal communication and music to appeal to the audience’s emotions.  
• Verbal communication: uses of words such as, ‘one earth , one life’ and ‘Let’s save our earth together’. It directly address to the audience that we have to stop damaging the earth and we are capable of saving the earth. 
• non-verbal communication: use of pictures that appeal to our emotions. It implies that the earth is suffering and we need to save it. Some current environmental problems are pollution,  illegal hunting of sea lions and floods. Some pictures shows situations of floods, air pollution, decreasing volume of snow on the mountains that raises the need to take action now. After that one picture shows a young boy putting newspapers into the recycle bin probably to imply that people of any age can save the earth through simple ways. A picture of a sea lion cub appeals to our emotion as it is so adorable and yet illegal cold-hearted hunters are killing them. 
• Some nonverbal cues is using of time to convey meaning(chronemics)-the picture showing the changes to the snow-capped mountains after a few years shows that global warming is occurring and will cause more drastic changes in the environment and in turn affect our lives. As time goes by, more changes will be expected. 
• background music contains one of the repeated lyric, ‘how to save a life’. This is effective as the audience will be primed to think of ways to save a life-our earth. 
• Are you persuaded to do your part in saving our earth?  

 

Advertisement-IWC watch (on the bus) March 12, 2008

 Watchmaker IWC’s advertisement. Bus straps are designed by images of IWC’s Big Pilot’s Watch to allow bus travellers near the airport to try before they buy at Berlin, Germany. 

• I find  that IWC is aware of consumers’ needs such as the need to try a watch before buying. If the watch looks fashionable to them and attractive on their wrists,they will mostly likely buy. It is receiver-oriented.
• Also, by advertising the watch on bus straps, it increases the chances of a higher sales for IWC. Increasing it’s exposure to consumers increases the awareness of IWC’s watch. It also means that consumers may think that it is the most recent and fashionable trend to wear IWC’s Big Pilot’s watch. Also, I have read that in dangerous situations, a guy may find a normal lady attractive, but in normal situations, the guy does not find anything interesting or attractive about that same lady. Therefore, when the bus jerks dangerously, people especially males may find IWC’s watch attractive and this increases the chances of them buying it at Berlin.  The watch has a masculine design and shows that IWC target buyers are the males. Therefore, this psychological tactic in business is useful to increase sales. 
•   I think the message of this advertisement is that IWC’s Big Pilot’s watch helps people to have stable lives and the message is conveyed non-verbally to consumers. When the bus jerks, people may be unstable and need to hold on to the bus straps to stabilize themselves. Hence, when people hold on to the bus strap with IWC’s advertisement, they will feel a sense of relief that the bus straps prevent them from falling. With this sense of relief, people may find that IWC is useful for them in managing their lives.
• verbal communication is involved as well as the words,’Try it here. The Big Pilot’s Watch’ are printed on the straps. This inform passengers that this watch is sold by IWC and increases consumers’ awareness of IWC. With increase in awareness of IWc, IWC can capture a larger market and sales will eventually increase.
• I find that non-verbal communication complements verbal communication in this advertisement effectively. 

media theories March 9, 2008

Among the 7 media theories that we have learnt in class, I would like to mention the media agenda setting function. Agenda setting involves media gate keepers who select issues that they feel are most worthy of coverage and give those issues great attention. They also choose issues to ignore. Priming occurs as the media attend to some issues over the other and change the standards by which people evaluate the issues.

Evaluation on ‘I not Stupid too’ February 19, 2008

During  Chinese New Year , I watched Jack Neo’s movie ‘I not Stupid too’ that was screened on the television. There were many issues raised in the movie that are relevant in our society. I would like to mention 2 main issues.

Non-verbal communication January 31, 2008

Hi,I found out this short video clip regarding non verbal communication. I agree that our actions and expressions communicate our feelings and responses to others. It is important as 70% of our communication is conveyed non-verbally. There are many situations whereby non-verbal communication affects us. Sometimes, miscommunication occurs because we are unaware that our non verbal cues signal a different meaning to what we say. What does this implies when we say, ‘ that’s great!’ with an emotionless face? Ha! It differs a lot from the verbal cues. So, be careful with what you project non-verbally to others.  

comment on a cancer advertisement-Niños con cancer January 22, 2008

Recently I happened to watch a short cancer advertisement on you tube.The link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44fX5yavIZo. It was really touching and the message was strong. Why is it so? Although the video did not involve verbal communication, it made use of strong non-verbal communication such as the expressions of the characters, background music and colours. It had the ability to arouse our emotions, or pathos.

The advertisement started by showing a girl lying lazily on her bed, playing with her long hair. After that, she ran to the window and looked out, smiling at the same time. This scenario showed a typical girl leading a carefree life, probably waiting for her parents to come home. It had a tinge of sweetness in the scenario.

 In the following scenario, the little girl ran to get a bag filled with hair care equipments and prepared to cut her hair. Throughout these actions, it increased our curiosity as to ‘what would a little girl, who was pouring out hair care equipments from a bag, do to her long, beautiful hair?’ She had a sad looking expression before cutting her hair and it conveyed the message that the girl would miss her long hair after she cut it. The music at the background played a part in creating a sad atmosphere. The colour blue was mainly used in the video and I feel that it was used to create a rather depressing mood.

The next scenario showed the girl running to greet her parents with her short hair. Her parents were shocked and this was seen in their facial expressions. Initially, they were smiling and their expression changed once they saw her. We could guess that they were not happy with her short hair. However, the boy wearing a cap did not appear to be shock because he kept his smile on his face even when he saw the girl. Even though no conversation was involved in the video, their facial expressions clearly showed their emotions.

I felt touched at the scenario where the girl looked down innocently at her skirt, which was filled with the hair she had cut, and she gave some hair to the boy. After that, the boy removed his red cap and put it on the girl’s head, showing his bald head. The video ended showing the girl smiling shyly and it really tugged at my heartstrings because the girl was willing to cut away her long, beautiful hair for the boy who most probably had cancer. We can depict that he had cancer because of his bald head. Most children have healthy, neatly kept hair; whereas, he had a bald head. The message of this video is most probably to appeal to the public to help cancer patients because this video was created by a cancer association. I think it is an interactive form of communication because we can respond to the video by posting our responses on youtube or call the hotline shown at the end of the video. 

 That’s all for today! Feel free to comment on the video too!