Advertising Companies will always be objectifying women

When it comes to advertising, anything that can create buzz is and will always be used !!! I know because i happen to run an advertising company with it’s Buzz creating and PR sections.

So that would seam weird for people in the industry, to hear that an Ad agency -none the less- is waging war against objectifying women in ads … But from the basic principle of PR, you would immediately understand that the campaign goal is to hijack feminists agenda, for indirect self promotion.

here’s the video by the agency:
They basically searched on the internet for ads objectifying women throughout the world …

I am not saying it is ok, to show women in every ad, but it seams that the image of sexy women is way more effective to attract the attention of MEN, and that’s why agencies have been using the image of women since ever, also that’s why they hire more female receptionists, and why modeling agencies hire mostly female models  …

Reality is, humans operate on basic instincts, especially when in automated mode, breeding, hunger and fear are huge factors in our decision making, even-though most of us don’t even realize that. Read the emotional role in advertising.

That’s why Sex sells when it comes to advertising, and when it comes to business and capital, what works is often reproduced and considered a rule of success.

It’s true that in some cases the agencies are rude and highly unprofessional, for example this agency in Singapore that made this Burger King ad , got probably a lot of negative press. But they say all press is good press.

But then again, the views are what interest the agencies and the customer, so you could see why Car’s Jr Superbowl Ad featured a naked woman, well because if it didn’t they would have to work 30-40 times harder to make the ad get the same attention and viewership, and that’s 30 time the budget of the ad …

Objectifying women, is not going anytime soon, simply because it is effective in selling stuff to men! But then again, the only way that would happen is if you go to live in Saudi Arabia or other religiously strict countries, were laws forbid this type of ads, or if laws are passed to block the use, but that would be a challenge to the freedom of speech.

-On a side note, as a man, i am sorry, but we men, are too rough, except for flagrant mistakes like the Burger King ad above, most of us see nothing wrong in featuring a sexy woman in an ad –

 

What career should your kids choose?

I came across the below data, made available by the US census bureau,
In general it shows that Asian households income is way superior to the average,
there’s of course the factor that people of Asian origin are recent immigrant compared to the people of European or African origin,  and thus they are either themselves, or descendants of people, that worked hard or were well off to be able to come to this far country, so by definition they belong to a higher social class than the average American …

“Indian Americans continuously outpace every ethnic group socioeconomically to reach the summit of the U.S. Census charts. Indian Americans, along with other Asian Americans, have attained the highest educational levels of all ethnic groups in the U.S. 71% of all Indians have a bachelor’s or higher degree (compared to 28% nationally and 44% average for all Asian American groups). Almost 40% of all Indians in the United States have a master’s, doctorate, or other professional degree, which is five times the national average. Thomas Friedman, in his recent book, The World is Flat, explains this trend in terms of brain drain, whereby the best and brightest elements in India emigrate to the U.S. in order to seek better financial opportunities.[40] Indians form second largest groups of physicians (3.9%) after non-Hispanic whites as of 1990 survey, and very likely much more like 10% in 2015.”

But then, i realized an important factor, which is education, but not simply education but specific type of education, that is known to be in demand and to bring a descent living. Like for example physicians. A study by NCBI shows that some races are more likely to work in less favorable regions – aka making less money, hence some people do it as vocation by some do it for the money.

The idea is simple, some jobs make more money, and in some cultures they push kids to go after these jobs, especially when you are in a foreign country, where there’s a shortage.

For example, when i was a small kid, like many others the choice of future careers were: fireman, policeman, teacher, doctor, lawyer, engineer … but as i grew my society and parents had some kind of invisible pressure that pushes kids towards mainly 3 fields: lawyers, doctors and engineers …. then of course people end up doing different things when they grow up, but still many become lawyers, doctors and engineers, so in my small country we had too much of all 3 of those…

In Europe i sensed a different approach, i noticed that parents just want their kids to be happy, do whatever they want in life and be happy -be an artist, musician, teacher, …-.
The difference is mainly due to the fact that in developing countries you will need to find a good job that can feed you for now and for when you grow old and retire, as often retirements plans are not a good insurance for old age …. In developed countries it’s not the case, in developed countries it’s better to have minimum responsibilities and be able to enjoy life when you are still young and able to.

So eventually it comes down to that, whether you want financial stability or happiness for your kids, sometimes both are possible, but with employment there is always the financial risk of losing the job, or company going bankrupt…

 

1 minute explainer video for Startups and apps

I have worked with startups a lot, and the one mistake i see repeated, over and over and over, is the lack of visitor education – or explaining to visitor, in other words the lack of an explainer video!

The majority of big startups, or startups in incubators, have a marketing manager smart enough to know the importance of such videos and thus use them at the home page, or landing ads pages … But small startups have somehow a blind spot concerning marketing – maybe it’s better to outsource their marketing -, they build these great startups and yet can not figure out the most basic marketing necessity!
The necessity to explain to your visitor/ clients in simple terms the features and use of your service or app!

This can be done easily with : …..

a 1 minute Explainer video

As i explained not long ago in a linkedin post, this is the #1 mistake most startups are committing!

Some tech companies experienced amazing growth, thanks to the 1-2 min animated videos they put on the homepage, the growth comes from the fact that the visitors convert into users/ clients x times more then when the visitor lands on a page with text and graphics.

Not convinced? Let’s do a test, Check the below explainer video by AnimationVids.com :

And now, try to put yourself in your customer shoes, and try to answer these questions:

1. Would you prefer to stay on a website 15 to 20 minutes or get the information condensed in a 2 min video?
2. Would you stay on a random website 20 minutes just to understand what exactly they are offering?
3. Would you prefer a video of a person verbally explaining an offer, or see a 1 minute explainer video like the one above?

It’s important to keep in mind – the goal is for the user to understand what your product does, as fast as possible. Show your explainer video to a person in your target audience if they can tell you what your product is all about, after watching your video, you’ve scored a home-run!

Now that we have agreed on the necessity of an explainer video, the other questions that you would need to ask your self:
1- What type :  list of different types of explainer videos.
2- What budget you are willing to invest in the video:
article about the cost of explainer video , or explainer video cost estimator