Presentation focuses on advertising and consumers who push back against offensive ad campaigns and unjust practices. Once again, consumers have power in the collective, if they exercise it. The goal of this project is to find examples where consumers made a big stink through protests, boycotts, etc. and caused companies to change or remove offensive ads/commercials.

DUE DATE – DEC 12. You have more than 3 weeks to do this project. After this week (WEEK 13) there are no more weekly essays and thought pieces. This final project will be your focus.

All I need you to turn in is your shared link to the GOOGLE SLIDE project. More on that later. I don’t have a precise LENGTH. About 7-10 slides should be enough. Just make sure those slides are filled with focused content.

Here’s a good example from a previous class: JMC 306 final project example

Also, use the same sourcing you used for the research paper. Namely, one BOOK, one academic JOURNAL article and some well-vetted online sources like newspapers and other authored sources. Read up on ‘in-text’ citations and ‘works cited’ page and use those formats.

HOW . . . – Main guidelines . . .

For your project there are TWO PARTS.

Part ONE focuses on historical examples. Part TWO looks at contemporary examples.

Break up the research in PART ONE into 3 sections and the research in PART TWO into 3 sections.

PART 1 : find ONE example of a HISTORICAL ad/commercial that folks would probably find offensive today. Key words here are: smoking, racist ads, sexualized ads of women, etc.

Three sections here:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YP3ecsSUkYqnwcxIHtjtK7qXF4wAIqnjS1CTGD5CQFg/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YP3ecsSUkYqnwcxIHtjtK7qXF4wAIqnjS1CTGD5CQFg/edit?usp=sharing
1. Explain the ad/issue, etc., briefly.

2. What is the deeper MAIN message in the ad? What is it trying to say or portray (however bad or good)?

3. How is it offensive to then and contemporary viewers? And finally, do you see changes in these types of ads/commercials over time and what are the most obvious ways they have changed OR NOT?

PART 2 : find ONE CONTEMPORARY or recent ad, like Huggies above, that riled people so much that groups protested and forced a company to change or remove the ad campaign.

Three sections: 1. Give a short description of the ‘offending’ message/image.

2. What was the ‘PushBack’ response?

3. What was the result?

Here are a few PushBack examples you can use or find your own:

– Historical Cigarettes and Smoking Culture, Frito Bandito, lots of others. Here’s a good link with lots of examples of boycotts and pushbacks https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts/history-successful-boycotts

– Recent Huggies, Mountain Dew, Australian protests , Nationwide ad meant to be jarring

Here’s an example from Huggies or the country of India with protests against skin lightening creams (you can find some disturbing videos online). Consumers do have power and sometimes they use it!

A quick thought, perhaps you can find an ad campaign, maybe historical on this one, that tried a progressive/positive message and there was an attempt to shout it down. Imagine a company back in 1942, during the height of war time xenophobia, trying to show patriotic Japanese Americans using their product as way to protest against

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts/history-successful-boycotts
http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=3642
http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=3642
https://money.cnn.com/2015/02/02/media/inside-nationwide-ad-making/index.html
https://money.cnn.com/2015/02/02/media/inside-nationwide-ad-making/index.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/india-fair-skin-dark-campaign-das-20139181353151512.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/09/india-fair-skin-dark-campaign-das-20139181353151512.html
internment/war prison camps. My point, a good campaign shunned by prejudice could also be one of your examples. A recent example is the Cheerios commercial with ‘Gracie’ and the interracial family. Bigoted folks tried to shout it down, but Cheerios responded by creating another commercial of the same family to cement its message.

Research some successful boycotts or pushback campaigns in history and currently. Focus on how consumers, en masse, forced a company to change its corporate behavior and policy. One of the most famous examples was the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott from 1965-70, led by Cesar Chavez and California farmworkers. Another example was the University of Missouri football team boycott in 2015 (kind of media related because school faced loss of $1.5 million in television money if they did not play upcoming game).

In sum, look for proactive consumers and groups trying to send a different ‘PushBack’ message and hold advertisers/companies accountable to higher ethical standards.