Length: 40 minutes

Overview:

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This activity helps teenagers develop an awareness of marketing tactics aimed at teens through the creation of their own mock advertising campaigns.

Learning Outcomes:

Students demonstrate:

• an awareness of the influential nature of ads
• the ability to identify specific advertising tactics geared to teenagers
• an understanding about how they, as consumers, are influenced by these commercial messages
• an appreciation of their position as a desirable demographic for advertisers

Preparation and Materials

• 3 boxes (shoe boxes would be perfect) labeled "products," "girls' magazine choices" and "guys' magazine choices"
• 3 small pieces of scrap paper for each student
• poster-sized paper for students to make their ads on and markers, magazines, scissors and glue sticks if they want to use collage, or other art supplies
• a photocopy of the Scenario activity page, with each scenario cut out separately so that one can be given to each group
• Advertising Strategies handout

The Lesson

Ask students to consider the following statement (you may want to write this on the board or a flip chart prior to class):

"Often advertising is not about keeping up with the Joneses, but about separating you from them. That's especially true of advertising directed at a particular group, such as adolescents or young-adults - it's called 'dog-whistle' adversiting because it goes out at frequencies only dogs can hear." Dr. James Twitchell Smithsonian, April 2000

• What does the author mean by this statement? (Some advertisements specifically target young people. They use language, images and messages that strike a cord with teens, but which might not have the same appeal to their parents.)
• Can students think of examples of ads that appeal to them, but not to their parents? (Answers might include ads for video-games, snack food or music - products that are a part of teen culture.)
• What is it that separates these ads from those that appeal to their parents? Are there 'set' strategies or themes in advertisements geared to their age group?
• Within the teen demographic, is there a difference between ads geared to teenage girls, and ads geared to teenage boys?

Activity

Tell students that today they get to be advertising executives.

• Give each student 3 pieces of paper.
• On the first one, ask them to write the name of a product that would be difficult to get teenagers to buy, or something that is unlikely to be trendy among teenagers. They need to indicate whether it will be marketed to boys or to girls, or to both genders.
• Give them a few examples. Three examples from a class we worked with are lawnmowers, shoehorns, and medicated itch powder. These pieces of paper will be put into a box labeled "products."
• On the other two pieces of paper, students will write down the names of two magazines they read regularly (except pornography - we don't want to hear about that in this setting). Guys will put these in the box marked "guys' magazine choices" and girls will put them in the box marked "girls' magazine choices." Divide students into groups of 4 or 5.
• Give each group one advertising scenario from the Scenario activity page.
• Each group will then pick 2 pieces of paper out of the "product" box and choose one of the two as the product they will be marketing.
• Depending on whether the products are to be marketed to guys or girls, the group will pick names of magazines from the appropriate magazine boxes.
• They can fill in the blanks on their scenarios with the product and magazine names.
• Tell them what their time limitations are (15 to 20 minutes) and that they need to be prepared to discuss their work when they are done.

After they have created their ad, have each group briefly explain their campaign, then ask the following discussion questions:

1. Which groups used a "traditional" strategy (methods that we see all the time in ads) to market their product?
2. List strategies that were used on the board. For example: "made the product sexy," "made it seem like people using the product are popular," "associated the product with rebellion," etc. (At this point, you can distribute and review the strategies from the Advertising Strategies handout with students.)
3. Did anyone use an approach we haven't seen before? Is there much originality in advertising?
4. Which campaign was most respectful of teenagers? Of girls? Of guys? Were there any that reinforced traditional gender roles (i.e., girls need to be pretty and sweet, guys need to be macho)?
5. Which of these campaigns do you think would be most effective in the real world? Why?
6. Are any of the ads trying to associate their product with a cool lifestyle? What do they imply your life will be like if you buy the product?
7. Did any groups create ads that didn't actually show the product in their advertisement? How do you feel about those sorts of ads?
8. If you could turn your idea into a TV commercial, what kind of music and effects could you use to hype the product?

Ask students whether they agree or disagree with the following statements:

Advertising sets us up to feel dissatisfied -  even if we think we have everything we need, ads will still try to convince us that there is something else we need. Advertisers try to show us how much more satisfied, popular, happy, hip, attractive, sexy, fun and in control we would be if we had their product. Fashion and trends are always changing so that we must continually spend money to be current. Advertising stresses competition and status versus feeling good about being who you are and accepting others for who they are.