Thursday, January 6, 2011

Copyranter

This week we're looking at a blog called Copyranter.

Here are some questions to start our discussion:

What kinds of choices is the author making with his language? Why do you think he's making them?

This blogger says he's a New York copywriter. What do you think is driving his particular interest in global advertising?

Who do you think are the people who comment on these posts? When Copyranter chimes into the conversation, what kind of relationship does he seem to be establishing with them?

What do you think is the function of this blog? What is it's intended purpose?

21 comments:

  1. I quickly scanned the first set of posts that Copyranter has made in the past few days and the first thing that caught my eye were of course the images of AK-47's, scantily clad women, and iconic pirates encouraging me to grab a drink. It seems to me that Copyranters readers are mostly middle aged men based on the content.

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  2. I was looking at some of the posts and they all seem to be centered around food, drinking, women, and other "manly" things. It seems to me that the man who is writing this blog is looking at what makes advertising so popular and the term "sex sells" can be applied to most of these ads. While not all of the ads contain attractive women, i can say, and only because i have four brothers, that the drinking, guns, and food are mainly appealing to a male audience probably the age group of about 16-35. I know that as i was looking at the ads my younger brother was standing behind me and he had already seen the AXE ad and the Captain Morgan ad.

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  3. Looking at the descriptions of the ads that Copyranter posts I believe him to be a brilliant blogger. His posts often center around things like sex appeal, violence, or alcohol and he does not shy away from this. His language is very informal, and this is most likely because he knows that a formal analysis of the blog would scare away his target audience of males between 18-35. His ad descriptions work in perfect harmony with the ads to maximize his followers.

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  4. After viewing some of the posts on the “Copyranter” blog, I noticed that many of the advertisements centered on alcohol, sex, drugs and cars. I agree with my fellow classmates that this website is intended mostly for men, however at first glace of the site, I would never have guest what was on it. I saw the bright pastel green and yellow polka dotted background, which to me seem quite feminine. I thought the website would be light hearted and upbeat. However, once I began reading the posts I soon realized that the blogger posting these advertisements included a lot of sarcasm in his remarks.
    In my opinion, this writer’s objective is to poke fun at ad campaigns that might seem absolutely ridiculous to some people. By doing this, its almost as if he is saying that he is above everyone who had anything to do with these campaigns because they are so flawed. It seems as if he is looking down on the creators of these advertisements by making fun, as if he could do so much better. I think it would be interesting to see some of the advertisements he has worked with and compare his work with those he is criticizing.

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  5. After viewing many of the posts by Copyranter I thought I had a very good idea that Copyranter was a writer that tested the limits. Many of his posts are about controversial issues, or items that the public are not used to seeing because they are considered "inapropriate". That is why I was confused/interested in Copyranter's latest post: "Dustin Hoffman sells the f*ck out." This title; completely unnecessary, in my oppinion, catches the readers eye. But the video is simple and meaningful, with no vulgarness to it at all. The only correlation with the other posts that I found was that this video is international. I don't really know why Copyranter posted this video. Any other thoughts?

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  6. I watched several ads on copyrante, and noticed that the writer's comments are mostly ironic and critical. It's always more exciting to read such comments rather than compliments that we need to say all the time. Another thing is that the writer's self introdution which begins with "I hate". Though I'm not quite familiar with some of things he mentioned, I know it's quite vivic, and I even try to form the picture in my head(felt similar when reading some of his comments).

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  7. I think it's interesting how he seems to pick ads from many different countries, while still sticking to the main topics of sex, drugs, and alcohol. He also seems to have a sort of obsession with American Apparel. He seems like he is trying to show himself as hating all of these things he keeps putting up, but I think the fact that these themes keep recurring shows that he is using his sarcasm to cover up the fact that he actually like these overtly sexy commercials/ads.

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  8. While scanning through the post on Copyranter, I noticed that he was quite critical when surveying every ad that was put up. It is clear that he put much thought into the ads posted as well as the comment he made about them. After reading some of the comments left by readers, I noticed that they were also quite critical with what they were saying but the responses from copyranter showed that he wasn't quite happy with comments made on his posts. If the comments didn't follow along with his opinion he seemed to become sarcastic, even more so than previously.

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  9. I agree with nichols.lacey, he was very critical about each ad. You could tell pretty easily which ones he liked and disliked by his language. He was very sarcastic about the ads he thought were "pointless", "stupid", and didn't have much thought put into them. The ones he actually did like, he praised them and said why he thought they were good. I'm not sure why he puts on so many "bad" ads, but an idea is maybe he is trying to show WHY they're bad.

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. I'm hearing some interesting comments--I thought that Juliette's observation that the aesthetics and the layout of the blog did not seem to jive with much of his content was particularly insightful. Another thing I'm hearing is that you're noticing some particular themes amongst the advertisements Copyranter chooses as subjects, and you interpret these themes as being male- and youth-centric. Here are a couple of questions that occurred to me:

    1. Do you think that the audience for the advertisements that CR is discussing and the audience for CR's blog are the same group? Different? Is there any overlap?

    2. When an advertisement shows highly sexualized imagery of women, like the American Apparel ads do, what is their target audience? I think that some people are assuming a picture of an attractive woman in her underwear must appeal only to a young, straight and male demographic, but let me ask you this--what do you see in a Victoria's Secret ad? Now, what group actually purchases products from Victoria's Secret (for the most part)? What conclusion can you draw?

    3.We might say that for most companies, success in advertising is measured in raw sales. In some instances, it may also be measured in brand identity, which can translate into long term market presence. What is the quality that CR seems to prize in advertising? By what standard is he judging the value of these ads? For CR, what makes an ad 'good' or 'bad'?

    Let me know what you think

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  12. From the posts I have seen from copyranter, he is very blunt. Most of the ads that he chooses are very racey. He also likes to complain a lot and his writing is very cynical. It seems like he is talking down to his readers, acting as if he is better than them. I also notice that he does not look at the ads objectively. It is just the way he feels and he does not real seem to care for different opinions.

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  13. In my opinion copyratner does find a lot of the issues with advertisements in this day and age. Ads today are all focused around sex and personal image. He definitely does not hold back any of his feelings toward these provoking and somewhat inappropriate ads. Advertising has changed so much over the years and is becoming less and less about tha product and more and more about the fake image of beauty and perfection. Today, ads rarely are put into magazines and onto television without being touched up. In my opinion I feel that the american apparel ad uses this racey image to catch the reader off gaurd and to show that they are something different. They don't follow the advertising trends of every other fashion company out there. But overall, today advertising has taken a step away from the product and is using the model and sexual image to sell the product. I believe that this fake image given by some companies, although it may benefit sales in the near future could backfire and cause some shoppers to change their mind about shopping there.

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  14. By viewing several posts on copyranter, I kind of get an idea of the blog. Its target audience is probably young adults since the author use informal language and even language that is offensive sometimes, which maybe hard for conservative people to accept. Also, most of his comments on the advertisements he have posted are criticisms.

    I guess the blog gives the author a chance to express his opinions about some topics that he probably cannot talk about freely in his daily life.

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  15. I believe that Copyranter is who he says he is and that his motivation of this blog is his love of advertising. He is incredibly critical of ads and others opinions to the ads. This makes me believe that he is in marketing. He likes creative ads and also ads from around the world. I think that Copyranter is interested in global ads because he may get ideas that have not been used in America.

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  16. I feel that copyranter was dead-on when it comes to advertisements. When it comes to advertisements, sex sells. Period. I may be speaking only for myself, but I feel that every male that view's this blog would find these advertisements to be interesting. This is due to the fact that all of these ads involve nudity. Without nudity, most of these advertisements would have gone overlooked. There is a reason why copyranter chose to post these ads. It is not because they were "good" or "bad" advertisement. He posted them because they caught his eye. Interesting advertisements are either pleasant and enjoyable, or controversial. Controversy cause poeple to talk about an ad which publicizes the product that is being marketed, which in turn causes the product to achieve some sort of popularity. Without the nudity in these ads, these ads would be overlooked. Sex trumps all when it comes to advertising, because it is seen as universally pleasing and enjoyable. Sexual advertising is a triple threat: it's pleasing, enjoyable, and controversial. Most importantly, it is seen as candy to the eyes. Sex sells, period.

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  17. I think the reason copyranter is interested in global advertising is that the economy, culture, politics and level of development of a country can be best embodied in advertisement. Since he says he is a copywriter, understanding of this is helpful to his career. And advertisement is closely related to the culture of a nation. For example, a great amount of the ads posted on copyranter are about sexual issues and nudity, and the majority of them are produced in Western countries such as the US. What we can see from this is that openness is a major element in Western cultures. Also, ads could reflect regional demand and the rapid development of an industry, and that is showed in copyranter too. Through the way of expression of an ad, we are able to know about and understand a country.

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  18. I tend to agree that his views side strongly with a male population. I find it interesting that he focuses so much on these types of advertisements because it is an easy a way for him to provoke emotion from his viewers and get some feedback. I believe his motivation on this blog is to provoke the emotion he would not normally receive if he was talking to a person face to face. On his blog, people can sit behind a fake name and say what they really want to, and ten to one; no one will ever know who said the comment. It give secrecy, but at the same time the truth.

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  19. His writing is more casual and easier to read. He makes it seem easy going so people are more attracted read his articles rather than reading long boring articles. He likes to talk about unique stories instead of main-stream material.

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  20. Man, his tone of language in his post descriptions and responses to other comments is caustic. Truth hurts exactly, and trying to dig up layers of distraction and illusion to find the truth is even more struggling and suffering. He's trying to draw people's attention to those sensitive "small" issues that keep plaguing the global society, but still few people care, which is real sad.

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  21. To me this blog is definitely written for middle aged men. He posts a lot of topics and ads that are generally more towards men with the use of sex, violence, and alcohol.
    All of the posts that I read are written with more of an informal approach, like he just wants to have a conversation with his audience and not so much talk down to them, but he seems as if he is one of those people who are never wrong. The other thing I noticed about his posts was that he is quite analytical about the ads, but uses a lot of sarcasm in his posts describing them. However, at other times he is very blunt and makes it very clear how he feels about the ads with the way he uses certain words like stupid, gay, and annoying. I also think that the authors feelings are the point of this blog. I don’t think he cares about what other people think about him or his opinions; he just wants to get them out there. To add to the ‘not caring’ point he makes it very clear in his about me that starts with ‘I Hate’ and continues to talk about things that people generally like including comedy, little kids drawings, summer, winter; and then he ends with the fact that he “probably at least don’t care about you.”

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