Annotated+Bibliography

__Article Title__: ADVERTISING AGENCIES AS CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES – Linking Corporations to Culture [Chapter 8, p.135-136]  __Article Source__: Turow, Joseph, and Matthew P. McAllister. The advertising and consumer culture reader. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.  __Article Author(s)__: Aidan Kelly, Katrina Lawlor & Stephanie O’Donohoe  __Reviewed by__: Yan Chi Jennifer Li

 __Abstract__:  Kelly, Lawlor and O’Donohoe describes the culture of advertising agencies, labeling the role of advertisers as “cultural intermediaries”. The name cultural intermediaries defines them as mediators, the middle-men, those who translate cultural trends given their understanding in society - seeing as they are often influenced by marketing research when creating advertisements. This means that cultural intermediaries as a group provides a critical link between corporations and the world of culture. Thus, **cultural knowledge** is the central element to the production of advertising and the meanings they emulate. Advertising creative’s incorporate everyday life into advertisements through their observations of the social world, and then incorporate these observations into symbols of mass consumption by applying them into consumer goods. This means ad creators, or cultural intermediaries, hold a kind of ideological power within our consumer culture. This can be portrayed through Foucault’s panopticon – through observation we are able to penetrate through human behavior and exercise power and control. Just as the organization of the panopticon, advertising agencies operate as a central power and observation within culture and society, which is made possible through consumer research knowledge. However, ad agencies are economically dependent on their business – so we see an asymmetrical power relation between ad agencies and corporate clients.

 Tags: Advertising, market research, power of advertising agencies and their role in society, relationship between ad creators and consumers, advertising encoding.



__Article Title__: TOP 7 TRENDS IN ONLINE AD DESIGN __Article Source__: <[]>. __Article Author(s)__: Heather Conary __Reviewed by__: Yan Chi Jennifer Li

 __Abstract__: As the title suggests, the selected article entails the top seven trends used in online ad design. Today, online advertising has become a potentially lucrative option for many companies. “A study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers calculated that advertising revenue in the United States increased by $1.3 billion dollars to an astounding $7.3 billion in 2003.” This creates a competitive market virtually in the online space. Hence, it is important to familiarize with effective advertising trends online in order to be at an advantage for effective marketing. The seven trends Conary focuses on are shapes, colors, imagery, deals, interactivity, sizes and layouts and fonts. Firstly, all ads usually feature some kind of shapes and curves. Conary uses big name companies as examples: Weightwatchers utilizes organic shapes such as circles and arcs to appeal to target audiences. Whereas before there is more of the use of hard-edged and rigid shapes, the trend recently observed has changed to use more “softer”, comforting and more appealing forms. Trend number two involves colors, where the vast color combination of orange and blue used in online ads can be noticed. Thirdly, Conary describes how popular online ads have started using images of “customers” in their web design e.g. happy children playing. Trend number four – deals – portrays the popular trend of seasonal and sales advertising in response to the market status of the product. Interactivity is trend five. This shows the emergence of a new type of online ad with the help of Macromedia flash. When browsing the Web, it’s hard to miss the interactive banner ads. Trend six describes the most common and most-used ad size used in online ad design. This ranges from 468X60 pixels to 120X600 pixels, depending on shape and type of ad. Lastly, the most popularly used font is now sans-serif.

While all these trends afore-mentioned seem natural and obvious, they are subtle in their effectiveness. They are not obvious to the eye or to everyone as people usually see just the big picture - it is these small trends that make up the bigger picture. I understand that since the article was published in 2004, some of these trends are no longer relevant, e.g. the color schemes. However, the elements of these trends are very much sill significant.

 Tags: online advertisements, online ad designs, trends.