Leno vs Conan

I'm sure that by now most of you have heard about the NBC's big blunder involving Jay Leno and Conan O'Brian. And for a while I took Conan's side of the ordeal. First because I felt for him, thinking he would be moving on up and then to have it ripped away. Second because due to my generation I find his comedy more to my taste. Finally, I mean aside from my odd sense of attraction for red heads, how could you not just fall in love with his antics and glorious locks. Anyways I digress, so until recently I have been on Conan's side. This was until I ran across an article in The New York Times. David Carr brought up an interesting point. This whole ordeal is over ratings issues, and advertisers upset about getting their moneys worth. Well its not Conan's, Leno's, or even NBC's fault. Its ours.

Everyday we are bombarded with news, gossip, video crazes. We can hear it on the radio, google search it, find a clip on youtube, find tweets and facebook statuses, get updates from your phone. We are virtually being overloaded with information. So when the end of the night comes and you are looking to wind down, you no longer want to go to Leno or O'brian for their commentary on todays events, at this point it is old news and usually overkill. And if you did happen to miss something on their show, you can just YouTube it.

So the real question that NBC as well as all of the other networks have to ask themselves is how do we get around the technological factor that could be ruining television advertising? While the older generation are most likely to always have a nice big t.v in their household, I know plenty of college students who opt not to pay for cable and just watch everything online. So perhaps NBC should take a better look at how they can really fix this issue. Leno has a bit of an older following and thus his show probably did look like it had more viewers. But is this truth, or just a skewed set of results that doesn't contain all of the factors?

I will say all of this has really made me interested in seeing what transpires in the next couple of days. As well as wanting to check up on what kind of jokes each will have on each other through it all. I guess only time will tell.

What Message Are You Sending?

After meeting with a friend last week she almost exploded with the news that she had to show me a picture of a Barbie she saw. While I thought that was a bit odd since she is 24, I went with it. After seeing the picture she showed me it was no wonder she almost exploded.

The "Back to Basics" Barbie line, while for the most part is not overly shocking, there is one doll in the line who crosses the line. This corporate meets down on the corner Barbie, makes you wonder what kind of message are we promoting and to whom?

As those in the industry who are in charge of sending a message and making sure that our target market not only receives that message but that, that message is ingrained in them, I just have to ask what is our responsibility as advertisers? Should we lose our morals in order to make a buck? I know this has been a dilemma since the dawn of advertising, but it has really made me think.

Now don't get me wrong, while I know the proportions of Barbies are off kilter I don't think all Barbies are bad. I am that little girl who owned just about every Barbie thing imaginable, including the three story house equipped with working lights and elevator. And I was never compelled by the Barbie I played with that I should have her proportions. The clothes however were a different story. I wanted a beautiful red gown or pretty high heels just like Barbie. So now for me to see little girls take their half naked, corporate cleavage Barbie out of the box is appalling to me.

This isn't the first time that Barbie has found herself in the light of controversy and she also isn't the only one receiving flak. Dove's campaign to showcase just how much the media skews advertising images is a very powerful one combating the advertising message of "This is what beautiful looks like". So why not take a note from Dove and as advertising professionals take the responsibility of spreading the message that normal people are beautiful too, and live extraordinary lives.

Its never been so evident to me that our choices make a difference than by hearing my four year old family friend say "Well Barbie likes those clothes she's always smiling"