Post 4: Celebrity Endorsements

The fragrance "Halle" is one of the newest and most popular fragrances on the market today. Aimed towards women, it is a very natural fragrance and is meant to remind consumers of the beach. First released in 2009, it has become very prominent in department stores across the country.

It is not difficult to see why a woman would want to purchase this product, Halle Berry is a beautiful woman who appears to be carefree and sexy, both qualities that many woman wish to embody. She is a very successful woman and her lack of scandal in the public eye makes her even more of a worth candidate. I do believe that she is a very appropriate choice to endorse this type of product because she has many of the qualities that the main group of consumers (women) would like to have themselves. Here is a video advertisement for her perfume.

As of now, I believe that this will continue to be a very successful product as long as Halle retains her positive image in the eyes of the public. Her classic beauty will also aid in the sales of this product and that is a look that will remain classic for a very long time. Halle Berry is a wonderful choice for this product and I am confident that any other product that she chooses to endorse will be just as successful.

As beneficial as celebrity endorsements may be to companies selling products to mass consumers, they can also be negative as well. According to Jojo Moyes of The Independent Newspaper (UK), many celebrities don't even use the products that they endorse. This reflects horribly on the company selling the product eventually sales will suffer. Choosing a celebrity to endorse your product is risky business; choose wisely or you will suffer financially. As far as we know, Halle still uses her own fragrance but it seems that regardless of whether or not the stars use the products that they endorse, the public is willing to buy them anyway. This is a testimony to the "addiction" of America to celebrities. It is my personal opinion that these people hold way too much power over our lives. Afterall, they are just ordinary people, just like you and I. Some of them just make a little bit more money than we do. . . .

Personal Response to Anna's Blog

I recently reviewed Anna's Blog Post which examined the use of celebrity endorsements. In this case, Nicole Kidman is used to represent Omega watches. Because this product is very expensive and caters to a certain audience, I agree with Anna by stating that she is a very appropriate choice for this company. Nicole Kidman is a very classy Hollywood Celebrity and she is has always maintained a positive reputation. By selecting her as the face of the company, they are suggesting that the people who purchase this product are just like her: classy, independent and affluent.

Anna makes a good point by saying that representing the company with someone like Britney Spears would create a negative image for such a pricey product.

In my opinion, it is sad that celebrities have so much influence in today's culture. If a celebrity is seen with something, the rest of the public "has to have it"! However, this dependence puts advertising companies in a great position because there is every type of celebrity for every type of product. It all depends on the audience.

In the end I think Anna did a nice job of laying out the basics and addressing why Nicole Kidman is an appropriate choice to represent Omega watches. Personally, I hope that we can all learn to think for ourselves and eventually learn to do what we actually want to do, not what the media tells us to do.

Demonstration Speech Self Evaluation

Overall, I really enjoyed my demonstration speech and I found preparing and delivering it to be a very positive experience. When I watched my speech after giving it, I was happy to find out that I didn't leave out any important material and my explanations of the processes that go into making a clay cup were clear and concise. Throughout the speech, I could hear myself pretty well most of the time however there were times when I was demonstrating steps that I had my head down and it was difficult to hear me. As always, I could have used more eye contact but I thought the amount of eye contact I had was appropriate within the context of the speech. In the end I was very pleased because even thought I felt nervous at the beginning, I didn't think that that came across in the video. The only major aspect of my speech that I would change at this point would be increasing my volume and using a bit more eye contact. Other than that, I appeared confident and the explanations given were easy to understand.

In terms of my visual aid, I believe it was very effective in helping me communicate the steps of making a clay cup. It was a bit hard to see the different steps at times just because the slab of clay was on the table but it was very helpful to have all of the materials there. Next time, I would choose to hold up the pieces more often so that the audience could see them better or maybe I could pass around some finished pieces so that my classmates could have a better idea of what is going on.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this speech experience and I would definitely choose to give another speech on this topic again. It is something that I am really passionate about and it was a lot of fun to show my classmates. I feel much more confident in my speech delivery skills and I look forward to improving those skills during our next speech.

Peer Response to "LSC Blog"

In my first peer response, I reviewed a blog posting on "Real Food vs. Fake Food" written by one of my classmates. In this blog, the food of choice was chicken noodle soup. Dominique compared the classic taste of homemade chicken noodle soup to the canned convenient form that we find so often today. This was one of those foods that I hadn't even thought of as being "fake" because it is the form that I grew up with. I thought that Dominique did a nice job of listing some benefits as well as drawbacks to consuming only the canned version. The additive MSG has been proven to cause weight gain and even though it's primary purpose is to enhance the flavor of the food, it is much less healthy than the real version.

The article attached to the post also did a nice job of reinforcing the notion that MSG is a poor choice of a food additive, even though is is a popular flavor enhancer. It was an article that came from a credible source and the information inside was pertinent to the article.

I personally agree with Dominique in that there are so many foods that are artificial now. Sometimes it is even hard to remember what the "real" version of the food tasted like. The side-effects of the MSG is also another reason that modified foods are not always the healthiest choice. Ultimately, the purpose of Pollan's article was just to make readers think in a different way. I believe he was effective in doing so because now I can think of dozens of different foods that have changed altogether. And I don't know about you, but I think I could go for some homemade chicken noodle soup!