Citations and Annotations (cont).

I KNEW you wanted more fascinating resources on Asian Pacific American identity and advertising!

3) Taylor, Charles R., Stacy Landreth, and Hae-Kyong Bang. "Asian Americans in Magazine Advertising: Portrayals of the "Model Minority." Journal of Macromarketing 25.2 (2005): 163-174.

The purpose of the study was to examine whether portrayals of Asian Americans in magazine advertisements have changed over time. In particular, hypotheses were formulated on 1) the frequency of appearance, 2) the types of representations, and 3) the settings/context in which they were placed. Data was collected through the observation of a sample of magazines. The results supported all the hypotheses; although there have been slight improvements over time, images were still consistent with the ideal of the “model minority” – the notion that Asian Americans are educated, technologically savvy, good at math, business oriented, etc. Although these stereotypes appear positive, they are limited and actually have damaging consequences on one’s peer relationships, self-motivation, and assimilation due to the large amount of pressure to live up to the image. Also, reinforced stereotypes are dangerous to society for they may eventually become accepted as reality. Therefore, the study has important implications for future advertising. Advertisers should portray Asian Americans in a wide variety of depictions/contexts because, just like a study cited earlier by Deshpande and Forehand, the mere presence of an ethnic minority in an advertisement influence viewers of the same ethnic group, and non-stereotyped portrayals are the ones that produce the most positive effect.

4) Mastro, Dana E., and Susannah R. Stern. "Representations of Race in Television Commercials: A Content Analysis of Prime-time Advertising." Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 47.4 (2003): 638-647.

The researchers of this study looked at the portrayals of minorities in television commercials. Their hypotheses were based on the Social Cognitive Theory which states that simple repetition, a strategy characteristic of advertising messages, cause people to learn from the media, and viewers are more likely to emulate models that they perceive to be similar to self, especially of similar racial backgrounds. They evaluated commercial images on their 1) frequency, 2) representation, and 3) quality. Although they looked at numerous racial groups, findings concerning Asian Americans were most relevant to my topic. Coding of prime-time commercials produced these results: Asian Americans were found to be underrepresented and only depicted in a minor capacity. Furthermore, Asian Americans were found mostly in technology ads, shown working, and not put in familial settings. These representations are consistent with the image of the “model minority” (Taylor, Landreth, & Bang). Lastly, Asian American models were young in age and passive. According to the Social Cognitive Theory, repeated exposure to these somewhat negative depictions may prime Asian Americans into the image of the hardworking, technological, but submissive minority. Just like images of Asian Americans in magazine ads, television commercials have progressed in their portrayals of minorities, but are still unfortunately limited in their scope.

A couple more resources that can be found in the library or bookstore nearest you!

5) Chou, Rosalind S., and Joe R. Feagin. The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2008.

6) Philip, Cheri. Asian American Identities: Racial & Ethnic Identity Issues in the Twenty-First Century. Youngstown: Cambria Press, 2007.

Citations and Annotations

Time for some critical thinking.

My topic: The prevalence of stereotypical representations of minorities, specifically Asian Pacific Americans, in modern advertising and their consequences on ethnic identity. Here are a couple of the thought-provoking articles/studies that I found.

1) Forehand, Mark R., and Rohit Deshpande. "What We See Makes Us Who We Are: Priming Ethnic Self-awareness and Advertising Response." Journal of Marketing Research 38.3 (2001): 336-348.

The authors, researchers at the University of Washington and Harvard Business School, hypothesize that the process of ‘ethnic self-awareness’ occurs when people are exposed to a ‘prime’ that compels them to categorize themselves as members of a certain ethnic group. For example, the strategic use of verbal or visual cues, such as the presence of a spokesperson of the same ethnicity or the direct naming of an ethnic group, in targeted advertising may prompt this self-awareness. The researchers conducted two experiments in which they varied the appearance of targeted advertisements, the targeted audience being Asian Americans, among a diverse group of participants. Their hypothesis was strongly supported; Asian Americans were more likely to respond positively as well as more likely to self-report themselves as a certain ethnicity when they were exposed to the prime. However, ethnic self-awareness cannot be confused with ethnic identity. Ethnic identity is the already existing tendency to identify oneself as being a member of a group, whereas ethnic self-awareness is characterized by its momentary effect. Viewers with a low sense of ethnic identity may still become temporarily self-aware if prompted. Therefore, this study has important implications. Advertising agencies should be made aware of this phenomenon because for Asian Americans who many not have a strong ethnic identification, advertisements, especially those that contain positive and/or negative stereotypical images, may skew their sense of self-awareness.

2) Appiah, Osei. "Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian American Adolescents' Responses to Culturally Embedded Ads." Howard Journal of Communications 12.1 (2001): 29-48.

The researcher from Iowa State University looked at how adolescents responded to advertisements, specifically whether the presence of racial minorities and cultural cues had a positive effect on their viewing. Cultural cues are the values, symbols, traditions, etc. that are indicative of a certain racial group. Research indicates the most effective ads are ones that contain characters viewers perceive to be most similar to themselves, and will therefore identify with them and believe the ad is intended for them. Viewers will also be more affected by ads that are strongly culturally embedded with cues that pertain to their racial group. Further, the Distinctiveness Theory posits that ethnicity has a much more profound effect if the group is considered to be the numeric minority. This study differed in that the researcher looked at how Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, and Asian Americans responded to print ads only targeted to Blacks. These ads varied in Black models and Black cultural cues. Results supported research in that the similar race of the character was the most important predictor of the adolescents’ responses to the ads. Cultural cues did have an effect only if they were believed to be relevant to the lives of the audience. Hispanics and Asian Americans, although not the target audience of the ad, still responded favorably because they related to groups that were also considered to be the minority. The study pertains to my topic in that the theories can be applied to ads that specifically target Asian Americans and will hopefully produce the same results. Future advertisements should consider the amount of racial models and types of cultural cues present if they hope to produce the desired affect on the audience.

Diversity is Racist?

Maintaining a soulmate is a constant working progress.

Therefore, I want to give a shoutout to MixedMediaWatch (Hello!) by elaborating on something that I found on his profile.

He bookmarked a page entitled “It’s ‘racist’ to ask for more diversity in the ad industry?” The link took me to a blog post in which the author responds to a letter to the editor published in an issue of Advertising Age. In the letter, the Ad Age reader critiques the NYC Commission on Human Rights’ request for more racial diversity in the hiring practices of advertising agencies. He argues that their efforts are actually much more racist than the problem they are trying to correct. Some of his exact points:

“What the commission requests is much more racist in its core—as it will mean that, for example, a white copywriter or creative director with a better portfolio or more appropriate experience should be neglected in favor of a black candidate just because of a “minority quota.”"

"And how about the percentage of black students in Ivy League colleges? Or how about a “white-player quota” on NBA basketball teams?"

“By the way, do you ever wonder how many white vs. black candidates apply for each top agency position? Of course, when 90% or more are white, the end result would be quite obvious.”

The blog author's counterpoints are equally compelling. This post really forced me to broaden my thinking on the issue of advertising and minority representation. As much as targeted advertising concerns me, my vision has been narrow in that I failed to even consider the source itself – the advertising agency. It’s already difficult trying to enter into such a competitive job industry, but are the decisions on who gets hired based on equal opportunity, racism, or both? Is it possible that the uneven representation of minorities inside the advertising industry corresponds to the uneven representation of minorities in advertising itself? Is it too much of a stretch to argue that if non-Asian Pacific Americans are creating ads to this demographic, it would have an effect on their marketing and advertising strategies? Could it all connect?

In any case, this would be a promising topic to delve further into, say, a research project. Now, although the letter focused on the age-old battle of ‘black’ vs. ‘white,’ the results of the Commission’s campaign can have just as strong consequences on other minorities, such as, Asian Pacific Americans, and my own future aspirations.

Meet MixedMediaWatch

My soulmate.

Our courtship was a difficult and strange one. Difficult because it took me a very long time to find him, and strange because we’ve never even spoken to each other. In fact, I don’t even know his name. We are linked by our mutual affinity for the tag “advertising.”

I found my soulmate as I was exploring Delicious, which, as you will remember from my previous post, is a social bookmarking site. I eventually stumbled upon his page as I was searching bookmarks for specific tags. I had typed in the tags “advertising” and “asianamerican,” and the rest is history.

Mixed Media Watch has a total of 137 tags that cover a wide range of topics from “academia” to “yellowperil.” What I discovered was that his tags related to a couple of recurring themes, such as diversity and social issues. For example, his top 10 tags included “africanamerican” and “asianamerican” as well as “raciststereotypes” and “racism.” His tags are what drew me to his profile because it appears that we share a lot of the same interests relating to culture and community. Although his attention is not as specific as mine, for he does not look at only one ethnic group, he does show concern for the proper representation and treatment of minorities.

However, what really resonated with me were his bookmarks under the tag “advertising.” Although he only had nine advertising bookmarks, they, of course, pertained to the subject of racial stereotyping. This is exactly what I hope to touch upon in my blog, and Mixed Media Watch proved to be an excellent resource on this topic. It helped that he was very specific on how he organized his tags. First, each tag had a list of related tags, so it was very easy for me to find those advertising bookmarks that also talked about Asian Americans (2 out of the 9 bookmarks). Secondly, he was very thorough because each bookmark had a comment or abstract. This way, I was able to read the descriptions of the articles without even having to click on them and already see which would be the most useful.

I found a few blogs which I promptly added on to my blog roll. There were also a lot of great articles and sites. One bookmark took me to a blog post which talked about the lack of diversity in the advertising agency due to current hiring practices. This article really got me thinking. Up to this point, I had only been concentrating on representation in actual advertisements and not in the actual business. Isn’t it possible that the lack of minorities in advertising could be an influencing factor on how advertisements are aimed toward minorities? This could be an awesome topic to write about in future blog posts.

Another bookmark took me to a press release about how advertising firms are starting to consider the Asian American market but have such a limited view on about what this ethnic group is interest in – gadgets, anime, and video games. Consequently, the types of products that they will market to Asian Americans will also be narrow in its scope. Wow. Another great topic for a future blog post.

I believe that a mark of a great relationship is the potential to grow and learn, and in the short amount of time since I found Mixed Media Watch, I’ve already learned a great deal. A soulmate is very hard to find. Luckily, I’ve found one that I believe will be there for me whenever I need another great resource.

It's Delicious

Do you ever feel like you have way too many thoughts and information and wish you had some way to keep track of them all?

No…? Maybe…?

Maybe not. But it never hurts to keep some aspects of your life organized. For instance, people can learn quite a bit about me by the activities that I engage in online because there are certain websites, blogs, pages, etc. that I visit all the time. Multiple times. In one day.

And now, I have recently discovered a way to keep all of these things in one place online – through social bookmarking sites. The premise of these social bookmarking sites is that they allow people to store and organize “bookmarks” of their favorite websites and eventually share them with others. The one I would recommend, and the one that I just recently joined, is called


Now, I am not particularly savvy when it comes to technology. When I first heard about these sites, I thought they were beyond my capabilities. (Forget trying to negotiate one’s ethnic identity. Try negotiating a simple website!) However, Delicious appealed to me because I found it surprisingly easy to navigate. The most important concept that you need to know about social bookmarking sites is “tagging.” Once you’ve bookmarked a page, you can organize it by the tags, or categories, you assign to it. Delicious makes it very easy to find your tags; but not only that, you can organize them further by creating “bundles” of tags, meaning tags that fall under the same major category. If you ever want to find a particular type of article on your profile, all you have to do is click on the correct tag. Easy.

Now here comes the social part. Other people can look up the same articles or pages you saved on your profile by the urls or the tags that you assigned to them. In turn, you can search other people’s bookmarks by the tags that they assign. This allows for the possibility to find new information on your favorite topics of interest, even some you may never would have found otherwise. Incidentally, you may find people who have very very similar interests as yourself.

Not only can social bookmarking sites be used casually, but they are very useful for more scholarly purposes. I can attest to that. I am still in the midst of finding information that pertain to my blog’s topic. This time, I tried utilizing Delicious’ tagging system. I first typed in the tag “advertising” and I found several sites, including blogs that I already knew about. Idecided to narrow my search further by typing sub-tags such as “race,” “ethnicity,” “culture,” and “asian.” I looked through the articles that popped up to see how many of them matched my tags, and I found this: “Markets Focus: Cracking the Asian Conundrum.” The subheading:

“Asian-Americans represent a valuable market, but they're not a monolith.”

Perfect. I found an article that matched my specific niche topic. Furthermore, I can collect all the websites and articles that will help me write my blog and organize them on one page for later perusal.

What sets Delicious apart from other bookmarking sites is that it is one of the biggest and therefore, has one of the largest communities. Imagine all the information you will have access to! Also, they don’t cater to specific types of information; pages cover a wide range of topics, from academic to general. Because my topic is very closely related with issues in popular culture, I found this aspect particularly useful.

So, if you're just using it to have fun, to find people with similar interests, or like me, to look up research for a blog post (such as...about targeted advertising towards Asian Pacific Americans!), Delicious has a lot to offer – if you know where to look.

Blogorama

*UPDATED Tuesday, April 28, 2009*

1) My Debut

In the Filipino culture, a debut is a coming of age celebration, usually taking the form of a huge party, for a young woman who has just turned 18 years old. Now, I’m not exactly turning 18 years old, nor did I get a party when I was turning that age (hm…), but it’s an analogy! In a different kind of way, this blog will serve as my debut in the blogging world.

Hey everyone, and welcome!

I am a senior studying communication at USC. I want to pursue a career in marketing and/or public relations. My passions are culture, community, and philanthropy, and throughout my years in school, I have been an active participant in organizations that focus on a particular community close to my heart. As a Filipino American, I am greatly invested in the future of the Asian Pacific American community, and through my future work, I hope to bring this particular demographic into greater prominence in American culture.

I wasn’t quite sure what the focus of this blog would be, but then I thought about this advertising class that I am currently enrolled in. The course piqued my interest because of its unique perspective on advertising. Instead of focusing on the creative aspect of the business, we would be focusing more on the culture and social implications that advertising may have on society. Fascinating.

With this blog, I want to look into marketing and advertising strategies, specifically, those aimed toward Asian Pacific Americans. Did you know that as of 2004, there are approximately 15.0 million U.S residents who consider themselves Asian or Pacific Islander? That number continues to grow every year! We have so much potential to become a formidable part of the current marketplace. Yet, I wonder…Are we considered to be a vital part of the market?

We are continuously struggling to find and negotiate our identity among an ever changing American society. I think that having representation in advertising matters just as much as what images are being portrayed because those choices affect what society thinks about Asian Pacific Americans and even how we view ourselves within our own ethnic group. But where did all these images come from? This blog will also talk about other topics, such as the already existing preconceptions and stereotypes about Asian Pacific Americans. Overt or subtle stereotypes are found everywhere – in books, magazines, movies, etc. They are also on television. For fans of the primetime television comedy/drama on ABC, Desperate Housewives, they may remember a particular scene where Susan argues with her gynecologist asking for his credentials. Her line:

"Can I check those diplomas, because I want to make sure they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

This line lasted for only two seconds! But the outrage it inspired among the Filipino Community lasted for much longer. I remember having numerous discussions about this with my own friends. The point is that representations in the media, even throw-away lines such as the one uttered by a “desperate housewife,” can have surprising consequences. These preconceived notions can show up in advertisements. Advertising doesn’t only affect society, but society also influences advertising. The relationship is mutual!

As a Filipino American and a part of the Asian Pacific community, I am personally affected by marketing messages. This blog will have a very unique point of view in that I can speak of the topic both as a consumer and as an aspiring marketer. Asian Pacific Americans have the potential to become a formidable market audience. How, why, and to what extent targeted advertisements affect our identities remain to be seen.

Let’s start analyzing!

2) Ads? Goodness!

I was searching the internet in an attempt to find inspiration for my new blog, but alas, there were hardly any that talked about my same topic. Blogs about advertising and marketing in general, on the other hand, were much easier to come by.

This specific post from an advertising blog caught my attention. The post had a single image of an outdoor ad for McDonald’s in Helsinki, Finland. On the ad was a picture of a young woman of Asian descent holding a chicken nugget in her hand. The advertisement itself seemed innocent enough. However, what caught the blogger’s attention (and mine) was the fact that somebody distorted the image by folding the top corners of the ad to form a “hat” reminiscent of straw peasant hats, on the young woman’s head. Really, now?


[image from frederiksamuel.com/blog]

The post came from a Technorati ranked blog titled “Advertising/Design Goodness: The Best and Sometimes the Worst Around the Globe.” The blog was started in May 2005 by the writer Frederick Samuel, a German born art director/designer who is currently working for TribalDDB in Toronto, Canada. He has worked in the advertising and design industry for the past five years. The purpose of the blog is to showcase the best advertisements from around the globe while at the same time juxtaposing them with some of the very worst so that we can truly appreciate the merits of good designing.

Using his point of view as a designer, he posts advertisements that he finds visually interesting. They occur quite frequently with at least one new post almost every day, and many are short, simple, and to the point with usually just the image of the ad and some pieces of information about the designer. What interested me about this blog was the commentary – the people who commented, which were many, not only looked at the actual design of the featured advertisement, but also focused on the meaning of its messages.

Check out this comment one visitor wrote about the McDonald’s ad:

“As an Asian, I don’t see why this is racist. That looks JUST LIKE the hat I put on everyday before I head out into the rice fields. Oh, and your laundry and railroads are ready. Pick them up at 3pm.”

Yikes! What biting words!

Here’s the overlap between my blog and Samuel’s – it supports my position that advertising and society are mutually linked. Samuel posts specific ads not only if he admires their creative design but also if they make some kind of social commentary. That distorted McDonald’s ad definitely said a lot about the prevalence of Asian stereotypes. Here’s another example. This post showed an advertisement that was painted in parking lots before the school prom.


[image from frederiksamuel.com/blog]

Wow. The ad was commended for its clever use of location and catchy headline, but one cannot overlook the fact that it also makes a profound statement on the serious issue of drunk driving. The commentary,

“I think the message works. It stops to make you think. It’s straight forward without being over-stated. It’s encouraging to those that abstain from drunk driving, and certainly catches the eye.”

The purpose of an advertisement is to catch one’s attention, and it can be done through its artistic design. How society chooses to react to such designs varies from merely stopping and looking (Wheelchair ad) to physically engaging with and changing the ad (McDonald’s ad). We are constantly interacting with advertising messages – they are filtered through our cultural norms in such a way that we may interpret it quite differently from its original intent. And that’s exactly the point! Samuel’s hope is that people do look at the ads and be inspired, start a conversation, or share their points of view. A smartly designed ad can have cultural consequences. This is exactly what I intend to show in my own blog.

What were your reactions?

3) The Structure of Voice

Persistence does pay off!

Does this sound familiar? A blog that analyzes advertising, brands, communications, and marketing strategies towards…Columbians/Latin Americans!

Okay, fine. So maybe it’s not exactly like mine, but of all the blogs I’ve looked at, this one’s pretty close. The blog is called Ad Structure. Although it doesn’t talk about Asian Pacific Americans, the writer did decide to focus on a specific marketing niche – the Latin American community – and just like me, he is a part of that community. While looking at advertising from the planner’s perspective, the blog still touches upon a number of topics from the creative to the cultural. Since both of us are speaking on a topic that is very personal to us, I wanted to see how he managed to create a "blogging voice" that was true to his intents and origins.

I decided to first look at those posts that demonstrated his approach to speaking about cultural issues within advertising. In one post, the author contemplates about how advertisements sometimes depict a diverse group of people in such a limited way when human beings are actually much more complex than that. He states:

"The second one, was some sort of an analogy to trees, in where there are a central being and from it many ramifications grow. Those ramifications are the equivalents to the layers, and in each of these branches one part of the being is been developed. Those are the visible parts of the being, but is in the roots where the tree finds its meaning."

A number of different factors, I believed, influenced the type of voice with which the writer, Daniel Mejia, chose to convey his sense of character.

First, I found it interesting that he chose to write his blog in English despite the fact that his native language is Spanish and Portuguese. This probably accounts for the few grammatical errors and minor incorrect word usage [incorrect tense, singular/plural, lack of subject, etc.]. However, his decision was driven by the fact that the planning community's, what he calls the "plannosphere," universal language is English. As an aspiring creative for an ad agency, it says a lot about his desire to remain professional by choosing to write in the language of his chosen career. However, language barrier aside, he still spoke quite eloquently on his subjects of interest. He had a very good vocabulary, using such words as “ramifications,” “equivalents,” “sync-effects,” which does much to demonstrate his knowledge of professional jargon.

Secondly, in the statement above, he was trying to explain something as ambiguous as the human psyche. Therefore, some of the writing techniques that he uses are appropriate for trying to explicate such complicated concepts. For example, he greatly employs the use of metaphors and analogies in order for the reader to have something easy and everyday to relate to. He tells the story about the deep roots of a tree. He also describes the human mind as

"Onion layers, Principle a theory that explain how a person is not only what you see or assume he is, there are many more things beneath that surface.”

That certainly helped me understand a little bit better. His statements are comprised of long, complex sentences which are useful for expanding on explanations and providing examples. He also uses a number of rhetorical questions.

“So why we keep trying to define us by only one of our many faces? I know that the most simple things are the most complex ones (intriguing, right?).”

However, his writing style is not only exclusive to cultural posts. When writing posts that critique actual advertisements, such as this random truck ad for Cadbury Chocolate (because trucks have nothing to do with chocolate), he still uses rhetorical questions,

“You all know that I didn’t like the gorilla spot, so what can I say about “Trucks”?

And, he again tells stories, personal anecdotes, in order for the reader to have something ordinary to relate to,

“Perhaps that’s every kid fantasy come true (come on, who didn’t made races with toy trucks when was little… I totally can relate to that).”

"But in the end I must confess I really enjoyed this one, that I have watched it like ten times, that I can’t get the song out of my head and because of that every time I remember the ad, that it’s a shame that you can’t find a Cadbury chocolate here in Colombia."

Although his voice doesn’t necessarily stand out, he remains a likeable and consistent character across the span of his topics and posts. Regardless of what he writes about, his posts are easy to read, professional yet personal, appropriate to the topic, and relatable to the ordinary person.

Who wouldn’t want to read a post titled “Shut up and just have fun?”

(By the way, the gorilla ad...Hilarious.)

Reflect the Rainbow

Doesn't the topic of this post sound familiar?



[Thanks You Tube!]
-----
Comment Posted 02/04/2009 - 10:55

Strangely enough, I’m not surprised that it would be a commercial for Skittles. I’ve always thought that the Skittles advertisements have always been rather funny in a bizarre, “what was that?” kind of way (remember the human piñata?)

I believe I have seen this commercial on television before, but it must have been the shorter, edited version. I only registered the fact that the tailor was yelling at this random guy in the mirror in a language that I didn’t recognize, so I really didn’t take much note of the ad at the time. But seeing this complete version is really interesting to me.

I wonder if people do recognize that the dialect that the man in the mirror is speaking is Tagalog (the native language of the Philippines), and that the tailor, despite their resemblance, is Thai. The difference is so subtle.

Was that a conscious decision of the advertisers? What were they trying to say by choosing two ethnicities/languages? Were they hoping that people would/not realize the differences?

I think I get it now. The title of the advertisement is “Reflect the Rainbow.” Does that mean that the tailor isn’t yelling at a stranger who happens to be inside a mirror (huh?) but is actually yelling at “himself?” His reflection is a completely different ethnicity! Is this Skittles way of making social commentary on racial diversity?

Many can commend the advertisement for finally providing representation for Filipinos, but does it really? The fact that the two characters are bantering back and forth misleads one to believe that they are of the SAME ethnic group and therefore, a lot can get lost in translation. I get it because I do understand Tagalog. Hopefully, for the non Thai and Tagalog speakers, they don’t get too confused by the language barrier. (I’m sure many people did not bother to look up what the two men are actually saying.) And I can’t decide whether I appreciate the way the Filipino and Thai man are depicted in the commercial in the first place. Can people really take them seriously? “Angry Asian men” aside, it is a funny ad. So, whether or not people recognize the Filipino-ness, at least it’s being projected in a humorous and positive way.

The Structure of Voice

Persistence does pay off.

I came across this blog the other day entitled Ad Structure. The purpose of this blog is to analyze advertising, brands, communications, and marketing strategies towards…wait for it…Colombians/ Latin Americans!

Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly like mine, but it’s pretty close. Although it doesn’t talk about Asian Pacific Americans, the writer did decide to focus on a specific marketing niche – the Latin American community – and just like me, he is a part of the community from which he intends to speak of. While looking at advertising from the planner’s perspective, the blog still touches upon a number of topics from the creative to the cultural. Since both of us are speaking on a topic that is very personal to us, I wanted to see how he managed to create a "blogging" voice that was true to his intents and origins.

I decided to first look at those posts that demonstrated his approach to speaking about cultural issues within advertising.While contemplating the complexity of human beings, he states:

"The second one, was some sort of an analogy to trees, in where there are a central being and from it many ramifications grow. Those ramifications are the equivalents to the layers, and in each of these branches one part of the being is been developed. Those are the visible parts of the being, but is in the roots where the tree finds its meaning."

A number of different factors, I believed, influenced the type of voice with which the writer, Daniel Mejia, chose to convey his sense of character.

First, I found it interesting that he chose to write his blog in English despite the fact that his native language is Spanish and Portuguese. This probably accounts for the few grammatical errors and minor incorrect word usage [incorrect tense, singular/plural, lack of subject, etc.]. However, his decision was driven by the fact that the planning community's, what he calls the "plannosphere," universal language is English. As an aspiring creative for an ad agency, it says a lot about his desire to remain professional by choosing to write in the language of his chosen career. However, language barrier aside, he still spoke quite eloquently on his subjects of interest. He had a very good vocabulary, using such words as “ramifications,” “equivalents,” “sync-effects,” which does much to demonstrate his knowledge of professional jargon.

Secondly, in the statement above, he was trying to explain something as ambiguous as the human psyche. Therefore, some of the writing techniques that he uses are appropriate for trying to explicate such complicated concepts. For example, he greatly employs the use of metaphors and analogies in order for the reader to have something easy and everyday to relate to. He tells the story about the deep roots of a tree. He also describes the human mind as Onion layers, Principle a theory that explain how a person is not only what you see or assume he is, there are many more things beneath that surface.”

His statements are comprised of long, complex sentences which are useful for expanding on explanations and providing examples. He also uses a number of rhetorical questions.

“So why we keep trying to define us by only one of our many faces? I know that the most simple things are the most complex ones (intriguing, right?)”

However, his writing style is not only exclusive to cultural posts. When writing posts that critique actual advertisements, such as this random truck ad for Cadbury Chocolate (because trucks have nothing to do with chocolate), he still uses rhetorical questions,

“You all know that I didn´t like the gorilla spot, so what can I say about “Trucks”?

And, he again tells stories, personal anecdotes, in order for the reader to have something ordinary to relate to,

“Perhaps that´s every kid fantasy come true (come on, who didn´t made races with toy trucks when was little… I totally can relate to that).”

"But in the end I must confess I really enjoyed this one, that I have watched it like ten times, that I can´t get the song out of my head and because of that every time I remember the ad, that it´s a shame that you can´t find a Cadbury chocolate here in Colombia."

Although his voice doesn’t necessarily stand out, he remains a likeable and consistent character across the span of his topics and posts. Regardless of what he writes about, his posts are easy to read, professional yet personal, appropriate to the topic, and relatable to the ordinary person.

Who wouldn’t want to read a post titled “Shut up and just have fun?” Will do, Daniel Mejia. Will do.