Ad savvy

My son is doing a unit of enquiry on media.  So we've had a week of enthusiastic youtube advertisement watching, discussions about how advertisements hook you, have googled the ways in which advertisements can be deceptive.  Then we had to pick an advertisement from a magazine - oops.  We don't do magazines here at home.  I gave up on them a while ago after reading how reading women's magazines make you more depressed and less satisfied with your life.  His favorite "how to spend it" from last week had already been recycled, so we were left with the economist!  Rather dry for an 8 year old, but he found a rather nice advert from Accenture explaining how they'd increased attendance for the Royal Shakespeare company.  Which led to discussions about the difference between products and services.  There was also an interesting article in todays IHT about Oreo's 100th anniversary advertising campaign which we read together.

I don't think I thought seriously about advertising until I studied marketing during my MBA.    What a fantastic education these kids are getting.   We all watched the infamous Dove infomercial about how models are made up and photoshopped (lies, cheats was my kid's conclusion).  My daughter is doing a unit on performance.  They get to Skype performers to discuss the whole issue of performing.  She did interviews of the whole family on their experiences with putting on a performance in their youth.   And to end the module, the whole grade has to put on a performance where they're the producers, actors, etc. etc.  Amazing.

And there's still time for a times table test tomorrow!  Luckily the 11x which is a cinch.  I hope.  And yes, he did pass the test last week.  Thank heavens.