When I saw the battle between the two big sports industry, Nike vs. Adidas on Katherine’s blog, it reminded me the Cola War between Pepsi and Coca Cola. The rivalry between the two soft drink companies is legendary and the brands have been fighting each other for more than a century.

As Nike stole people attention from Adidas with its “Write the future” campaign,  Pepsi “hijacked the World Cup” from Coca Cola sponsoring FIFA. The 2010 ad “Oh Africa” achieved millions of views in no more than 2 weeks after the release. The commercial shows great soccer player from all over the world such as Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, Kaka, Fernando Torres, Lionel Messi, Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard competing against African Kids for Pepsi.

Coca Cola tried to regain people’s awareness like Adidas did, with a compelling online video in association with their campaigns but it was too late.

The association hinting the World Cup and the timing of the release was considerably important but I believe the “wow factor” was the key of Nike and Pepsi’s success. The two brands were able to impress us with creative stories, which make us wanting to share the video and spread it to people. Adidas and Coca Cola produced also interesting commercial but they lacked of “wow”.

Nike and Pepsi were really successful by applying a smart strategy called “ambush marketing” that completely hindered Adidas and Coca Cola awareness.

I found also an interesting Pepsi commercial. Obviously, The company created this ad to compete against Coca but we can see the indirect battle of the two sports industry: On one side, Manchester United wearing jersey sponsored by Nike and on the other side, Real Madrid sponsored by Adidas.

This blog post from Childrefuge is basically saying that the ideal beauty determined by the society is mostly based on thinness. Nowadays, it is apparent that women in various means of media are becoming skinnier. This is to say that thinness has become a crucial element of women’s attractiveness.These days we see woman in mostly all kinds of ads even if the item is not related with female needs or market. The use of beautiful, slim and attractive woman is necessary to highlight the image of the product being advertised For instance, in an Axe advertisement, many attractive women in bikinis compete to reach the man in the center of the commercial. The objectification of woman underlines products, which is an efficient strategy to boost the economy. However these tend to have negative effect on women especially teenagers who compare themselves to the ideal body and try to attain “the physical look and figure of the models they envy in the media”

This case is especially common in the Western Society where people are constantly bombarded with images of what the media considers as the ideal body. Nonetheless, people shouldn’t get attached too much to those image because they are irrelevant, as the media’s representation of beauty seems unrealistic and unattainable. The ideal body of models depicted in the media is much thinner than the average American woman In fact, there is a contradiction as the majority of American women are overweight. This difference can partly be explained from the use of specific technology. Digital manipulation transforms a socially ‘poor’ and unacceptable woman’s body to an ideal one, ready for marketing. Digital manipulation is playing a big role to support this idea of perfection. Images can be constantly edited and altered before they are used in a publication or advertisement. Photo manipulation is not only able to make a body slimmer, but also brighten teeth, enlarge eyes, remove freckles and so on.

The Dove campaign has launched “Evolution,” a controversial video that turns the Media’s concept of beauty upside down. It reveals to viewers how the media obscures our perception of beauty.

By exposing this artificial beauty, Dove tells viewers not to internalize the stereotypic body determined by the Media. Digital Manipulation is just one of the strategy that media use to promote products; therefore, women should not lose confidence even if they are exposed to those beauty full of artificiality.

External Blog: http://childrefuge.org/blog/entry/media-images-and-the-negative-significance-towards-young-girls.html

Dove “Evolution”: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2006/dove-evolution/#.UUaAD5jGecM

Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U