Assignment: Advertising and Marketing

Assignment: Advertising and Marketing

Assignment: Advertising and Marketing

They put on makeup and write in their diaries. They all go to Monster High together,” Grace replied.

On the next trip to Target, Grace spotted a display of Monster High dolls in one of the aisles and shrieked, “Mom, can I have one, pleeeeeease?”

Grace’s mom checked the price, weighed this struggle against all the others she might encounter that day, and reluctantly put one of the $21.99 dolls into the shopping cart. Along with millions of other parents, she caved in to what has been called the “nag factor” in the world of advertising. As it turns out, Grace’s mom got away pretty cheaply that day. Anyone searching Amazon.com can find 517 different toy products and apparel items associated with Monster High dolls. Children and their parents can purchase, for example, sundry dolls and accessories, a Monster High roadster and scooter for the dolls, a high school doll playhouse, wide-ruled notebooks, pencil sets, nail polish, hairclips, and even a digital video recorder (see Figure 2.1). And all of this is marketed without the typical TV cartoon series! Instead, Mattel has created a financially successful brand that is now sold in 35 countries—all based on a website, a few TV specials on Nickelodeon, a set of videos on YouTube, and a chapter book series. A full-length movie titled Monster High: Ghouls Rule was released on DVD in late 2012, coinciding with Halloween.

It is estimated that more than $17 billion a year is now spent on

http://Amazon.com

advertising and marketing to children (Lagorio, 2009), representing almost three times the amount spent just 20 years ago (McNeal, 1999). Marketers are paying more attention to young consumers these days for at least three reasons. First, American children today have a great deal of their own money to spend. Consumers younger than age 12 spent $2.2 billion in 1968; roughly 35 years later, this amount had risen dramatically to $42 billion (McNeal, 2007). As seen in Figure 2.2, children’s spending power has steadily risen over the years. Much of this increase comes from children earning more money for household chores and receiving more money from relatives on holidays (McNeal, 1998). As might be expected, teens spend even more than children—teens spent roughly $200 billion in the year 2011 alone (Business Wire, 2011). In fact, the average American teenager spends nearly $100 a week on such products as clothes, candy, soft drinks, and music (Teenage Research Unlimited, 2004)

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

• The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.