Students could find things other than food in the Warren Towers’ Late Nite Cafe last night. The Educational Resource Center presented “It All Ads Up,” an exhibition on advertisements, in order to share advertising experience with students.
College of Communication professors Toby Berkovitz and Susan Parenio led the group of about 30 students in a discussion about the advertisements. The advertisements, from such organizations as Nike, Pepsi, Sony, 1-800-CALL-ATT, Taco Bell, Saturn, Clearasil, Revlon, Axe, Winterfresh, and the Truth were cropped from the recent broadcast of the MTV Video Music Awards.
“Ad agencies and clients roll out ads that have to be purposeful and accomplish something, but also to entertain,” Berkovitz said. “These ads are targeted to you, people who graduated three years ago, and current high school kids.”
According to Berkovitz, the advertisements are used in other ways than just to sell a product.
“You have to tell a complete story in 30 to 60 seconds. Selling the product is only one part, you have to create a distinct brand and personality,” Berkovitz said.
Parenio emphasized the storytelling element of advertising at the lecture.
“Advertising is visual storytelling at its best,” Parenio said. “If you turned down the sound, would you understand it? If people understand it and like it, then they might try it once, become a continuing user, and that is the whole purpose of ads.”
COM senior Kelly Nestor, a creative advertising major and teaching assistant for a course called intern advertising, said the most effective advertisements were ones associated with current trends.
“These kinds of ads appeal to everyone because they’re associated with pop culture,” Nestor said. “Teenagers read magazines, watch TV and pick out the ads they like.”
Nestor said she also believed the session gave students an opportunity to view advertisements in a different light than they had previously.
“Lots of people take ads at face value and don’t look deeper at what they can affect,” Nestor said. “These professors know the field well, and offer unbiased criticism as well as experience kids want to know about.”
The presentation was another edition of the series “Tuesday Night Reflections,” a regular program brought to students by the ERC. The ERC is an academic support center at BU run by the Office of the Vice President and the Dean of Students organization.
“This series is something we’ve been doing for about five years to bring students out,” ERC Director and Professor Pauline Hamel said. “It’s fun and educational at the same time, and we try to get faculty and students together so students start to know the faculty as people.”