n In response to the staff editorial in Tuesday’s Daily Free Press (“McDermott and Bacardi,” page 8), I feel that the editorial board is underestimating the true power of marketing. The Bacardi ads on the sides of the T, inside the T and all over the stops do have an effect on everyone, whether you like it or not. I imagine it works especially well on people who write things like “College students in many cases drink to socialize and have fun with peers.”
Even if you think you’re just too smart for poster ads to work on you, the effect of ubiquitous posters with corporate names, logos and slogans is measurable. Blind taste tests with Coke and Pepsi have found that more endorphins are released in the brain when Pepsi is consumed, but in a taste test where the taster can see the labels of the drinks, more endorphins are released with Coke, and thus the experience is more enjoyable or at least your brain is rewarding you more for it. This is most likely due to the greater frequency of ads involving repetition of slogans and flashes of the colors and logos.
To say that City Councilor Jerry McDermott is targeting the Green Line and not others is probably the weakest point of the staff edit. First of all, did anyone survey the other trains to find out if the ads are as frequent as on the Green Line? This is beside the fact, because complaining about him targeting the Green Line in particular is pointless. Are you insinuating that he’s doing this just to piss off BU kids or those at other institutions along the Green Line; is this a claim that he wants college students on other lines to be exposed to the ads? It is wrong to criticize him for not looking at other ad venues like billboards? Because perhaps he is. This is simply one step in that direction. What if next month he wants to tackle ads on billboards (not that he could very easily since they are owned by private companies like Viacom, unlike the T which is public transit) and you criticize him for not looking at the very popular TV ads?
When smoking ads were banned from TV the decline in smoking (particularly for those underage) was clearly evident. True, “college students [are not] swayed solely by mass media.” False, “these ads are not making the drinking problem any worse.” I was pleased to read the article on the subject, but less happy to see the staff attitudes behind it.
When I heard a WTBU radio show complaining that our paper was essentially too “grown-up” with serious articles about politics, crime and local news, I was ashamed to be associated with people who couldn’t appreciate our school having a decent paper as opposed to the tabloid-like rag that they seemed to be craving.
Is Jerry McDermott “destroying his support among college students for the upcoming student council elections”? Maybe in your case, but I can only hope you’re too hung-over on voting day.
Andy Roth SAR ’09