Celebrity Endorsements

According to Roger Pe from The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Celebrities are like honeycombs. Fans go crazy when they see celebrities in a restaurant, in the mall or anywhere in public. To add to that, hiring a celebrity for a certain product is not always the answer. There is more to using fame in advertisements. Even those good products endorsed by a celebrity will not do any better. Thus, celebrity endorsements should be decreased to even out competition with the companies who do not use celebrities, promote quality and creativity of the advertisement and to eliminate the irrelevance of the celebrity and the product.

            There has always been a problem with using celebrities for certain advertisements. The first issue is to even out competition with those companies who chose not to use celebrities. Though it is the choice of the company whether to use a celebrity or not, it is unfair for them because people would rather buy the products where the celebrity is the endorsement. What the people don’t realize is that it is not all about whether there is a celebrity or not but it’s the message the commercial portrays. In one of the Bear Brand commercials where the mother calls out the names of the family member, none of them were celebrities but the commercial portrayed a meaningful message, with the help of Bear Brand, one can always be present in everything he/she does. As what was written on an article from Inquirer, everything boils down to a good product. Even though a company uses a celebrity, the consumers should know that it is the product that matters and not the celebrity. Maybe some companies would rather not use a celebrity because they might think that the celebrity has too much on their plate and would rather get the money instead. Also, overexposure of the celebrity may cause a downfall to the advertisement company.

            Another issue with using celebrities for certain companies is the lack of quality and creativity in advertisement. Certain companies would hire a celebrity and tell them to memorize their lines like robots, stand in front of the camera and recite their lines. This can be disadvantageous to the company in such a way if suddenly the celebrity loses his/her fame, thus resulting to contradicting himself/herself in advertisement. One commercial that can relate to this issue is Georgina Wilson’s Lactacyd commercial. To be honest, it is actually not a bad commercial but the fact that the company thought of getting her, someone who is already fair skinned and endorsing a product that would make girls whiter shows the lack of creativity. People may disagree with this because of the fact that celebrities can make it seem like the advertisement is believable. (Kamins et. al., 1989) The public can be biased because a pretty faced or a good-looking celebrity is the one endorsing the product.

            Another issue is the irrelevance of the product and the celebrity. According to Roger Pe from Philippines Daily Inquirer, just because one is popular, pretty or good looking does not mean he/she will fit the role of the advertisement. One example is the company of Tide where they used Vic Sotto as the endorser. There is no connection with Vic Sotto and the Tide bar. The consumer should know that he actually does not do his own laundry but shows in the commercial that he is the one doing the laundry. Another commercial that shows lack of connection with the celebrity and the product is Daniel Padilla advertising Whisper. This product is a sanitary pad intended for women and not advertised by men. Just because he is someone who is adored by a lot of ladies does not mean that he should promote sanitary pads. Some might disagree with this because first of all, they focus more on the celebrity and not the advertisement and second, the relevance of the celebrity and the product is important because when they do not connect, the consumers would think otherwise in buying the product that is being endorsed. Try asking ladies about the advertisement of Derek Ramsay on Century Tuna billboard because they’ll definitely buy Century Tuna because he’s the endorser of the product. The celebrity and the product should always connect to show cohesiveness. 

Sweat and Tears Paid Off

            Having an English class in school can be really helpful in our lives. Being a student who just came from high school, the writing concept is different from college. In the start of the term, there were a number of misconceptions on how students write an essay. In my personal experience, the misapprehensions on how I write an essay is whether to use first, second or third person perspective. The professor clearly explained to the students that the third person perspective is always the best one to use in writing essays that are required for school. Another problem in writing an essay is how to cite a source properly. The professor clearly explained to the students how to use the APA style in citing. She even showed the students a link on the Internet on how to cite sources when there is more than one author or no author at all. The last misunderstanding is how to make a strong and bold thesis statement that can attract the attention of the audience to read our essay. To be honest, I never really knew how to make a thesis statement until the professor taught us. During our extended definition essay, she stated that it is better to have two sentences for the thesis statement rather than one. The first sentence containing what I understand about the word and the second sentence containing what the three main points are about the word. To sum it all up, all the other misconceptions in class were all clarified by the professor.

            From June to December 2012, we wrote two essays in class: extended definition and argumentative essay. Both essays were very challenging to me in a way that it had so much drafting before I finally reached my final paper. I had to go back to the professor and ask her five times just to get my thesis statement approved. The agony did not stop there, I had to be patient in dealing with getting the right words that could attract the audience for my introduction. I had to get the right attention getter that would make them read my whole essay and would not get bored. After the introduction, we had to pass our first draft to the professor and the grade I got was low that I had to stay up late the next night just to get the right words that could get me a high grade. Even though I had all these challenges, I managed to stay patient with myself and with the paper itself.

            I remember the first day of school where the professor immediately asked us to write an essay about a certain issue in the country. I decided to write about Over Population. After writing the extended definition and argumentative essay, we then had to write this so called “exit essay” which was also about Over Population. After three months of writing essays over and over again, going through revisions and going through all my mistakes, comparing my entry and exit essay, I can say that I have improved in writing not only in the format but also grammatically. I knew when to use the third person perspective, I knew what the right transitional devices and reporting verbs to use.

             We all have our goals and objectives before we start on a certain project. My objective in this class was to get the chance to actually finish a paper with a good grade and teach myself a lesson to be patient with certain things. I can say that I have actually achieved my goal. I taught myself a lesson that I should not procrastinate, should not get frustrated with myself and the professor because these could bring me to my downfall. Though I did not get the grade for my final paper, I think I did my best and hope that all the sweat and tears paid off. 

Over Population as an Issue

Each country has different problems, such as poverty, corruption and etc. One main problem stood out: over population. Over population is a condition where the number of people is exceeding the capacity of the country or place. Overpopulation is mainly caused by increased in birth rate, cultural influences and immigration or emigration.

The first reason why over population happens is because of the increase in birth rate. Why is there suddenly an increased in the birth rate of a country? Teens, not only in the Philippines but also in other countries have this tendency to have an intercourse with his or her partner before getting married. Some even while studying in high school or in college. There has been a 3% rise equals 20,000 more births in 2006 than in 2005 (Oak, Manali, 2005).

Another reason why overpopulation is experienced in each country is because of cultural influences. One concept is the use of birth control. Some countries allow it while others consider it outlawed in their culture. There are certain traditions in either a family or in the Church to be married at a certain age or to be married with how many children. Some families even require men to be the child. Since some families would rather have a boy rather than a girl, some couples try and try until they get it right. This is a cause of over population because if the couple cannot get it right the first time, they will have to do it over and over again until they please themselves and others. Not only that but maybe because of the fact that some families actually require their children to have babies. Some couples might actually be just pressured from their parents because it’s actually the parents who want a child and not the couples themselves.

The last reason is because of migration. If the residents of various countries, for example Korea, Japan or United States, migrate to a certain country, for example the Philippines, then that country will have to face the negative effect of over population. There are some families from the Philippines who would migrate to Canada or Australia to study after high school because they think the education there is better. There are also some families from Korea, Japan or China who would migrate to the Philippines to study in a university because they think that the education in the Philippines is cheaper than their education in their home country. These people inhabiting these certain countries will face the consequence of scarcity of resources such as unequal distribution of natural resources. Since the country is over populated, there will be an insufficient allocation of water to different homes, a shortage of electricity in some areas of the country and many more.

An increase in the population may also be beneficial to the country in such a way that there will be an increase in the producers but not an increase in consumers. This problem needs to be balanced in both producers and consumers. Every problem that arises will always have a solution.

Body Language

October 29, Thursday, the class watched the body language video. It focused on how celebrities portray themselves to the public. How actions speak louder than words and what their body language really means. It showed how U.S President Barrack Obama gives his respect to the citizens, how former U.S President George Bush was showing that he was an ordinary person, how Paris Hilton portrays that she is a good girl, how Britney Spears shows how stressful she is and etc.

            There were a few points which I actually agreed on. The first one was when Britney Spears went out in public during the night time and was wearing shades. According to the video, this showed that she was actually stressed from all the press and the rumors going around about her. I agree with this because why wear shades at night? She probably wore shades because if the public sees her eyes, they’ll know that there is a problem or maybe she is hiding something from the people.

            The point which I did not agree on is the shaking of the hands. It does not necessarily mean that if you shake someone’s hand and yours is on top of his/her hand, you’re more powerful than him/her. Whenever I shake hands with someone I just met, it doesn’t bother whether my hand is on top or not. Shaking hands just means that you’re acknowledging the person you shook your hand with.

            I can apply the lessons from body language in public speaking. Whenever I do reports in front of the class, I should know where to place my hands, where to look, how to stand and etc. I should know that eye contact with the audience is very important. Standing tall and firm shows that I know what I’m talking about and I mean what I say.