Amin W14: Topic Selection

Hello,

After some deliberation, I have decided and chosen to try and emulate "Under The Influence" a podcast conducted by Terry O'Reilly on CBC's radio station. I was drawn into this podcast simply because of the context the podcast speaks upon. Advertising is a very important part of the world that we live in today. Living in an age where everything is driven by the dollar and consuming it is important to know how and why these advertisements affect the way we see certain products on the market. More importantly do these advertisements and products being sold affect the way we live as a society.

After viewing multiple episodes I have noticed that O’Reilly’s tone of speech is more serious and informative rather than playful and friendly. He normally starts his podcast episodes with a sound clip of whatever he may be talking about during the episode. I love this approach because right off the bat it grabs the viewers’ attention because they may or not have heard the sound clip before. He also plays more sound clips before every new topic he speaks upon the show which I think is a creative way of letting the listener know that the gears are changing within the program.

The advertising campaign that I will be focusing on in my remake of this podcast is the Old Spice “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” or also known as “Smell like a man, man”. I feel that there is a lot to say about the advertising campaign, some questions that may arise include, What does the advertisement campaign say about our culture? This question in itself I feel will be sufficient in terms of information and timing within the assignment.

Looking at Spark for advice on research and topic selection was not helpful for me. Rather I chose something I was interested in; relationships between advertisers and society. I was watching Football and thought about what ads may appear on television during the Super Bowl and this campaign came to mind because it was quite successful in conveying a message and earned a lot of money as a result.