Weeks 5-6: So Much To Do, So Little Time…

These weeks were tough. They were filled with college visits, big decisions, and reminding myself of the upcoming project defense. I didn’t change my project in any significant ways, just getting data analysis done, writing out findings, revisiting my (not done) literature review, and focusing on the rubric. 

I’m skimming over a lot of the numerical results–they’ll be verbatim from my paper at the bottom of the post.

I began to see a reasonable conclusion that I did not expect: that some companies were extremely transparent with their mission statements and advertising. For instance, one wrote in their mission statement that they did not make any health claims whatsoever. As I initially thought in my hypothesis, company messages oftentimes do not align with advertisements. However, there was an additional piece that my findings uncovered. That transparency in messages is incredibly important. Admitting that the product will not improve health and is just for fun can help keep youth informed on the motivations behind the marketing. 

There were some limitations on my project, such as the codes I chose or the kinds of advertisements. In reality, youth would be most exposed to third-party advertisers, which could be significantly more dangerous, so future research should cover these grounds further.

In summary, I reached 2 main conclusions. The first being that companies will exaggerate their products to be more socially acceptable. And secondly, more transparent messaging means more transparent advertising.

While writing was in progress, so were my presentation slides. Going back and forth between these two big focuses, I safely made it to the last week of APR. — The results section of my paper for those interested in the numbers: 

“Blu Upon analyzing 20 randomized ads, a total of 22 tags were given. As the most prominent, 9 advertisements showcased the recreation appeal and 5 were categorized as social capital appeal. In a three-way tie, 2 advertisements each showed social acceptance, ease of access, and a positive sensory experience.  

Vuse Alto Within the sample size of 20 advertisements, 12 ads showed appeal for a new or novel product, 6 showed ease of access, and 5 showed the cost appeal. There were 33 tags given in total. 

JUUL 20 advertisements were sampled within JUUL’s Instagram folder on the SRITA database. 32 tags in total were labeled. 6 ads fell under the positive sensory experience category, in a three-way tie, smoking cessation, recreation, and removal of negative affect each were tagged 5 times. 3 advertisements were tagged in the ease of access category. 

Puff Bar Among 20 sampled advertisements, 11 were tagged with the positive sensory experience tag. Both cost and novel product were tagged 5 times each. And, recreation and social acceptance were tagged 3 times each. A total of 29 tags were chosen within the samples.”