Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Lights Camera Action
By now I am sure most of you have seen the GYT commercials. Everyone loves to have celebrities endorse their products or special events. Presently my colleagues and I are planning events of our own and have asked Hollywood's finest for their support. But do celebrities help a cause, or do they distract from the overall message? Let's say Soulja Boy wasn't in the GYT advertisements. Do you think young people would still be aware of what GYT is? Or would they be like many out there who are scratching their heads and asking themselves WTF is GYT?
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I feel that celebrities help the cause because people are easily influenced by celebrities. If Oprah says that she likes to eat dog food because it gives her clear skin, pretty soon every woman in America will be eating dog food. I think it catches peoples attention and they will pay more attention to what is being said if a celebrity is saying it.
ReplyDeleteI think the use of popular and relevant celebrities to reach young people is a good idea. It gets a persons' attention. Later they can say "Oh yeah, so-and-so was talking about that in a commerical."
ReplyDeleteBut since I am older and didn't recognize any of these people in this commercial I would not have paid any attention to this commercial. Oh, and I still have no idea what "GYT" stands for.
Celebrities have a lot more influence in the community today. Especially, on teens and young adults. People are obsessed with celebrities! If they are starting a new trend, of course everyone is going to follow it until it becomes a fad! It's crazy how celebrities influence what we do and how we act.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comments. Celebrities have tremendous influence on young people. To answer your question, I don't think people would be aware of what GYT was if Soulja Boy was not in the commercial. I say this because even with Soulja Boy featured in this commercial, I still don't know what GYT is. It may influence some to Google it, which I may do because I've never heard of it. Maybe you could tell me...What is GYT exactly? I don't want to sound dumb, but when I first saw this post, I thought it was some abbreviation for some type of STD! lol I'm defintiely going to have to reaserch this one...
ReplyDeleteGYT means get yourself tested. After reading some of the comments I think the creators of this commercial were targeting a really young generation. Their target audience is a generation of people who use text language on a regular basis. For those of us who might be a little older, and like to fully spell out words, the message was lost in translation.
ReplyDeleteGET YOURSELF TESTED!
Thank you for explaining to us what the acronym 'GYT' stands for. I had absolutely no idea!
ReplyDeletePeople receive information and advice from a lot of different sources, but the research shows that we have a tendency to believe things more if someone (typically a peer who we respect greatly) has endorsed the information or advice that we receive.
I think it is especially true today because the Information Age has made it possible for us to know a lot more about celebrities than we knew in the past. I think we relate more to celebrities and feel a greater connection with them today because they are not so removed from everyday society.
I am pleased to know that Soulja Boy is a celebrity spokesperson for the GYT campaign. I hope a lot of young people will hear him and heed his words.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are the fastest growing demographic for contracting STDs. This is especially true in the African American community. There are cases of 10 year olds and 12 year olds contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
Maybe Soulja Boy can get their attention!
Well I agree that celebrities play an important role of being advocates for a certain cause. But the problem to me is that most of these "stars" do this strictly for publicity in hopes of selling more records, etc. However, both the organization or company and the celeb reap the benefits. It's too bad society is more focused on "celebreality" and the average person will only get tested because soulja boy said so! lol.. just food for thought..
ReplyDeleteI think having celebrities help in the fight against STDs is a great idea and I think it's even better that Soulja Boy is participating....especially since I adore him lol.
ReplyDeleteWe are easily influenced by what we hear on the radio and what we see on tv. It can bring a change to our self-destruction.