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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 1983)
Page 8B/The Battalion/Wednesday, August 24, 1983 'dnesd Female stereotype in ads can lose sales Bi United Press International SAN FRANCISCO — Women may have come a long way, but the advertisements portraying them remain in the “high-button shoe and horse-and-buggy era,” says a leading researcher who warns marketers outmoded stereotypes can cost them sales. Advertisers’ persistence in maintaining an image that fits only 13 percent of today’s American households repels some consumers and leaves a huge untapped market, Rena Bartos said. ‘I can’t give you specific tru between image and reality in al figures, but I can say the lag the portrayal of women in print ads and broadcast com mercials is costing marketers,” said the senior vice president and director of communica tions development for the J. Walter Thompson USA advertising agency. Bartos since 1966 has had the unique job of tracking so cial trends and identifying marketing opportunities that result from social change. “Demographics lodged in the computer data bank — not to mention the evidence of our daily experiences — keep telling us that lifestyles are changing, spending patterns are changing, and women are wonderfully diverse,” she said. In her latest book, “Moving Target: What every marketer should know about women,” Bartos shares her findings and suggests the industry would be “better off aiming at where women are going rather than where they’ve been.” In screening 125 commer cials, she said, she found only nine that recognized contem porary women, “and they were the blandest in the world.” “There’s still a strong in dustry prejudice that to irri tate is to get attention,” she said. “And there’s a strong in dustry prejudice that what worked in the past should work now,” she said. “The fact is, only 13 per cent of all American house holds are like the ones por trayed in the ads.” Advertising is beamed at four groups: “Housewife, 18 to 49 — key customer for household products and foods; male head of house hold, 24 to 49 — key customer for big-ticket items like cars and travel; girl, 18 to 25 — key customer for cosmetics, per fume, fashion; man, 18 to 34 — key customer for sports cars, beer, liquor, toiletries.” iqt Most marketers take as a f [iven that most women are ulltime housewives with chil dren; most women who work are unmarried; no married woman would work if she could afford to stay at home and working women and housewives want the same things from products and re spond to the same strategies. female consumers: career woman; just-a-job working woman; plan-to-work house wife and stay-at-home house wife. nomy-minded. The career woman is least likely to watch evening televi sion but most likely to listen to the radio and read magazines and newspapers, followed by the plan-to-work housewife, she said. While marketers assumt the stay-at-home housewivei most concerned with clean ing, polishing and groominj her home, data show career woman and plan work housekeeper sharapot rugs and wax floors more fre quently. United DETRO esearch < gulates ] ase of s :ad to a None of those assumptions is true, Bartos said, noting that 56 percent of American women work, with another 16 percent planning to. In her research, Bartos de fined four distinct groups of In buying, the career women are most likely to plan ahead, be cautious and brand loyal, the just-a-job worker tends to be experimental, and the stay-at-home housewife is the most persuasible and eco- Bartos recommend' marketers re-examine ik assumed target, evaluate market potential ofnewtargti groups, develop a fresh pen- pective, explore the attitude and needs of the new groupi and redefine marketint targets. aceptive ccording lichigan Dr. Jol le key is nRH, I eleasing 1 GnRH lical me lates the xual fu te prod u i ormones evelopmt on of egj Beside: ontrol a nRH al terapies 1 elopmeni f the rep Marsha' eloped tf earchers ute levels Music industry leaping aboard video bandwagon United Press International While music company execu tives dance in their suites to the sound of a rebounding record industry, the real celebration may be just around the corner. The rock revolution of the 1980s — video music — has found a home in at least 17 mil lion American homes and mushroomed into a multimil- lion-dollar business. Conglomerates like Amer ican Express and Sony Corp. are riding shotgun over the latest undulation in the electronics craze. Kids are “videoing” the latest songs. So are yuppies — young, urban preppies with col lege degrees and $30,000 salaries. Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark introduced American teenagers to music with pictures, but the video music explosion was ignited on Aug. 1, 1981, when New York-based Music Televi sion aired its first clip, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The cable station now programs rock ‘n’ roll video clips 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to an esti mated 14.5 million Americans. “We believe video music is the future of the music business,” said Les Garland, vice president of programming at MTV. “It’s a new art form. “Thirty-seven percent of the homes in America are wired for cable. We’d sure like to be in ev ery one of them.” So would Warner Communi cations and American Express, who formed a partnership to bankroll MTV, called the fastest growing cable station in history. Sony Corp. is testmarketing a video version of the 45-rpm re cord, priced at about $20. Record companies are approving budgets ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 for videos because, in essence, they are three-minute commercials for the artists. Mark Goodman, one of five video jockeys at MTV, said “look” has always been a big part of a group’s success. Remember Elvis? “The first think you remem ber about him was the way he bumped around with those hips. The Beatles were a huge pack aged product. People dug the way they looked, the hairstyle,” Goodman said. “Let’s face it — a band that has a good looking front man or beautiful front lady, that’s a help.” Video must deal with prob lems radio never had — like nudity, transvestites and vio lence. MTV rejected a Van Halen video clip of "Pretty Woman” because it used midgets and transvestites. Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” was banned for niidity. And a Rolling Stones song, “Neighbors,” was nixed af ter a brief run because viewers complained about violence in the video clip. “We have to be careful of community standards,” Garland said. “What might be acceptable in New York might not be acceptable in Paducah, Ky.” While some artists search for the censorship boundaries, others are busy turning MTV into a video art gallery. Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac recreated a vintage 1930s street scene in her elaborate video, “Gypsy,” while Michael hired r members of Los Jackson Angeles street gangs and dozens of professional dancers for his $150,000 video, “Beat It.' ! album has now gone "nitj platinum,” with worldwidesJ of about 10 million copies. Videos are selling records and products. MTV’s list advertisers has grown ft dozen in 1981 to 160 in growth that has caught thei of network programmers. On July 29, NBCbecamei first commercial networktt ter the video music field witl 90-minute “Friday Ni Video,” produced by the guy who came up withSaturi Night Live. ward :ue s. Students’ intak United P 'ALLAS be ht into d pilot , for soli und the en-odd ht vision le $200 n But the nts that sible, mo HOW TO GET CASH of sodium high rs since t :ed the ol Vietnam, mgesin tl And it i IN HONOLULU, United Press International CHICAGO — College stu dents snacking on pretzels, pop- mi stude NEW YORK, DENVER, ATLANTA, PHOENIX, SAN FRANCISCO, SEATTLE AND OVER corn and potato chips are con suming “alarmingly” high amounts of sodium without even picking up a salt shaker, a researcher says. Mahmood A. Kahn, a regis tered dietician and University of Illinois-Champaign professor, said a study of 139 students showed they are either exceed ing the amount of sodium they should consume — or hovering around the maximum recom mended daily intake. Because excessive sodium is associated with high blood pressure, students should work on preventive measures to avoid the risk of hypertension — espe cially if there is a history of high blood pressure in a student’s family, Kahn warned. “College students are an im portant segment of the popula tion,” he said in a report in the Journal of the American Diete tic Association. “Poor food habits during this stagb of their lives can result in serious con- h intake! ip 600 OTHER CITIES. FROM TOUR OWN FIRST CITY BANK. sequences. “The nutritive quality of foods consumed by college stu dents needs careful assessment.” The students in Kahn’s sur vey completed a 15-page ques tionnaire detailing the food they eat in an average 24-hour period. More than 3,000 milligrams of sodium consumed daily is considered unsafe. Some male students indulged in more than four times the daily recommendation, taking in 13,956 milligrams a day, the study showed. Female students consumed up to 9,374 milli grams daily. Averages for the were 3,904 milligrams for and 2,628 for women. However, those tallies »i computed solely on the of sodium found in the foods students say they eat and do: include salt from a shaker, tor that probably escalates average sodium intake bep excessively high amounts, said. “The total sodium men was found tobesignilii ly higher than that forwome he said. “The differences™' attributed to the men's o sumption of greater quanti of food and, therefore, grei caloric intake.” Snacks such as pretzels,f corn and potato chips con buted to much of the sodium take, as did the highly s; foods consumed at lunch dinner. “The majority of studt used carbonated beverages,! lowed by salted snack iie| alcoholic beverages, andca»i and gums. Alcoholic bevera; were consumed mostlybynif Kahn said. “For morning snacks - tween breakfast and lunch students most often usedo dies and gums. For after# snacks — between lunch! supper — most students d sumed carbonated beverai second choice was foods ft the candies and gums catep “Most of the students# salted snack items for even snacks — between supper breakfast. Salted snack food eluded such items as prt popcorn and chips, obn sources of sodium,” he said opments h. Since dark he rcially fe end oft! of itse tary use Night vi what zero g red rifle the Kor s consis and a For Be Now First City convenience knows no boundaries. Because now there’s FirstNet SM . FirstNet, formerly known as Teller 2? is the new name for First City’s network of automated tellers. And now FirstNet is the only network in Texas conneaed to the nationwide PLUS SYSTEM? This enables you to get cash, transfer funds and check your balances at over 2,000 locations in 47 states throughout the country. More than any other automated teller system. So you’re always close to your money, wherever you are. 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