Thursday, April 16, 2009

You have got to be Kidding ME!

So for those of you who didn't know this already, Disney owns its own city. Well not so much that it owns the city, but it established it in 1994. Celebration, Florida, the name of the city, was built as a new way of life that takes you back to the old way of a good simple life. Talk about a company that has enough money to start its own town. After watching the movie "No Logo" you really do realize what Naomi Klein was saying about how Disney has reached "Brand Nirvana". For those of you who don't know what that means, it pretty much says that Disney is so well known that you will know their brand so well. I mean, they do have their own town. Can you imagine having so much money that you establish a city? Crazy stuff! What's also amazing about the town is the fact that there are no other major brand icons there. Disney has pretty much said that all other brands/franchises need to stay out of our town. It must be killing other companies to be rejected like this.

Here is a link to the cities website for anyone who wants to check it out:
http://www.celebration.fl.us/
And here is what Wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida

As much as brands are everywhere, who cares? I think it annoys me more that people are bothered by brands everywhere. Yeah product placement in shows and other media outlets can get annoying but there are ways around avoiding them. And just because I know a products logo well enough doesn't mean i care enough to do anything about it or buy there clothes. I buy stuff because I like it. And if I bought it and don't like it then I'm not going to go out and buy it again. Brands may be everywhere, but brands don't control me.

When I watch my TV shows I usually notice the product placements that are in the show. I've noticed them more as I've taken this Comms class. It's kinda weird when you look at shows from 10 years ago and notice that the products they used on TV shows were no name brands. You never saw a Coca-Cola or Pepsi can. You never heard people talk about Ikea or Bed Bath and Beyond. Show were just shows and you watched it for the content it supplied. I guarantee that a lot of shows would lose money if they didn't use product placement. You gotta wonder how much companies are paying to put there products on American Idol or The Office.

2 comments:

  1. Disney is incredible. The mastermind behind them probably never even realized that it would come to this! The totally own many many parts of the media. They dont just own movies, they own tv and radio and amusement parks and TOWNS! isn't that amazing! They have formed probably one of the biggest monopolies ever made! They are extremely smart that they will not let any other brands into their town. They own it, they can make the rules. It is very sad that we will let these brands totally take control of us like many of us do for Disney and other brands. We let them sell us a lifestyle and tell us how they think that we should want to live.

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  2. It is crazy that Disney has their own town. Just goes to show how succesful they've been. I have payed more attention to product placement since I started taking classes as a Comm major. It's crazy to see how many brands are on one movie or how many ads a TV show will use to promote a certain brand. I watched Waynes World again the other day and I couldn't believe how much product placement was in that movie. Funny movie, haha.

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