Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Comments Links

http://henderson1029.blogspot.com/2009/11/quick-trim-weight-loss-system.html#comments Quick trim weight loss system

Piece of Meat


Fast food restaurants like Carl’s Jr., Arby’s, alcohol companies like Skyy vodka, Bacardi , and clothing lines like Dolce and Gabbana, and Calvin Klein are trying to appeal to people the need for sex and the need for attention on their advertisements. One of the examples that I found online is the Arby’s sandwich advertisement, it depicts a picture of a female both of her hands are covering the two sandwiches, which place on the position of her breast. Also, on the advertisement there is a line that says “We’re about to reveal something that you will drool over.” This advertisement shows how women bodies are depicted at pieces of meat for male consumption. This relates to the objectification of women because the woman is just an object to draw your attention, just a tool to sell the sandwiches and a viewing pleasure. The advertisement implies that the woman is an object and an attention getter. The Arby’s ad shows the need for sex because this is the appeal which seems to pop up first when we see the position of the picture is taken. Typically, a female’s figure is offering to the male reader. The second type of appealing is the need for the attention, here obviously the two sandwiches are the attention but they are not the sandwiches anymore. The female is used as an object to depict the two sandwiches to get the attention of the viewers. The line in the advertisement contributes to the fact that Arby's will reveal something that you will drool over. It kind of emphasize the fact that the two sanwiches are symbolize as the woman's breasts. This will get the attention of the male in general because it is something that guys would look at. This advertisement is published in the swimsuit magazine so we can see that Arby's appeals to the consumers base on the theme of the magazine.



Arby's is not the only fast food restaurant that uses the need for sex and the need for attention to get to the sonsumers. Nowadays, food, alcohol, clothings, and beverages use all kind of appeals to get people's attention. The most effective appeal is the appeal for sex because it is always capture the attention of people, especially males. Woman is use as a tool, an oject for viewing pleasure. Media also plays a big role on this because we look at it and try to embody what media put as "beauty".

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Comments Links

http://dgarcia428.blogspot.com/2009/10/yoplait-yogurt.html#comments- Yoplait Yogurt


http://hayu-kis.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-birthday-cereblation-mochi.html#comments -A first birthday celebration, Mochi

McDonalds vs. Starbucks



Advertisements nowadays will try anything to get peoples’ attention. Food or beverage companies try to compete with others to get customers on their side. Their main goal is to make a profit and get the more consumers as they can. Companies use many ways to approach the customers, whether to post their advertisements on the internet, newspapers, media, billboards, flyers, free gifts, free samples, celebrities, pick up lines, facebook fan, coupons, or their own ideal of perfection or logos to approach the consumers. However, they cannot have the same product as the others or they can get sued. You see many companies produced the same products as others but with different brands or labels. They use their own method to attack each others, it is like a cat fight. Most of the food or beverage companies verbally criticize each other. For example, like McDonalds vs. Starbucks. Macdonald is known for the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurant. McDonalds primary sells hamburgers, French fries, chicken products, and soft drinks. Majority of the consumers are kids because of their special kids meal with toys. However, recently McDonalds has modified their menu with the new coffee and espresso. One of the billboard of McDonald advertises for their espresso, it says “ Four Bucks is Dumb” “now serving espresso” The line seems to attack Starbucks by saying that it is dumb to pay four bucks for Starbucks espresso when you can have the same espresso at McDonalds for cheap. McDonalds espresso only costs about two dollars, that’s like half the price compared to Starbucks coffee. McDonalds is trying to approach to those consumers who don’t like Starbucks coffee now they have another option and they can try their coffee. Not only that McDonalds tries to get the consumers who have been buying Starbucks coffee; now they can get the same coffee for cheaper price. When the economic is down, people try to pay less as they can, so they will try McDonalds'coffee. That is how McDonalds get people attention to buy their coffee. As for some people they would want to try it because McDonalds is known for fast food restaurant that sells burgers. And here they are confidently comparing their coffee with Starbucks. People would get curious, they would want to see how good the coffee is and they would try it. This is one of the ways companies use to attack their enemy. I had McDonalds coffee and personally I like Starbucks better because the espresso has a thick and creamy taste than McDonalds.

Western Premium Rolls




When we talk about the word “sushi”, majority of people think of all the Western sushi rolls. First thing they thought of would be the California roll, the regular roll, which consists of avocado, cucumber, crab stick, with rice on the outside and nori on the inside. Nori is a dried and pressed layer sheets of seaweed. Most of the rolls are consisted of nori and rice, that is like the basic base of sushi. We also think of all the Western premium rolls like Spider roll which consists of soft shell crab, cucumber, avocado, and spicy mayonnaise. Philadelphia roll consists of smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber. Lobster roll consistas of lobster, cucumber, and avocado, and sweet mayonnaise. Shrimp Tempura roll consists of fried shrimp, cucumber, avocado, and with siracha mayonnaise, eel sauce, or chili sauce. Alaskan roll consists of smoked salmon, cucumber, avocado, with eel sauce or sweat and sour sauce. Majority of the sushi or premium rolls always serve with a certain sauce like eel sauce, sweat and sour, chili sauce, or mayonnaise. Sometimes these premium rolls like tuna roll is served with a topping sauce that tastes and looks like thousand island dressing.



Basically the sauce is the majority of the premium rolls because without the sauce it is just plank rice, seaweed, cucumber, avocado, and seafood that mixed together. Most of the premium rolls are mainly serve with some type of sauces. However, premium rolls are always cost more than the regular rolls. Even when they basically have the same ingredients but what makes one more expensive than the other is because of the ingredients. For example, spider roll uses real crab, and California roll uses fake crab. It is not the sauce that makes the premium rolls expensive. But people tend to love the sauce that is why they think premium rolls always taste better than the regular. If you go to a sushi bar, where they put out all the eel sauce and chili sauce, you can just grab a bunch and dip it with the regular rolls. I’m pretty sure you cannot tell the differences. The sauce gives the rolls a thicker taste and unique. We can say that we love the sauce more than the sushi roll itself.



But we somehow we have forgotten the traditional form of sushi is fermented fish and rice. Sushi refers to raw fish like salmon, tuna, or seafood. The main part of all is the rice, chef uses Japanese rice that has to be cooled to room temperature before being used to filling in a sushi. The reason why we forgot about the traditional form of sushi because of the all the Western rolls. Sushi has been westernized with their unique sauce and ingredients that suit the Western palate. Most of these premium rolls are found in the West and rarely if at all in Japan.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"Secret Code" or "Secret Menu"




Americans love to try new things, especially when it comes to food. When we dinning out, we would order the best food because we know that we would not be able to eat like that at home. So people tend to order their favorite dishes or the ones that are highly recommended. We see people with their food, we would look at it and try to figure out the name of the dish. But majority of us, when we go to a restaurant, we would order something that is familiar to us or something that is recommeded by friends or family relatives. It is like a chain, people forward it on to people their secret menu. This is how the whole secret menu started.

It started with In N Out Burger with their secret menu, animal fries, fries that drenched in cheese, grilled onion, and spread sauce. Animal style burger, come with extra pickles, extra sauce, grilled onions, and a mustard cooked patty. And the flying dutcher, which has no bun, no veggie, just two patties and cheese. We love the secret menu because they are flavorful. I mean if you take a look at the recipes, you would want to try it right away. After In N Out's secret menu, place like McDonald also has their own secret menu. You can order chicken nuggets or fries with Big Mac's sauce, or order a Poor Man's Big Mac, which is a double cheeseburger with Mac's sauce and lettuce. You can also ask for onions and lettuce on your burgers, both are free at McDonalds. So for only a dollar, all you really miss out on is the Bic Mac's seasame seed bun.

Not only fast food restaurants have their own secret menus but places like Starbucks and Jamba Juice also have their own secret menus. At Jamba Juice now you can order smoothies that no one can order it if they dont know the secret code or the secret menu. Some of the secret smoothies that I know of are white gummy bear, red gummy bear, skittles, pink starburst, fruit pebbles. Personally, I really like the white gummy bear because there is that creamy taste to it. Red gummy bear tastes exactly like the actual red gummy bear. At Starbucks if you are a chocolate lover you can order chocolate cream frapucinno. It is a chocolate syrup and chocolate flavoring blended. Sounds yummy right? But are the food and smothies healthy?

Most of these food contained very high calories as you can see. These foods are not made for people with high cholesterol because the ingredients are very creamy and extremely high in calories. They contained a massive amount of fats, especially saturated fats, and sodium. So why is it this bad? Well, these food and smoothies are not really secret. The secret is that the menu is actually customized by customers. Secret menu is like your own customize recipes, it goes with what you want or how you want your meal base on your own taste. Personally, when I make my own meal I dont look at the calories. I put whatever I like in it, things that satisfy my belly. So that is why these secret menus are unhealthy. But secret menu is like a trend nowaday, because people like adventure, want to try new things. When something taste good, people would pass it on. The more people order it, the more profits these fast food places will earn, so that is why fast food places made up all these secret menu or secret code. They want to sell something that will make a big amount of profits and at the same time taste good so customers would come back. But it is a secret menu now that everyone know about it? Secret menu is just a name to make it sounds more interesting. The word "secret" is the secret to get peoples attention.