Conversations Beyond the Classroom (Eng 100L): M&Ms Commercial

Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100

Thursday, September 30, 2010

M&Ms Commercial

I have to say that I love M&M commercials. I get a little giddy when new ones come out. I would say that this shows that the approach that is being taken in these commercials is working. When I go to the store and see M&Ms at the checkout, I tend to pick up a bag. It then makes me remember the commercial that made me smile earlier that day.

In this commercial, the mother is doing the wash and notices that the clothes are turning pink due to something red being put into the load. She then finds the red M&Ms “clothing” or coating as we know it. She comes out of the laundry room holding the suit and there is a yellow M&M and her family eating M&Ms. She announces that someone put their red clothing in with the whites and demands to know who it is. Around the corner comes a “naked” M&M in a towel. She accuses him of putting his red clothing in the whites. She is holding the clothing upside down with makes the “M” a “W”…being the witty M&M that he is, he quickly says, “W…mine is an M.” The yellow M&M, being the “not so quick” one, looks down on his chest (which makes his “M” upside down to him appearing to be a “W” and says, “Mine is a “W” and then is the one to take the blame for the red clothing being in the wash and the red M&M gets away with it. The commercial closes with text that reads, Give them a place in your home. Creating characters that do the things that happen with family members such as the red clothing in with the whites and placing the blame on the other family member makes us feel as though these characters are family. Family being something that we can all draw on and relate too we are entertained by these commercials.

I think the biggest reason why these commercials are so successful is the way they make the characters “real.” Not only do they talk, they have individual personalities. They have wit and a bit of sarcasm which is appealing to many audiences. Each color has its own personality which is consistent in all their commercials. These commercials appeal to young and old. They show real life situations and bring to life these characters.

3 comments:

Angela O'BrienSeptember 30, 2010 at 3:25 PM
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Angela O'BrienSeptember 30, 2010 at 3:27 PM
post by Bryce and Angela

The ad hopes the viewer will surrender to the idea that if you putan M&M in the washer it will stain your clothes. you find the hidden reflection of the ideal family preparing a meal and it also parallels to the confronting of a family issue.
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Sean MatthewsSeptember 30, 2010 at 3:48 PM
With M&M myth that they melt in your mouth not your hand. in this add they made a mess in the wash but nobody was that mad because everyone loves M&Ms.
The add also shows the M&M characters living in a families home, telling viewers to give them a place in your home. Most american house holds have some type of candy Jar.

Kerrie and Sean
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Practice Introductory Post, Please!

Please Post an Introduction (for practice) by Monday, Sept. 22nd so that we can all be prepared for the first blog post assignment coming up next Thursday.

Here's what to do: Once you've accepted the invitation to become a contributor to this blog, you will notice a "new post" tab at the top of our blog. Click on that and enter your text. (I suggest you first type in a MW doc and then copy and paste to our blog to minimize the risk of losing your work.) Then, post!

For your first post, please: Write a brief informal introduction of yourself. Say whatever you’d like about yourself to us—your audience & collaborative learners. Check out Mary’s introduction if you need some ideas about what to say about yourself.