MAKING CENTS OF TEENS: MERCHANTS OF COOL

                                           
Naomi Klein argues that advertising has changed from sponsoring culture to becoming culture, and in Frontline's Making Cents out of Teens: Merchants of Cool, this idea is more present than ever.

To me the part that best stood out in the documentary was the process of Sprite becoming part of "Hip-Hop culture." Sprite, even today, many years after the filming of this documentary is still a brand with close ties to "Hip-Hop" culture.  The way in which Sprite sneakily advertised themselves on MTV live rap concerts and payed "cool" dancers to be apart of their Sprite sponsored concert as background was very interesting to me. I have often wondered how Sprite has become such a part of modern rap culture which is largely a teen, and youth created culture (or is thought to be).  Though I thought that advertisements were powerful I did not really believe that they could be powerful to the extent that they could become part of our cultural realms and communities in society.

Upon learning a bit about Sprite's targeting of the the rap scene I did further research and found advertisements from older artists such as A Tribe Called Quest and Nas, all the way to Drake, a very current rapper.  However other brands such as Adidas, Beats, and Timberland have also been able to sneak their brands into what can be called, "rap-culture."
https://youtu.be/MRbVTKU-6nQ



Though this movie was very interesting I believe that a majority of the teen marketing methods though MTV and other outdated sources need to be updated.  Smartphones and social media are perhaps where the majority of teen advertisements can be seen in our current times, I would be very interested in watching a documentary that touches on the way in which social media platforms influence teen consumption.