Merchant of Cool Response

From the moment the documentary started, I could tell that it was slightly out dated. I was surprisingly not that shocked to learn that the teenagers are the biggest market to companies, spending over 150 billion dollars in the year 2000. What did surprise me though, was the way that the company's attained their research and their drive to market to the teenage population without having them know that they are being marketed to. I feel that if a company was confident enough in their product then they wouldn't need to "trick" kids into liking/wanting it.
I was not happy at the idea of (even though not any longer a teenager) being a player in some companies money making game. They idea that we are exposed to over 3,000 ads in a single day just boggles my mind. I didn't realize the amount of ads that people are everyday exposed to, because I feel like we have become so immune to seeing them, that unless it is a newly released ad that catches the eye, we process them by second nature without even realizing what is going on. I forget the name of the company, but one of the businessmen from a certain company used the term "smuggling the message in" to describe his advertising. The word smuggling in itself is repulsive enough to understand the sneaky nature as to what they marketing giants are doing to their targets. As if this wasn't enough, then the documentary moved into the "feedback" loop. The way that teenagers are portrayed on television shows makes me sick. I completely follow how society has gotten slightly out of control with the need for all these new shows such as "Teen Mom" becasue when all the teenage population has to see is sex, then they are going to assume that it is the norm and soon find themselves in trouble. Another example of a television show taking teenage sex to the extreme is "Secret Life". On that show this 16 year old girl has a baby and gets engaged twice before even graduating. Does that sound like the average life of a girl in the high schools that you all went to? I know for me the answer is no way! These television shows are making it seem normal for teenagers to do these things and therefore putting pressure on today's society to keep up and follow along because what is on television is what is "cool". Marketers need to fully understand the impact that they have over these teenage minds just waiting to be molded, and therefore maybe take more percaution before releasing anything that could come back to "bite them in the butts".