7-11-08 - Where Beakers Been?

Over the past two weeks, Beaker and I have been on travels over the ocean to explore the interests of America and the way they celebrate Halloween. It enabled us to look at the way America uses advertising to promote a brand.
The reason for our visit looked at Universal studios Orlando Fright Nights and how scared they could make us. Below is the trailer for 2008 and what we were letting ourselves in for.

Within the park there were 8 houses that had actors jumping out to scare guests. Around the park were 6 paths that had to be walked through with actors dressed up to match the theme of the path. One of the paths had the theme of Oz where the witch, monkeys and the tin man were evil.

I found this experience very scary with people popping out of nowhere and making me scream. It was extremely funny now I look back on it but at the time I was scared. In the USA they glamorise Halloween. Many houses have decorations, like at Christmas, from graves outside the house to skeletons moving at the front of the garden.

While in Orlando, We visited Epcot on of Disney’s Parks which stands for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. There Beaker travelled around the world, visiting many different countries.





Beaker and the Epcot Ball













Beaker In Canada










Beaker in London











Beaker In Paris













Beaker in Morroco








Beaker in Japan













Beaker in Mexico












Beaker in China




Beaker in Norway










Beaker in Germany






Beaker in America






Beaker in Africa














Beaker stealing Luke's Drink!!!





Beaker enjoyed many of the rides, in Magic Kingdom he rode on Splash Mountain and got very wet.








Here, Beaker is being silly not wanting to go one of the rides.







Adverts in the USA

Around Orlando it was clear to see that advertising was an easy way to get the product out into the commercial world. Along the highways are huge advertisements that enable drives and passengers to clearly see and recognise the brand. By having these huge advertisements the regular users of that highway will constantly see it on their travels.

While beaker and I were travelling on these highways we saw many boards being built to introduce more advertisements. On main roads like the 192 that runs through Orlando many of the shops and restaurants have tall signs that enable oncoming customers to see them and prepare to drive in. By having these signs it enables the company to been seen and the signs need to be huge to compete with the other restaurants and shops.

On American TV commercials appear approximately 3 times during an half an hour show. During Friends a commercial is played after the opening song, in the middle of the program and before the end credits. Some of the commercials can last up to 5 minutes. One commercial, Appliance Direct was timed to see how ling it actually was it ended up being 8 minutes 55 seconds. As an audience viewer I lost interest about a minute into it as it was saying the same thing over and over again. The Chinese man’s voice was extremely annoying but it did its job as when my brother saw the shop he remembered the advert.




Around the Disney parks and Universal Studios parks advertisements can be seen to show off different parts of the company and partnerships. If guests have good experiences at one of the parks they will think that the product being advertised is also going to be good. In Disney’s Hollywood studios there used to be huge posters advertising different ‘abc’ programs. Disney advertises anywhere possible, around their parks, on their TV channels and on their websites. In Walt Disney World’s park EPCOT, there is a future world were different pieces of new technology can be tested by guests. Emails can be sent to friends back home using the Disney websites. In selected Disney shops computer can be used to search products if they cannot be found on the shop floor. These interactions enable guests to see how easy Disney’s website and communication service is.

American advertising is completely different compared to the way in which products are advertised in England.

• Adverts are on every channel were as in England the BBC does not.


• Adverts can be shown many times during a program.


• They can last as long as wanted.


• Anything can be advertised. When watching commercial an advert for Viagra was being shown.

By being able to see the different ways in which different countries advertise, it has shown me that different economic and social views contribute to they way in which companies advertise.