CCDN 271

Assignment 4

"Plan Your Attack"


1. Introduction


For the introduction, I will be identifying my two intersecting themes which are the two topics of “The Everyday” and “Design Sociology and Anthropology”. I will elaborate on these topics and explain that I will be talking about everyday things which do and do not have a “brand” and how it is related to the youth and young adults. I will introduce my claims that the youth and young adults of this generation “do not seek cheap and economical products” and how “expensive and branded everyday things are requirements”. I will split these claims into three main paragraphs. The easiest way I have decided to help support these claims are to relate them to the different markets that most of our money are spent on. 

2. Clarify and Describe

For this paragraph, I will write a short description of some of the terms I will be using so it is easier for the reader to follow along and understand my use of words. For the feedback that I have gotten from the last assignment there were some terms that were hard to understand that I needed to clarify and explain more to get a better understanding. For instance, the term “brand” I will elaborate more to suit my research paper, and also “generation” as in our generation or the next generation. I will also write a short background on this topic relating it to everyday design/things and Design Sociology and Anthropology. 

3. Paragraph One

The first step to supporting my claim, is to build a solid foundation for this research paper. So in this paragraph I will write about brands within clothing. I chose clothing for the first paragraph because it is what people my age shop and need for the most out of everyday things. This could also include shoes, jewelry, perfumes and colognes. I will mainly use Alissa Quart’s Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers as my main source of information and citations in this paragraph due to the relevant content within her book. She talks about how brands are “Selling Adulthood” (2003, pg.12) and how they paint images within their advertisements showcasing the way teenagers should dress. All this information will help me support this first paragraph on how the youth/young adults are sold to clothing brands and their advertisements. 


4. Paragraph Two

The second step is to build on top of my foundation, and to lead the previous paragraph to furthermore relating it to technology. Chernatony’s Creating Power Brands with the factual support of marketingcharts.com will help me write this paragraph. With the sources and information in my hands, this lead my research paper into talking about cellphones. This will include all the android devices and especially Apple’s iPhone. I will explore what and why we have the cellphones that we have today, what made us choose that brand, and relate it back to my my claim.

5. Paragraph Three

For the roof of my foundation, I will lastly write and talk about rituals and intimacy. Tom Chatfield wrote an article for Aeon Magazine called Cyborg dreams with his opening statement as “Gadgets are the first thing we touch in the morning and the last thing we stroke at night. We are their slaves” (2013). I found this quote of his inspiring, but also understanding and true. This is a great way to lead on from the previous paragraph of technology and cellphones to how the youth and young adults of this generation pride ourselves with these expensive branded things that we own. I will mention the treasury involved and why we value our expensive branded things more than we do others. I will have my claims in this paragraph supported by Attfield’s Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life along with Chatfield’s article. 

6. Conclusion

To end this research paper, I will link the conclusion to the rest of my report and highlight the three topics that I wrote about which were branded clothing, branded technology and the rituals and intimacy taken place involving these things we own. It should be a quick summary of my paper once again stating my claim and how I just proved and supported it with my resources, without writing and adding anything new to the conclusion. I will also add a relevant quote just to end this last paragraph.



Resources Used


Chernatony, L. D. (2011). Creating Powerful Brands (4th ed.).
Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. 

Quart, A. (2003). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.
New York, NY: Basic Books. 

Peters, T. (1997). The Brand Called You.
Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you

Attfield, J. (2000). Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life.
New York, NY: Berg.

Teens Both Fickle about and Obsessed with Brands. (2007). Retrieved from
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/teens-both-fickle-about-and-obsessed-with-brands-698/

Palmer, J. (2012). The balinghou.
Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-palmer-chinese-youth/

Chatfield, T. (2013). Cyborg dreams.
Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/tom-chatfield-technology-intimacy/