Digital Morphing

Today in my Media Studies class we had a guest lecturer from the Department of Advertising. She talked about digital morphing and how people in the ad industry are using this to develop brand personality and to target demographics. The idea is that an ad would "morph" a model's face with the customer's to produce a visual in which the consumer's can identify with. This is similar to celebrity endorsements because, naturally, a consumer would connect the idea they had of a celeb to that brand. If people unconsciously see themselves, they, theoretically, would identify the brand with characteristics of themselves. This practice has been used for a long time; for example, Betty Crocker is a morph of 75 consumers. Today, we can see this target advertising in places such as Facebook and Google.