We can all agree that, a company’s number one goal is to sell their product, right? Yet, to achieve this goal, companies have to use many strategies. Advertising (primarily through commercials) is probably one of the greatest strategies to achieve this goal. With that being said, there are many ways to advertise a product to the public. For example, a lot of companies use comedy to sell their product. In other words, companies use parody advertising, which means made-up advertisement for absent-minded products. This parody advertisement can be created within another advertisement for an actual product or just by parody. This strategy is used to mock and draw negative attention toward another company’s product or advertising.
In the article “Television Teaching: Parody, The Simpsons, and Media Literacy Education” Jonathan Gray said, “jokes come in small packages, they are easy to retain and to remember, and therefore they travel well,” (Gray, 234). True! Remember Burger King’s commercial “Eat like a King. Not Clown”? They referred the “clown” to Ronald McDonald of McDonalds.
Burger King released this advertising in 2006, and I still remember the advertisement today. This strategy may sound good for many, however, does it really affect the audience?
The commercial uses a vulgar language, however there is the link to the video for whomever wants to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1E5ZO8Lug
Throughout this commercial there is alcohol consumption, photography of women, guys buying girls drinks, people partying, expensive cars and yet the commercial using a credible parody of “Drink Responsibility. Although the commercial engaged multiple “vulgar” words, South Park’s creators wanted to use parody in their commercial to raise an awareness about drinking responsibility by using humor. While, the commercial, in my opinion is funny and entertaining, they do not explain when to stop drinking or give the public an action plan when put into that situation. In other words, they do not propose a solution. The negative side of advertising parody is the ad itself is considered by some to be just as bad as an regular ad because it’s telling the audience what to think and not how to react.
Lastly, television parody, for example, Saturday Night Live creates functional commercials and they always use a “guest host” (celebrity) in the introductory commercial to begin the show. The main goal of this show is to entrain the audience with comedy.
In this commercial, they made fun of the prescription drug advertisements while at the same time making fun of Taylor Swift’s music. They mock an actual commercial and transformed it into a comedic parody of the style of a real advertisement rather than its product.
Gray, J. (Television Teaching:Parody, The Simpsons, and Media Literacy Education,) page 223-238
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAhAz7JU0dg
Jessica Ruggiero says
I enjoyed reading your post. I think you showed some great examples. One in particular is the Burger King ad and how they say to “eat like a king, not like a clown”. We are exposed to these types of ads everyday between fast food rivalry’s all the time. One ad in particular I remember is when Taco Bell mocked McDonald’s. They showed a commercial of a guy who ate McDonald’s McMuffins since he we was a kid and then one day he ate Taco Bells waffle taco and his whole life changed. But like you said do these advertisements really actually affect how people will choose where to eat? I know personally I know what fast food places I’ll eat at and which ones I wont like many other people, so an add will not in particularly change my opinion on which place I should be eating at.