The two commercials I have chosen are the “Old Spice fake Spray Tan Party commercial” and the “Anchorman 2 Dodge Durango Dancer commercial” and the links are found below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMOXL_2jXOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YfpBbPDVZA
Old Spice:
This commercial is a wonderful bit of advertising because it starts with a fake advertisement for spray tans and then the real advertisement bursts in to smack some sense into the viewer. But the real advertisement is unable to do its work without the fake one. It relies on the fact that we already disapprove of the spray tan commercial. It uses an incredibly muscular spokesman who looks like a character from the Jersey Shore. He’s referring to people as “bro” or “chicks” and because of all this, the audience should begin to think he’s kind of a jerk or at least not that bright. Also, the entire commercial appears to have been made by a 9th grader in the 90’s, in the sense that there’s an unnecessary amount of effects in the commercial. All this points to the fact that we should be disdainful of this commercial. And yet, something about the energetic presentation is enticing. The Shore, like guy is offering you a way to be “better” by going to these “Spray Tan Parties”. So even though we laugh at this commercial, something in the back of our minds doesn’t completely rule out this option as a good idea. Then the “real” commercial starts. It starts with the usual Old Spice spokesman’s voice saying “Did you really just watch a commercial for Spray Tan Parties?” or something along those lines. He enters and begins his spiel. Aleady, the audience knows him and is relaxed by him. He’s a familiar face with a soothing voice and isn’t disgustingly muscular like the spray tan guy. His strategy is to tell you the error of your ways for sitting through the commercial as an opener. He uses a humorous chart to describe just how low the viewer has sunk through this viewing. Then the important part: he offers a choice. He says, “It’s not too late to change,” albeit repeatedly and it is pretty funny, but he offers the choice. Dealing with the future tense, saying “You can stay at rock bottom with these spray tans OR you can buy Old Spice”. We see just how well Old Spice can make our lives. We can be like the suave Old Spice guy, live in an immaculate mansion, the whole nine yards. In order to convince the audience; to argue with us, it presents a common enemy.
Dodge Durango:
The Anchorman 2 commercial uses a preconcieved notion of car commercials to sell its point, once again through humor. You hear Ron Burgundy’s voice saying words like, “elegance, form, passion,” and etc. and all the while we’re seeing shots of two ballet dancers doing a routine next to a car. This tactic is employed by advertisers world over; comparing an appliance or machine to something elegant or sleek in nature. So when we finally see Ron walking next to the SUV we all know he was describing we say, “Eh, nothing special,” but then Ron sees the dancer and becomes furious. He’s outraged that these dancers are interrupting his commercial and upstaging the car. It’s funny because of the character and the way that it makes fun of other car commercials. It mainly uses the ethos of Ron Burgundy to really sell the car, because as anyone who’s seen Anchorman knows, Ron Burgundy knows about the finer things in life. If he supports this SUV and considers it better than these dancers, who are we to disagree?
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