This commercial makes me happy and makes me want a coke so I decided to analyze it. The advertisement is geared toward, but not limited to, the common person who takes satisfaction in cutting loose and having good clean fun. It features bartenders, dancers, musicians – even the businessman has a down-to-earth feel about him, with his average light brown suit and rolled-up sleeves, who seems to be breaking out of the corporate world and celebrating life. Everyone is happily dancing and expressing themselves to the upbeat music in affordable yet fashionable attire. It speaks: I’m ordinary. You’re ordinary. Let’s have fun. This emotion of just having fun and being happy is most successfully achieved through a few key strategies. Blissful tones, a powerful female voice, and an overall catchy tune combine to inspire a jump in any viewer’s step. Some of the actors appear to be doing what they love most, like playing the piano or practicing dancing routines, while others seem to be looking at what would usually be characterized as a fettered existence through a free and joyous glass, like dancing to the service of a customer or throwing work papers into the air. As far as the messages of advertisements go, it has one of the most positive. Opposed to a lot of advertisements they say: this is what's wrong with you; let's fix it. This one says: enjoy life; be happy; and do it with a coke in your hand.
2 comments:
Precisely because of productions like this! Exclusive school contracts which allow Coke exclusive rights to sell its products - soda, juices, and bottled water - in all the public schools of a district, thus greatly contributing to the obesity epidemic, on-the -job discrimination (they have faced various law suits and are changing their practices) etc. In many countries Coca-Cola buys water rights which adversely affect local farmers and population in general. I could go on and on. It is not that this is particular to this corporation, rather it is true of most advertising which works as the PR arm of powerful corporations. Just watch current ads by gas, coal and oil companies which try to sell us the idea that they are the safest, cleanest and saintliest solution to humankind problems.
How do I sell you a product that in unnecessary and even more, deleterious to your health? well, doing precisely what creatives and marketing executives decided to do in this case. Appealing to their audience (the "common guy or girl") who would rather be jumping around in the street or gyrating on a disco rather than face their bleak reality.
You have to be able to analyse if the message is even ethical (we'll discuss it in class). Is it true that drinking a coke makes you happy and let's you forget all your troubles?. I guess if it is then we should send containers of it to war and famine zones around the world and their problems would be over. I am being facetious of course, but I just want to make you think about the hidden agendas of any such messages, rather than taking them at "face value". Having said that, enjoy your Coke:-)
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