Ads Not Always Appetizing
I often wonder at the wisdom of advertising writers. There are some commercials today that contain mixed or conflicting images - images that don't seem to me to be in the best interest of the future of the product's sales.
For instance, Kentucky Fried Chicken ran a television commercial
for what is, apparently, REALLY crispy chicken. I mean, this is ultimate, king-of-all-time, beat-the-band crispy. So crispy that the closing image shows the sound of a bite of this chicken cracking the glasses of the Colonel himself. Now there's an image to stir the appetite - broken glass and fried chicken. Yum. My favorite.
And this kind of thing doesn't just happen on television commercials. In an ad in a women's magazine, we see Shirley Jones (Mrs. Partridge of "The Partridge Family"), Marion Ross (Mrs. Cunningham of "Happy Days"), and Florence Henderson (Mrs. Brady from "The Brady Bunch") - three famous American TV moms, sitting at the hair-dresser's, under dryers, with white moustaches. At first glance, it appears to be an ad for Nair or some other equally noxious chemical depilatory - until you read the "got milk?" blurb at the bottom of the page. Now, there's a subliminal message to make you toss your chocolate chip cookies. On closer inspection, we finally SEE the glass of milk in question, in Florence Henderson's hand, in flower-patterned glass that is easily camouflaged by her flower-patterned dress. The other two moms don't have any drinking glasses - are they all sharing the same glass of milk? How unsanitary!
And then there's "Yo quiero Taco Bell." I didn't mind the revolution-in-the-square in an unheard of South American country (even though I didn't understand it, and it was probably offensive to anyone whose genetic heritage includes even one relative from a Spanish-American nation) but the one that really leaves me puzzled (and a little frightened) is the one where the young couple is watching the lottery drawing on TV - obviously about to win - when the subversive Taco Bell chihuahua hacks into their cable TV with Taco Bell's chicken gorditas, chuckling fiendishly, "Welcome to de Chicken Channel!" Now, honestly, who really wants to eat food that's been pushed down your throat (pun intended) like bad third-world propoganda? Why not have the couple win their lottery and then VOLUNTARILY spend it all on chicken gorditas? Equally unrealistic, but much less hostile.
Maybe we should have our KFC Crispy Chicken Taco Bell Gorditas with Milk to muffle the sound of falling dictatorships and broken glass. I wonder if chihuahua tastes like chicken?
