BTBF Reflections: Food ads

    

    It’s hard to say whether food ads have been successful in my life. I have watched years worth of McDonald's, Burger Kings, JP Licks, and Arby’s ads, but I rarely indulge in these restaurants. In fact, while I love to sing along to “Arby’s we have the meat!” at the end of each ad, I have never been inside of a Arby. This doesn’t mean that I do not understand the appeal of a good food ad! Let’s take a burger ad: they play up the size and visuals of the burger by making the burger tall and the ingredients crispy. Let’s take a look at cheese ads: they play up texture and the ability for the cheese to melt. I have always noticed that food ads never over rely on the taste of their food when advertising, and now I know why : “because taste is generated from multiple senses, ads mentioning these senses will have a significant impact on taste over ads mentioning taste alone” (University of Michigan). When you eat food, you do not just eat the taste. The smell you notice when you cook it is part of the experience. If it's hand food then the texture is part of the experience. The sound - do you crunch it or slurp it- is part of the experience. 

Nevertheless, the most successful ad I have ever watched did not provoke multiple senses. Instead, it made it look like eating Reece’s Puff was the most fun thing ever. It's first component was a song with a funky, hip-hop beat: "Reece's puffs, Reece's puffs, eat em up, eat 'em up, eat 'em up, eat 'em up" and "I got Reece's puffs in my bowl and just like that I'm on a roll". Both sets of lyrics are catchy and engage with kids not parents. Like I did, kids then convince their parents to get Reece's puffs.The ad starts with two kids pouring Reece's puffs into the bowl and instead of hyper focusing on the senses it follows the experience of eating puffs. A clear example of this is the next scene where another kid gets handed Reece's puffs, and after his first bite is pushed back into a chocolate and peanut butter swirl, as if impacted by magic. The lyrics convey how its supposed to make you happy and be the right start to your day. The only sense I can really observe being played up is sight because of how it uses brown and light brown to show the chocolate and peanut butter mixture.