Critical Thinking: Advertisements
Yelena Prikhodko
ITT-Technical Institute
Foundational Strategies
GS1115
Tim Trieu
07/10/15

Critical Thinking: Advertisements

Advertisement 1: Budweiser
This Budweiser Super Bowl commercial is one of my favorites. It is a continuation of a commercial run last year and depicts a small puppy that lives on a farm with his horse best friend. The puppy is young and curious, he wanders off into a truck, the door behind him closes and he is taken into the city. He is cold in the rain and lost. He wanders through the woods as his owner is searching high and wide for him. As the night gets darker and scarier, the puppy gets closer to home however he is surrounded by wolves. Unbeknownst to him, his best buddy, the horse has escaped the barn and is coming to his rescue with friends. The pup starts barking at the wolves but he is tiny. The horses arrive just in time to save him and he is reunited with his family. At the end of the commercial there is the Budweiser logo and the hashtag “ #bestbuds”. Every time I watch this ad I cry. It is just so cute, and as a dog owner pulls at my heart strings. As a human, it makes me connect with the puppy and his fear of being lost and lonely and his search for home. What draws me most to this advertisement is that there is no beer, this ad is not selling beer, it is selling the feeling that you want to have when you drink beer: family, love, friendship.
Throughout the commercial, the focus is on the puppy and the horse, their friendship and bond. How they yearn for each other when they are apart, and how they will go through hell or high water to get back to each other and keep each other safe. The whole time you are watching, you do not think this is about beer; rather you are just enthralled in the commercial and want to see how it ends. But this is not a commercial you can forget. I think that was the advertiser’s point. When you are in the grocery store in an aisle full of beer, you will not be thinking about the latest bud lite ad where people are drinking, you will think about the friendship of these two animals and get a warm and fuzzy feeling which you associate with Budweiser and want to purchase their product. There is music in the background which makes you yearn for home and to be hugged and loved, when the animals are reunited, the seemingly sad song becomes happy, like a victory has just been had. These emotions do not disappear even after you have watched the ad.
Again, through the ad you are not thinking about a product, this is not the purpose of this ad, and this is the reason why I love it. The ad makes you feel, at the end you feel the world is great and you want to be with your best friends and family to get that same feeling the commercial gave you. I think the advertisers did this on purpose as this is not a beer which is known for greatness, it is hard to advertise that you are the best when you are not. However, getting people to feel something and connect with your brand and want to buy just because they like the brand is great. I do not like Budweiser but after this commercial, when choosing between beers I was drawn over and over to Budweiser because of the warm and fuzzy feeling I got, associated from the ad.
The story this ad conveys is that family and friends are the most important. That you should spend time with them, and the best way to do that? Of course, beer. But the ad does not say this; it doesn’t push it, which is why it is genius. You are enthralled in the brand without ever seeing the product. This is a commercial people were talking about for weeks and months. I cannot wait until the next Super Bowl to see what else they can come up with.
Critical thinking is a hard process, you have to connect what you see, with how it makes you feel and then figure out what it makes you think. First I had to watch the commercial a few times, and then I had to figure out what it was I loved about the commercial and why it made me so emotional. It wasn’t just because of the cute lost puppy, no it was more. And all these extra emotions that the advertiser did a great job of conveying took a while to process and understand. The process was empowering because I did not know that I could think so deeply, beyond the surface. Especially with an ad, with a puppy antherless. Puppies are cute, there is not much critical thinking there, but digging deep and figuring out why this ad hit so close to home made me feel stronger as a thinker and as a writer.

Advertisement 2: Snickers Brad Bunch Commercial
This Snickers commercial depicts an episode of the Brady Bunch where one of the girls, Marcia, is fighting with her brother and is overly upset at something small. She is being depicted by a large biker-type male who is angry and ravaging. She is told to eat a Snickers because she is not herself when she is hungry. She takes a bite and immediately transforms from the mean biker back into her blonde young adolescent self. I like this advertisement because it is funny and I know that feeling when you are grumpy because you are hungry.

The house is the setting, mainly the living rom. Marcia is the focus, and however the family’s reaction to her angry outburst is also the focus of this commercial. It is trying to show how ridiculous she looks throwing a temper tantrum when she could have just had a Snickers. I imagine this to be aimed at a family audience, or even on the go moms and kids who are too busy to always eat a fully meal and get hungry in between. These people end up over worked and stressed and so they are angry. Instead this ad tells us to take a bite enjoy and stay ourselves. It basically excuses our behavior when hungry on the assumption that it is not us, we are a different person when hungry.
This advertisement is targeting the need to feel comfortable snacking. The health trend has name candy a taboo thing to eat. However when you are on the go and have no time, a bar that has a lot of sugar and can keep you going is exactly what you need. This ad makes it seem that it is not a bad thing to want or need Snickers to tide you over. It elicits happiness and joy because it depicts a person acting angry turning happy after eating the bar.
I imagine this ad tells a story of everyday people. It tries to say, “Hey, we know you, we know you get hungry, it’s ok, just have a Snickers and everything will be better.” This commercial always makes me crave a Snickers and think hey, this is not that bad to eat, it makes me happy and I’m better happy than hungry!
When thinking about this ad, I started off with what it is actually depicting: food. Then I tried to think about what the food made me feel. It took a while to get to the fact that this was a way of eliciting emotions to feel comfort and an approval to eat a seemingly unhealthy food. This ad was harder, critically thinking wise, because the emotions and feelings it evoked were not
Advertisement 3: Jimmy Choo
This advertisement is for shoes. The brand is Jimmy Choo, a high end shoe brand. This is a brand that is glamorous and as a woman, I see it constantly while shopping; it is the type of brand you want to be able to afford. Jimmy Choo is a symbol, of style, money, power, and glamour.
The ad is a man on top of the hood of a car. The view is from inside the car and we can see him through the windshield sitting in almost a spider-man like pose. His palm is on the glass and his shoe is visible. The biggest image is the man: a young man with a stylish beard in an all-black outfit which a V-neck shirt. The sky in the background is whitish blue with clouds almost slicing the sky. The tone the ad elicits is sexy, powerful, yearning. The only wording is Jimmy Choo, and that is all that is needed as that name says it all: sexy, powerful, rich.
The ad is targeting the need to be rich and feel luxurious. The car he is on (although we cannot see it) is a luxury vehicle, you can tell from what is available to the viewer. The fact that he is on this car is what makes it seem even more luxurious—after all who would want to risk ruining their car by standing on it? The answer is only someone who can afford to! The ad shows the man in all black and his shoe—although only one is showing, it looks luxurious and makes you want it. Not just the shoe, but the car and the lifestyle that Choo represents.
This ad shows what all people want luxury and comfort. You want to either be the man standing on the car or are dating the man on the car. He represents the things in life which we struggle and worked for—comfort. To be able to spend the thousand plus dollars that Jimmy Choo’s cost and still be care free is an American dream of sorts and he represents that possibility.
This ad’s critical thinking was slightly easier as this ad clearly evoked certain mentions and wants and I was able to more easily connect the reasons. The brand is very high end and the ad makes it look even higher end. It plays on a fantasy—standing on a car with the sky in the background—luxury, comfort, care-free. What I found interesting was how freeing it was to express the luxury this ad evoked within me. I do not know if this is because this is the last ad, and so my brain is thinking more critically, or because this ad just spoke to me. In either case, my mind just simply saw the ad, and connected the luxury and comfort conveyed with the product.