The Powerful Media-Media Meditation #3

Welcome back devoted followers to what I hope is your favorite of the month: my monthly media musing! This month I thought I would talk about the most powerful media in the world: advertising, and more specifically, commercials. I know you know what I am referring to, those (sometimes) annoying things during television shows. Well they are more useful than we realize. Those annoying commercials help pay for our favorite shows to be aired on TV and stay on TV. And not all of them are annoying, some of them are adorable, like this one:



Now isn't that kitten just adorable? I certainly think it is, but not all commercials have cute fuzzy animals to tug on the heart strings. Some commercials just don't work at all, like this one:



Now I don't know what you guys think, but personally I think this is a poor commercial. If you remember from my very first post, I am studying marketing/advertising at college, and thusly getting to know commercials intimately. I will be a master at what works and what doesn't by the time I graduate, that is for sure, but that is not why this commercial does not work for me. For one thing, I, personally, have no idea who Raquel Welch is, and neither do many people that I know, so using her to market her glasses is not as affective as it should be. Second, the commercial is direct (which is good), but exceedingly boring. Many people today have an exceedingly short attention span, so commercials have to be catchy for someone like me to pay attention. That is why I think this commercial is a dud. But I do think the you, my devoted followers, have an opinion so if you disagree with me let me know, I would love your honest opinion about what you think of the Raquel Welch commercial.

If you will notice though, as you are reading the rest of this post, you might still be thinking about that adorable kitten, or the boring Raquel Welch, and that, my friend, is why commercials are so powerful. They have one purpose, not to sell you something (which most of them try to do), but to be memorable. If a commercial is memorable then it will spread like wildfire. The second I saw that Fancy Feast commercial, I showed/told everyone that would listen. I was in love with that kitten, and more importantly, I was in love with the way the man proposed. I will admit, I am a hopeless romantic and am always thinking of creative ways a guy could propose. But that commercial was meant to advertise the new kitten fancy feast meal.

Image courtesy of Google Images

Now I bet you didn't realize that, which is totally okay. I didn't realize it was for kitten food at first either. But now that I am thinking about it, it makes total sense.

After all this, I still have a mission for you, next time you are watching TV or fiddling around on YouTube, pay more attention to the commercials, or search commercials. You never know, you just might find that hidden gem among all the other advertising.

Until next time,
Your resident geek.