Before you watch this commercial, I have two warnings to
make known. First, this entire commercial is in Japanese; second, it is
potentially highly addictive (it has become a member of my iPhone collection). The video is an upload of the Pretz commercial as seen in Japan.
This week I wanted to talk about a commercial from Japan
that I find highly entertaining. They are specifically for the Pretz brand
pretzels. I think that the way that they go about advertising these products
makes no sense in reference to the item, but I have a strange feeling that
these commercials actually sell the product.
First of all, I would like to start with the item that is
being sold. As you can see from the commercial, the only real traces of the
item in the advertisement are the boxes of “Pretz” that the girls are holding,
and the references (in Japanese, but they say “プレッツ” (“purettsu”)
which is the word for pretzel) to the item in their song. Other than that,
there is a distinct lack of advertising the item in general. Compared to some
of the other commercials by the same company, it seems really ineffective, as
the people in the commercial do not even eat the pretzel. It seems rather odd
that a company selling food would not show people happily eating such a snack.
I was slightly taken aback when I saw this ad, as I pondered what they were
trying to sell at the end of the commercial.
However, what this advertisement lacks in use of the
product, it makes up for in other ways. While the people do not eat the
pretzels, the advertisement itself is rather entertaining. After I first
watched it, I wanted to watch it again, partly because I wasn’t sure what I had
just watched, and partly because it made me giggle a little. The creators of
this commercial did not specifically go for the generic “everyone is eating our
pretzels, and they love them” type of ad; rather, they decided to do something
unconventional and (seemingly) unrelated, like put three girls in pink skirts
to sing and dance while holding the product. While it does not seem to
advertise specifically, I think that the commercial is actually effective
because it makes the watcher inadvertently want to buy the pretzels, because
they found the commercial interesting and amusing (or at least, I want to try
the product for these reasons). Good job, Glico, for using something unrelated
and making an addictive commercial.
haha This commercial made me laugh too. I bet that it is quite effective; it's catchy and fun, so people are bound to remember it while they're out shopping and what not. What a clever business strategy.
ReplyDelete"After I first watched it, I wanted to watch it again, partly because I wasn’t sure what I had just watched..."
ReplyDeleteI love when I watch something like this and it makes me think, "What did I just watch?" It makes me more curious about the ad, which I think is a very effective strategy if you want to get people's attention. For me, the common denominator of Japanese ads seems to be some degree of randomness, so I wasn't too surprised when I saw this commercial. In the United States, I don't know how successful an English version of this commercial would be, but it seems to work in Japan. So bravo Glico!
I agree with David that, while we do have some non sequitur ads in America, the absurd is far more common in Japanese ads.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me slightly of this line of ads for Panda cheese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21mJh6j9i4
More intentionally slapstick/hilarious, and the product does appear; but it's a bit weird to America's sense of taste in advertising.
In fact, the idea of taste or appropriateness is something we haven't addressed much in class yet, but it is definitely a part of astute assessment of a rhetorical situation. I'd guess that cross-cultural explorations, with an eye for taste, could produce some really fascinating analysis.