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William Shatner is the Heavy weight champion of advertisement today. Why do I say this? It has something to do with him being in commercials for almost everything and I see him at least once every commercial break. I cannot think of anyone today that is more advertisements. Yes there are some famous people that are in some great commercials, but none as often as Shatner. Shatner has countless numbers of Priceline commercials and my personal favorite of his the world of warcraft commercial. The Mr. T world of warcraft commercial would give Shatner’s one a run for its money but that is Mr. T’s only commercial advertisement. Besides Mr. T the next challenger for Shatner’s title is Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is the butt end of a lot of jokes in current day American and has been for past few years. He however took to long to capitalize on making fun of himself. For example, the Mountain Dew commercial he is in where he chases down the two guys making fun of him and steals their Mountain Dew and is drinking it as he works on a youtube video of him roundhouse kicking them. I might also consider Michael Jordan a contender to his title but I really can’t do it, he needs other stars in his commercials with him such as Kevin Bacon, Larry Bird, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Some people might think of superstars of sports as heavy weight fighters of advertisement that can contend with Shatner. The Manning Brothers, Eli and Peyton, have a string of advertisements. why shouldn’t they? Back to back super bowl MVP is hard to fight off. Those commercials are mostly played on ESPN and other sports networks on TV and do not really get seen by everyone. Shatner’s commercials appear on every TV channel except for those few channels that do not have commercials. One of the most paid walking advertisements now is LeBron James. Something like a 90 million dollar contract with Nike doesn’t make me want to go buy Nikes or even his multimillion-dollar contract with sprite make me want to drink sprite. Every time I see the William Shatner world of warcraft commercial it makes me want to go play. The only one that I would rate higher then Shatner all time as the best ever would be the Taco Bell dog but he retired. I ate more tacos in the time he was in the commercials then I have in the years since he retired. All the Commercials I have mentioned can be found at www.youtube.com.
Thomas Wakerley
“The heartbeat of America”. “This is our country”. “Rethink American”. All of these slogans are used by car companies to advertise their vehicles. When someone sees these commercials, they get a patriotic feeling in them and think; sure, I’m going to go buy this, I support my country. What a lot of people don’t know is that many of these “American” cars are made outside of America. Recently, GM (Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Saturn) have really increased the amount of patriotism that they are showing in their commercials. These appeal to people’s emotions because of job losses and a lot of other things. To be qualified as “Made in America”, 75% of the vehicles parts have to be made within our borders (The Boston Globe). According to this, the Chevrolet Suburban, a typical large family SUV for many generations, is a foreign vehicle. Only 67% of the Suburban’s parts are made in America. On the other hand, the Toyota Camry, which most people refer to as an import car has an 80% domestic, parts content. The American vs. Import war has been going on for decades, and most people have taken a very simple view on it. According to Autoweb.com, the Toyota Sienna minivan is almost as “American” as the Chevy Silverado (85% vs. 90%). Another view to this car war is where the profits go. This is the view that most people take, even if it means supporting an American car that is assembled in Mexico than an import made in America. I personally believe that people should base their purchases on whether they like the car or not and the features that it has over what company it is made by. Recently, Cars.com released a list of the Top 10 American-Made Cars. Two of the top ten cars are from a foreign company, Toyota. Experts predict that there may be more foreign company cars invading that list. The Ford F-150 was the 1st place winner, and has been the best selling American vehicle for 31 years. I am almost positive that this is because of the quality of the vehicle, not the location of where it was made. I personally drive a 1997 Ford F-150, with 200K miles on it. The truck has been in my family for 9 years, and we have not had any problems with it. When I go shopping for a new vehicle, I don’t look at the brand or where it’s made, and I rarely pay attention to car commercials. I am looking to find the best vehicle for me, regardless of whether it is “American” or not.
_Ihor-Balaban
As women we are always looking for products to make us feel and look better. Whether it’s watching TV or reading magazines we constantly see these gorgeous women promoting makeup or clothes to make us think if we buy these items we will look like the models. Well we all know that one certain product isn’t going to make us models, but we hope that it will have an impact on our appearance, and make us feel good. One of my favorite advertisements is the Victoria Secret commericals, they have all this models promoting bras and they want you to get the impression that if you buy the bras your chest will become big and perfectly round. During the Super bowl they had a new Victoria Secret commerical, and the fact that they were showing it during the game was so promote to all the women that were watching.Other advertisements are those that are in the magazines promoting make-up. Alot of the time the companies have celebrities promoting the products. So when we see for instance our favorite actress or singer we get the impression that if they wear it, that it must be good.Well women are the ones that read these magainzes and are the ones that are buying the make-up, so it’s the perfect place for the advertisements. It’s not only the fact that beautiful models or actresses promote the make-up, perfume, bras or whatever it might be it’s more of the way they sell these products. Alot of the time they claim in the advertisements that only this product will lasts for hours, or this product is the best of all bests, or use this because Carmen Electra does. The point that I’m trying to make it that the bottom line is when we spend all this money on items, and we get home were not going to look like models. Even if the models or celebrities do use the product they have professionals helping them all the time, and probably never do their own make-up.These advertisements try to pursued women into buying things, and alot of the time it works. They know just where and when to advertise to promote their products.
~Catherine Mulcahy
A recent Nike shoe commercial has four different LeBrons James characters in it. Athlete LeBron, Kid LeBron, Business LeBron, and Wise LeBron are the four personalities of LeBron James. Nike has used the LeBron brands to sell millions of pairs of basketball shoes. Most basketball shoe advertisements use the same rhetorical appeal of ethos as Nike did with the LeBrons. Ethos uses the ethics or authority of a person to endorse a certain product or service an advertisement is directed at. For instance, Michael Jordan uses his own name to sell his shoes in excess of one hundred dollars a pair because he arguably the greatest basketball player that played the game. Everyone wants his shoes because they identify with his greatness and thus, his brand name. “Everyone wants to be like Mike.”
On the other hand, Stephon Marbury came out with his Starbury shoes. They are sold at Steve and Barry’s, a discount clothing store. These shoes, instead of being expensive, are sold for only fifteen dollars a pair. This allows the basketball shoe to be bought by virtually everyone and opens the market as well. Also, this shoe represents Stephon’s personality of a young New York street baller and is using his rugged childhood to sell his shoe to kids that are growing up like him. He has used his greatness as a basketball player, in addition to his popularity, to brand his shoes in order to sell them to a mass audience.
NBA super stars help boost shoe sales when they endorse these products. They target the youth in our communities in purchasing these shoes because children are easily persuaded by celebrity-endorsed products. Kids are the easiest target market to provide for. So the shoe companies take advantage of them and promote the old saying of “it’s got to be the shoes” heavily towards them. You can go to any basketball court and everyone has the LeBron’s or Kobe’s and try to play basketball just like them. These athletes are looked as role models and many of them abuse or lose their star status by associating themselves with sex scandals, gambling, and dog fighting. Scott Kanas
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Michael Jordan are the latest celebs to join Hanes. This isnt in support of the brand’s ComfortSoft Collection for men. Michael Jordan gets a receiving gift from Gooding. Gooding immediately tries on the underwear for himself and runs to tell Jordan about it. Jordan was surrounded by fans signing autographs, he had to stop for a second after he heard Gooding yelling, “I’m wearing your underwear!” It was probably embarrassing for Jordan to see his fans hearing Gooding yelling this out.
The second ad is “Meeting MJ”, features a smooth Gooding who is being briefed what not to do when meeting Jordan. He is not to touch Jordan’s soft shirt. Gooding was very excited about meeting the legendary basketball star, and Gooding grabs Jordan into a bear hug. Gooding recognizes the soft shirt that he was warned about and he starts telling Jordan how soft he is while squeezing his grip on the shirt.
The third TV spot, is the “Dressing room,” features Gooding alone in Jordan’s dressing room with the duffle bag. Gooding goes through the bag and finds a cereal box with Jordan’s photo, Jordan cologne, a basketball, and a Hanes Comfortsoft undershirt. Gooding tries on the undershirt and acts hilarious of Jordan playing basketball.
They wanted to clearly show that Hanes provides superior comfort and affordable style through a humerous TV execution. The execution allows Hanes to add freshness to the storyline while encouraging interaction between the brand and its consumers. There’s something a tiny bit depressing about seeing Cuba Gooding Jr. in a TV commercial. After all, the guy went from Oscar winner to…underwear spokesman? That’s gotta hurt. However, these new Martin Agency-created, Lost Planet-edited Hanes commercials featuring Gooding Jr. and Michael Jordan are quite good. Gooding, perhaps channeling a bit of his Jerry McGuire-esque charm, gets a bit Oscar spastic-like when he meets Jordan who’s wearing a Hanes t-shirt.
In a second spot, he thanks Jordan for gifting him a pair Hanes Comfort Soft Waistband boxers. It doesn’t go so well. But Gooding makes it work so well we like watching him as much as we like watching Jennifer Love Hewitt in her Hanes commercials.
By: Kayleigh Toombs
LeBron James has signed a six-year multimillion dollar marketing deal with the Coca-Cola Co. to be a key endorser of Sprite (First Coast News). In almost every ad that had to do with promoting the soft drink Sprite, Lebron James would be the spokesperson. Sprites catch phrase is “Obey Your Thirst.” Lebron James is one of the best basketball players around in the NBA now and he is an idol to several young children. When you see a star like Lebron James on a commercial you of course feel obligated to try that drink or at least I feel the need. The Sprite commercial always had the little puppet man racing or fighting Lebron James for a Sprite. He would always say obey your thirst fool at the end of the commercial. The ad that Im particularly focusing on is the one when Lebron is at a party and the hosts are handing out Sprites to the guests. They show the waiter with the last Sprite and Lebron and the small doll race after the Sprite doing whatever it took to get the last one.
To me I took that ad as whenever you are thirsty you need to quench your thirst with a Sprite. The fact that Lebron James drinks Sprite hundreds of other kids will begin to drink Sprite all because they want to be like Lebron James. Companies have realized this and now a days everything has a celebrity endorser. This ad actually did a great job with the whole humor aspect to it as well because they have Lebron James talking to a little puppet. To me that is humorous a 6’8” man is racing nothing more than a four inch doll with a fro to get a Sprite.
My opinion on the whole ad is different ever time I see one of the commercials. I like to watch the commercials because I like to see what they are going to do next. Im sure that through these commercials Sprite has seen a sky rocket in revenue cause Lebron is by far doing a better job at it than Kobe Bryant did before his sex scandal.
source-http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=7202
-Adam Smith
beer commercials have always made an impact as to what type of beer the consumer will buy. Most beer commercials focus on their own product and how refreshing it is. There are two beer manufacturers that seem to always be going at each others throats. These companies would be Bud Lite and Miller Lite. In recent commercials we see the Bud dalmatian jumping from the horse drawn wagon into the Miller truck. this is just the latest in the back and forth war between these two brands. The war between these two can be compared to the war between Pepsi and Coke. Miller claims that its product has a better taste and is less filling, whereas Bud focuses on the quality and history of their product. Several of the most memorable super bowl commercials come from these two companies. A couple of years ago Bud Lite blew me away when they came out with the magic fridge commercial. it shows a man putting his beer in a fridge and pulling a lantern making the fridge turn on the wall putting it in the next room. The occupants of the second room empty out the fridge and at the end you see those men bowing to the space in the wall where the fridge would appear praying for the fridge to reappear. Miller did a spoof on rock, paper, scissors last year when two men grab a bottle of Miller at the same time. they play a round of rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets the beer, and one man actually throws a rock at the other to knock him out. the man hit with the rock says, “I threw paper”, and the other man proclaims,” I threw a rock.” These kinds of commercials play on comedy to sell their product and it can be effective depending on when the commercial is aired. Beer commercials go back as far as i can remember beginning with the Bud-wies-er frogs nearly ten years ago. After the frogs Bud used a couple of other animals doing the same thing because of the effectiveness of the origional.
Frank Frost
Sex in advertisement.
Now a day’s more companies are using sex to help sell their products. They feel that sex sells. While you watch television you cannot see one commercial within one program that doesn’t have something to do with sex in it. Companies that sell perfume and cologne use sex to help. The AXE Company will spray the nerdy guy and put him around hot girls. Then all of a sudden every girl wants to rip his clothes off. So it gives the nerdy guys of the world that feeling that if they use that spray the girls will want them like that to. As the book The World is a Text said advertising is misleading. The Armani Company uses sex to sell their cologne by having a handsome guy and a beautiful lady half naked. They show that women are attracted to the guy because he smells so well. Another one Company that does such is Brittney Spears’ new perfume. In her commercial she has a guy dressed as cupid chasing after her through the woods, by doing so it shows that she is being chased because of the smell. Abercrombie and Fitch use sex not only in commercials but also in their store. They have pictures of guys with their shirts off with the Abercrombie jeans on, lying with pretty girls with all Abercrombie on from their shirts to their shoes. It makes you feel that you can only wear those clothes if you are as beautiful as the models.
Some time the advertising companies even stretch the truth especially when it comes to diet commercials. They show all the before and after of the people that used their product. However, since everybody is different you probably won’t necessarily get the same response. Most say in a couple of weeks you will see a change, but probably won’t. With showing all these skinny beautiful women getting guys with hot bodies, it makes you want to be like those women even if you’re not overweight. Now that everybody in Hollywood being anorexic looking it makes us normal people feel fat if we can’t be that size. By companies using beautiful women, it makes us put ourselves down because we don’t look like them.
Jen Crockett
What do people tune into the Super Bowl for, the game, the commercials, or to see who was attending the game? I watch the game, but the best part of the telecast is the commercials. But what do you look for in a Super Bowl ad for it to be the best, funny, realistic, fantasy, product? This year, the commercials sold for $2.7 million for thirty seconds on average (source: Fox.com). The best commercial that was on this year’s Bowl game was, by my standards, was the Budweiser commercial where the Dalmatian trained the Clydesdale that didn’t make the team a year ago and got him into shape to make the team this year because it shows that if you don’t finish where you want there may be another chance to get to where you want to be. I am not old enough to drink, but these ads each and every year are featuring the Clydesdale team of horses are among the best ads during the Super Bowl because they play with your emotions. As this commercial played it was playing with the emotions of hope, sorrow, and happiness. At the beginning, one year ago, there was two Clydesdales left to be picked from to form the team, the one that is not chosen is heartbroken and the Dalmatian that was watching the selection runs after the massive horse and begins training the horse with the Rocky theme playing in the background. That horse was chosen for the team this year, causing the best part of the ad, the Clydesdale giving the Dalmatian a high five. The emotion of hope was used at the beginning of the commercial and toward the end when the horses are being chosen and the end of the training. The ad was that the best horse would be chosen, but only one horse could fill the team. Sorrow was portrayed by the horse that did not make the team. The Dalmatian raised the spirits of this horse like a good friend would for me by talking with the horse and telling him that there is always another chance next year. Happiness is shown at the end of the ad when the horse with all of his hard work over the past year is chosen for the team. The Clydesdale gives credit where credit is due when he gives the Dalmatian a high five. I thought that the commercials this year really fell off the pace from recent years because they were not that good and really didn’t get a point across. There was only about five good commercials this year. The game was good, but my Patriots lost. Congrats to the Giants. T. Schneider
Advertisements are seen all around the world. Some people pay close attention to them while others simply blow them off and walk right passed them. Advertisements are a great way for company’s to get their product known and to get consumers to buy their product. I do indeed pay attention to advertisements. While reading a magazine, for instance, I notice the advertisements in between the articles and consider the products. When I see a new advertisement for lip-gloss that doesn’t rub off all day even when you drink off something, I want to go out and buy it to try it out. This tends to be the case with most consumers when they see a new product. Many advertisements can be brought about in different ways. While some messages within the advertisement seem harmless, there could be a great deal of meaning and thought put behind it. While looking for alcohol advertisements online, I found that a few different companies used the same approach. Vive Cuervo and sky blue, for instance, both included sex in one way or another in their advertisement. In Vive Cuervo there is a guy hugging a girl who is half naked in her bathing suit with a slogan saying “Pursue your daydreams.” This can only mean one thing, sex. Advertisements like to attach things to them to make you buy their product. Buy having this slogan, people will think that if hey drink this alcohol then they will be able to pursue their daydreams of sex. Sky Blue also has the same approach by having a girl standing in her bathing suit with her legs spread open holding a Sky Blue bottle looking a man. This advertisement also makes people think that if they drink this they will be able to have sex. I believe that advertisements are very persuasive towards people and the way they think about a product, no matter what it is. If you visually see something, it’s going to make you think in that way because the image is in your head. I truly believe in advertisements and think they are a great thing for company’s to get consumers to buy their products.
By: Lynnette Leimback
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