I work in a phone room on campus and it's probably one of the greatest jobs ever because of the people I work with. Almost everyday my coworkers show me some sort of video clip, picture, or song they encountered while "working." The other day my coworker, Cameron, showed me a commercial for Ragu. It shows a kid going to his parents bedroom and through the lyrics in the song playing and the look on the kid's face, you know his parents are "doing it."
I didn't particularly care for the commercial (whoopsy), but I think it was interesting how a pasta sauce company would promote their product this way saying that it's a good way to get through a "long day of childhood." I guess Ragu is trying to reach out to children so that they will annoy their parents at the grocery store to buy Ragu sauce, but personally I don't think it works. What do you think? Are they trying to reach out to a child audience or adult audience to let parents think they can save their children from awful things that happen to them by simply giving them Ragu's sauce?
That's so interesting! I have always wondered the same thing about commercials geared toward children. If anything, a lot of commercials for "kids products" just annoy me, and turn me off from ever wanting to spend money on whatever the product is. I'm curious what sort of research has been done to find out how well those types of commercials work. It's not like the kid is the one who's going to go out and buy the Trix at the grocery store, after all.
ReplyDeleteBut this particular commercial is especially unique, because I don't think a young child would necessarily grasp the humor, or make the connection between what's happening and the little catch phrase at the end. I feel like this commercial is geared more toward adults, if anything...maybe trying to humorously guilt them into buying Ragu for their kids? Who knows...but I really don't see how they intended for that to work...I'm certainly not sold! :) Interesting post!
I don't understand this commercial, either. I think it is supposed to be humorous for adults, making them want to buy it. I wouldn't have understood what was really going on in this commercial when I was a kid. The adults are the ones buying it, like Catherine said, so I think this particular commercial is geared more towards them.
ReplyDeleteAnother possibility is that it could be another ad using sex appeal to sell their product. I don't really know how that would work in this case, because nothing sexual was actually shown, but that seems to be a trend these days.