Bill Schaff
Professor Leake
Writ 1133
April 5, 2013
Food
Advertisements
Food advertisements work in many
different ways with many different meanings but every company uses
advertisements to make their product look the best.Companies can do this by
comparing their products to another companies to make theirs look better, talk
about the amazing features in their products, and for food especially,
companies portray how healthy their product is. A great company to look at the
different kinds of advertisements, ones that work for and against them, is
Burger King. Burger King portrays their food as cheep, great tasting, and high
quality whereas many advertisements against Burger Kind show their food to be
the complete opposite.
Starting
with an advertisement that Burger King made to positively show the Whopper.
First
off, this advertisement is extremely simple. It is made to have your eye drawn
directly to the center of the advertisement where the food is and where the
writing is. As soon as you look at this add you see that the burger does not
fit into the box and you see the text below it. The food and text are basically
the only two things on the advertisement so people can quickly get the entire
meaning out of it. Next is how this advertisement plays into gender roles.
Typically an advertisement trying to focus on women will be light colored and
have some sort of health related thing on the advertisement. This is doing the
complete opposite. The black background with contrasting colors is playing to
the roles of men. Typically men are not concerned with health qualities but
rather a bigger bang for their buck. This advertisement is doing just that; it
is showing men that by buying a Whopper they are getting more than if they would
buy a Big Mac. The last main feature in the advertisement is how Burger King is
putting them selves as better than McDonalds. By Burger King putting their
iconic burger in McDonalds iconic burger box and showing that it does not fit
really show how they are making their burger seem better. They are not directly
saying that they are better than McDonalds but it is implied in the way that
they have made this advertisement.
The next food
advertisement is one that is playing against Burger King.
This advertisement is
actually an online advertisement that is showing the actual verses advertised
Whopper. This advertisement is a bit more complex than the last one but uses
many of the same features. The first feature in this advertisement is what your
eye is drawn to. Initially when looking at this your eye is drawn to the images
of the burgers. Without any context you immediately think that the burger on
the left looks much more appetizing than the two on the right. Then people will
read the writing above the burgers and see that the burger on the left is the
advertisement Whopper burger whereas the two on the right are what one
individuals actual burger looks like. This advertisement is designed for mainly
a shock and awe purpose. People are supposed to look at this advertisement and
not want to eat at Burger King. The audience for this advertisement is
basically anyone who eats at Burger King. It is out there to show everyone what
Burger King is really like and why he or she should not eat there.
Looking at both of these
advertisements one thing clearly jumps out about food cultures and values in
our society. This is the importance of pictures in advertisement. In both the
advertisements for and against Burger King, pictures are mainly telling the
whole story. They are what people look at first and they are what people will
remember about that advertisement. If advertisements did not have pictures than
they would not be as memorable or meaningful to their audiences. Imagine the
second advertisement, the one against Burger King, with no pictures. The way
that they would make the advertisements would be only with words. Words can
paint a powerful meaning but it is not as lasting as a picture is. This
advertisement would now sound something like, Burger Kings advertised Whopper:
Large, Juicy, Fresh, Mouth Watering, and something that no American can live
without. On the other side of the advertisement would say something like:
Reality. Dry, Week Old Ingredient, Small, Appalling, Might Kill You. I have
made an amateur sketch of what I think it would look like.
With out any
pictures people cannot really get the full understanding of what the
advertisement is trying to portray.
All
in all, food advertisements are something that we see on a regular basis. They
are something that we interact with regularly and do persuade us on how we feel
about that specific food. The main problem with food advertisements in today’s
society is the advertisement versus reality. It seems like more and more these
two do not match.
1. Bill analyzes the functions of these two ads by comparing what is advertised of Burger King's whopper, and what the reality is. He discusses how Burger King's goal is to attract customers by making their product look appealing, especially to men(based on the ad's layout). However, he brings in another ad whose goal is the complete opposite; to show customers that they will NOT get what they pay for. I agree with Bill's analysis, as many of the fast food chains will do almost anything to make their product look tastier that it actually is, and look better than it actually does.
ReplyDelete2. Based on his analysis, Bill observes that pictures are indeed worth a thousand words. He discusses how people may remember ads that are text heavy, but are more likely to remember ads with mostly pictures, as physical images are what stick out the most to us.
3. The only thing I would add to the observation is how certain foods from certain companies target different genders, like how the whopper alludes more to men than women.
4. For revision, I would proofread the essay, as there were a few grammatical errors, and some confusing sentences that could easily be amended by adding a comma, or adding/taking out a couple words here and there. But overall, very well executed essay with great topic points!
First off, this essay was written very nicely and had a lot of good details put into it. In the essay, two sides of Burger King are presented, one that shows what the advertisers what you to think the food looks like, and what the food actually looks like in reality. The explanations of the two advertisements were spot on and were presented in a manner that made a clear picture. Bill states that the values and cultures of the advertisements places an emphasis on the words in the ads to help portray what the advertisers want the consumers to get from it. In addition, the first ad presented gender stereotypes and how the burger was a man's type of food, and not geared too much toward women. To add to the observations about food values and cultures, you could talk about how there is a stigma for fast food in general about being very unhealthy, even though it is cheap and convenience. People are becoming more conscious of calorie counting and their weight as well. The only thing I would suggest is to maybe elaborate more on the comparisons that Burger King makes to McDonalds and maybe try to see if they have done the same thing. However, I think the essay was very well written and thought you made great points!
ReplyDelete4. Any other questions or suggestions for revision?