Watching the clip above you can probably tell this will be another blog discussing humor and rhetoric. This commercial is from the 2010 Super Bowl, and I’m sure most people find the video hilarious. You have Betty White on the field playing football with a bunch of grown men getting tackled like one of the guys only to find out that she’s really what ‘Mike’ becomes when he’s hungry. The sight of elderly men and women being trampled was a great way of getting a laugh out of America.
Lets analyze the rhetoric behind the commercial. Because of
the fact that it is funny, as viewers and consumers we now have a positive
feeling associated with Snickers bars and the company behind the ad. There is also Ethos just in Betty White’s presence
alone. A famous figure, her being in the commercial alludes to the fact that
she enjoys and promotes snickers bars. The overall message is clear. Mike eats
the snickers and returns to his normal self, no longer playing like a female.
This ad, along with a series of Snickers ad says “you aren’t yourself when you’re
hungry!” What a great way to capture an audience because this fact is undeniably true. We know from tests, studies, and just from personal experiences
that our productivity depends on food that acts as fuel for our bodies. They
show us that a quick and easily portable snack can make all the difference.
How effective was this commercial? In my
opinion, it was a very successful ad. It was successful in the way that they chose
to reflect appropriate humor that would appeal to nearly all ages. It was
successful because it included a figure that most people over 16 years of age
could identify, and lastly because it relayed a message that most of the people
watching would agree with. Sometimes, with humorous commercials the message is
so far fetched that we cannot take it seriously. I think this ad was a perfect
example of a humorous yet effective commercial.
That commercial will forever be one of my favorite Super Bowl commercials. Like you said, there is something so inherently funny about old people getting trampled. I think it's akin to the instinct we nearly all have to laugh when someone falls, granted that we don't know them too well and the injury doesn't appear to be too serious. I wonder what this fact says about us and our perception of humor. Probably that, for some reason, pain is innately funny to us because we have all been in that embarrassing position before. Back on topic, I think the ad was so successful because it not only capitalized on this humor phenomena, but used an iconic figure and got a across the message you touched on, that being hungry really detracts from your work. Betty White in any commercial is pretty good, if you've seen this year's Super Bowl commercial with her in a bath robe, you'll know what I'm talking about.
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