By Jared Hinderer
In the wake of the Super Bowl, the game itself seems to always be looked over as talk of the halftime show and advertisements persists, most importantly, the advertisements. While I am no professional in advertising, I seem to notice a trend when it comes to advertising, and I like it.
The trend I notice in many commercials now is that seeming very little focus is placed on showing the features or attributes of the product being advertised. Instead a humorous or touching story is played out while sneaking in features of products. This trend is especially prevalent in car commercials.
Take the “Space Babies” commercial from Kia, advertising their Sorento SUV. In this commercial, a child’s voice from the back seat of an SUV hooks you with the infamous question of, “Dad, where do babies come from?” and at this point the father begins a humorous tale explaining to his child that babies come from a distant planet, and arrive on earth after a nine month journey. Cute, right? This whole time, you unknowing become drawn into the tail, watch all the way to end where it shows the family, with a new baby, driving in their 2014 Kia Sorento. When the boy starts with explaining how he heard babies were made, his father quickly gave a voice command to Kia’s UVO system telling it to play music from his USB in the car.
In this commercial Kia sneaks in that their car has a voice activated entertainment center with USB interface, while eluding to the fact that the car is well suited for young and growing families, and even shows off that the car looks good driving through suburban neighborhoods.
Another company that used this technique effectively is Doritos. Doritos is almost always ranked highest on top ten countdowns all over. Doritos focuses on humor to get their name talked about for weeks after the big game. Most notably their “Goat 4 Sale” commercial this year. Did they tell you that Doritos taste amazing and you should go get some? No, but what they did do is give you a funny commercial to talk about.
Advertising is constantly changing, and it’s changing for the better. Commercials now provide humor and stories that make most of them a bearable, dare I say even enjoyable, break to your regular programming.