This commercial is one of those typical ones meant to be for adults, but advertised through children. A car is not sold to children usually, since they can not drive nor afford it. Still this commercial targets the child instead of the adult. Children love their stuffed animals and take them anywhere. When they see this commercial they will be telling their parents to get a car just like that, so their animal friends can travel safe with the rest of the family.
On the other end of the equation, parents will also be attracted to this car, since it shows that all the kid´s toys have space in it. Space is a really important factor in a car purchase. It is shown in this commercial on a playing level instead of cold just informative statistics. This is a more persuasive way, since it is indirect and not ethos directed. It is a good idea to knock on the pathos door if you want to sell your product to a family mom of two children, for example. A mom might just see the commercial and would want to be that mom - so she buys the car.
Chevrolet did a very good job creating a commercial which is interesting to everyone in a family. Especially the targeting to children is very good. As we learned children are the future customers and are more and more the focus of the marketers. With this commercial we find a video which shows in almost the whole length just little girl and her lively stuffed animals. Children think the same way and will love that the car protects them also and has enough space for all of them. Parents are just the secondly targeted group, since they will consider this car because of their children.
The question for me is: Is it ok if we use children in commercials and is it ok to target clearly to them? After all they are just children who do not earn money and should not be able to buy bigger things without their parents. As the situation is right now children are mostly the focus of TV-commercials. I believe we should stop that, so our children can grow up in a better environment without constantly being influenced by commercials.
(for the link of the commercial please just type "chevy stuffed animals 2013" on the youtube website, since i just can not open the link with blog post. Sorry!)
I agree that children should not be the main focus of television commercials. It exposes them to too much at such a young age and influences them in ways that are above their ages. I believe that it is wrong to feature children and target them because they are too young and innocent to form their own opinions without outside influences.
ReplyDeleteKatharina, I also think we should stop targeting children. However, this is easier said than done. These commercials sell our products all over the world in order to fuel our society. As you said, children are easily influenced but I think that parents can be even more easily influenced. By placing a baby or child in these advertisements, marketers are also engaging the primal nurturing instinct of mothers. Naturally, many women, especially mothers, are easily distracted by the appearance of a baby. And currently, women have much of the consumer power because of our rising financial independence.
ReplyDeleteI like your point and I agree with it. Many women, and I have to include myself in this group, are naturally drawn towards children pictures or videos. I mean how many instagram pictures or videos have I liked just because of a baby in it. And marketers are basically just using this to keep the women´s focus on the advertisement. For example on youtube I am not as much tented to skip a commercial if it has a baby in it.
DeleteI think that including children in advertisements can often be very successful for the company but also u see how it can give a child a certain view on things, such as the importance of materialism, that can affect how they grow up. Similarly, you could question whether or not it's right to include a child in a movie where they have to cuss or be an an otherwise unacceptable position. In my opinion neither including them in commercials or movies about their he range is right, but it certainly does help sell things.
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