Commercial Watching

This assignment reminded me of one we had during my Mass Media class except we had to write down what every commercial was for and then see if it was directed towards the same audience as our show. So it’s kind of fun to have all of this come back and do a similar assignment – minus all the writing.

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I actually found the commercial that aired during an MTV show was really ironic. For starters, I was watching True Life – “I like being overweight” (or something of the sort). It was, surprise, about people who liked the shape that they were, even though doctors advised against it, and their lives.

So then, right after the show cut to a commercial came Jenny Craig! It was a newer one though, not the typical one where that woman calls Jenny and talks about all the weight she lost. It was Queen Latifah appearing at the very beginning of the commercial and she said that was going to be taking the first step to improving her health with Jenny Craig. It then showed others cheering her on and telling her that they’ve done it too.

The whole thing kind of made me laugh at first because it seemed as though it was aligned right after True Life on purpose, but once I started to think about it some more, it was a pretty wise decision. I mean really, the audience for True Life is teens/young adults and they might be any size, but are still watching an episode based around over-weight people. And so to put a commercial on afterwards that points in the direction of losing weight and being healthy is pretty smart! I also liked that Jenny Craig focused on having a spokeswoman that just at the beginning stage. It made it seem like you could work on losing weight along side her, which will connect more to their intended audience than say someone who has already reached their goal.