You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Gofer Cakes – a delicious, chocolatey desert cake!
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
… I mean, Gofer Cakes are bad, don’t eat ’em, get some exercise … or something.
I have to wonder how much the people filming this commercial were aware of what their footage was supposed to be for. ‘Cause this was supposed to be a Public Service Announcement warning against overindulging on junk food, and instead encouraging kids to get some exercise. It mimics the style of a junk food commercial (using the fictional snack Gofer Cakes), but that’s for the purpose of parody – the idea is it starts off like an ad Hostess or Nabisco might have made, only to switch to showing how unappealing it really is to gorge yourself on this junk.
But that switch doesn’t quite happen. I can see where it was meant to happen – when the kids start turning dozens of Gofer Cakes into a kitchen ruining mess, we’re supposed to find it thoroughly disgusting. And if it were adults in the commercial, that might come across. But these are kids – kids are going to make messes. Hell, most kids enjoy making messes. Your average kid seeing this isn’t going to think the Gofer Cakes party is gross – they’re going to think it seems like a hell of a fun time.
And as for the kids all sprawled out at the end … look, I get they’re meant to be so overstuffed that they can’t summon the will or energy to move. It’s like an anti-drinking ad showing people partying and having fun, then cutting to them waking up hungover the next day in a pool of their own vomit. But they didn’t go far enough to really sell that – for that angle to work, you’d need to linger on the kids for a while longer, show them moaning, clutching their stomachs in discomfort, make it clear they are paying the piper for their earlier fun.
But with how quick that ending shot is, and with how much hyperactive fun the kids were having earlier, it comes across more like they’re just tuckered out after such an exciting time. The ad’s trying to convince kids to exercise so they don’t end up like this, but I could see a bunch of kids, after a particularly intense game of basketball, sprawling out in much the same way, letting themselves recover from all the intense fun they were just having.
What I’m saying is, this ad did not make me want to eat healthier or exercise more. It did, however, make me wish Gofer Cakes were a real thing.