Critics commercial humor

INTRODUCCION
The following report analyses two different humour advertisements from the Mars Inc. company. The first one is considered a bad example as it raises a lot of controversy around it. And,the second one is a good example as consumers reacted positively to the message. The creativity concepts and the AIDA model will be used for the analysis.
SPEED WALKER – SNICKERS (Bad Advertisement)A humour commercial becomes ineffective when the message is misinterpreted. Such is the case with the Snicker 2008 TV advertisement launched by Mars Inc. in the United Kingdom. The target audiencefor this was males between 15 – 44 years of age. This spot was part of the campaign “Get some nuts” which had the objective to establish Snickers as the number one chocolate bar in the mind of theirtarget consumer.
The 30 second commercial featured Mr. T, best known as B.A. Baracus in the 1980’s TV series the A-Team, in a pickup truck harassing effeminate speed walker by telling him “Speedwalking. I pity you fool. You are a disgrace to the man race. It is time for you to run like a real man”. After saying this he starts shooting the man with a snickers machine gun. The commercial finishwith the campaign slogan “Get some nuts”.
Considering the hierarchy of advertising effect, this commercial is affective as it highlights the nut composition of the chocolate to increase consumers’preference. So, what went wrong? The first step is to analyse is the creativity of the commercial. One of the things that might go wrong with creativity is that it can be perceive as offensive. This isthe case for this advertisement; people found it offensive to homosexuals because of the violence shown towards the effeminate man. There were several complaints in the UK for the commercial and eventhough it did not air in the US there were over 200 complaints to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community). The company pulled off the advertisement after 3 weeks due to the...