After searching far and wide, I decided to blog about one of the Super Bowl ads I saw this past Super Bowl. It was a PepsiMax commercial entitled “Love Hurts”. The entire ad was about how a woman in a relationship prevented her fiancé or husband from eating high calorie foods. There are multiple scenes where she takes away food, destroys the food, and etc. At the end the husband figure is drinking a PepsiMax and sees his wife drinking only to realize that PepsiMax has no calories.
As funny as this commercial may be, it has a message and was created in a purposeful way which I will share with you through this blog. The Pepsi Company first starts with a Pathos appeal and it shown through the “pain” of the man who cannot eat “tasty” foods. As men, unable to eat the food we want and having to diet with our partners in relationships or even dieting by ourselves can be a challenge. No matter how we try to hide it, someone will catch us in the act and will either make us feel guilty or make us eat healthy.
In the midst of this pain, Pepsi says that we can find relaxation and relieve our diet stresses with a PepsiMax. This is clearly shown when the husband figure is drinking PepsiMax, thinking it was a regular soda, until he saw his wife drink it which made him realize that it had zero calories. In addition to Pathos, the Ethos is shown through the name PepsiMax and having the Max instead of diet really changes some peoples’ perception of zero calorie drinks and takes away the “bad taste” mentality towards diet drinks.
Let me know what you guys noticed too.
Really funny commercial! Also, like you pointed out, I think Pepsi using max is much more appealing to men and people in general than diet. I think the wife in the ad serves as reinforcement of the product's diet status and the husband assures its "maximum taste." Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI agree, this commercial was effective during the Superbowl. So many times are people turned off by the "diet" in drinks because, well frankly, they usually don't taste all that great. Substituting the "diet" word with a word like "max" is effective in that not only does it force people to think that maybe this will taste better than the frumpy "diet" drink, but also that it can be more manly for men to purchase, whereas men drinking "diet" drinks could look feminine and unappealing.
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