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K-fee commercial is ridiculous, but remarkable

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After watching this video clip, I thought this commercial was a joke or maybe a parody of K-fee’s beverage commercial shot by others to prank whoever clicks on this clip on Youtube. However, I was surprised and in fact speechless when I found out that this video clip is the ORIGINAL version of K-fee’s commercial for its coffee drink.   When I saw this, the first thing I asked myself was “why would a company agree on advertising and bring their product to the public like this?”, “Is it considered an appropriate commercial for a product of this sort?”, “Is this the effect that the company really want, scaring the audiences every time it’s shown on TV?”.

The commercial starts with a white, clean, regular sized car travelling down the slope in the forest in a steady speed. Throughout this commercial, there isn’t any close shot of the car, but I (possibly unconsciously) seem to be convinced by the commercial’s atmosphere, as of this car is a safe, durable, and indeed a credible /reliable vehicle for our today’s transportation especially for long distance travelling. The commercial mainly focuses on the road trip, the car itself, and the green environment, nothing related to the beverage at all, which appears to be supporting the fact that this commercial intends to introduce and advertise a car to its target market. Therefore, my first impression of this commercial is it’s trying to sell a car to the audience, but I realized I was wrong until the very end of the clip, where a frightening zombie suddenly pops out, starts screaming at you and afterwards showing a picture of K-fee coffee drink at the very end. Then I figured out this commercial isn’t about a car, but instead it’s about K-fee’s coffee beverage. It was totally unexpected as I can say.

It was hard for me to take sides of deciding whether the company benefits or is harmed from the use of this kind of marketing strategy. Well, I personally believe that this commercial doesn’t deliver any messages to audiences nor provide single information about the product. For instance, it never mentioned about the taste, price, or what makes it different from other coffee brands, and why we should choose K-fee’s coffee over other options. Moreover, it even gave audiences the wrong impression of what it’s trying to advertise.  However, I got to admit. I never paid real close attention to the beginning of this commercial when I first watched it because it wasn’t interesting and it appears to be just like those typical boring commercials shown on TV, which hardly grabs people’s attention. Yet, when the zombie screamed real loud, the commercial caught my attention right away, and when I looked at it, I saw K-fee coffee drink. Thinking over and over again, my assumption of why K-fee use this to advertise its coffee is because the corporation wants to suddenly catch audiences’ attention, and when they do, they immediately present them with a picture of K-fee product, so it can be directly incorporated into audience’s mind. As a result, the only thing that consumers could possibly remember throughout the commercial is the scream and the product.

I watched this video clip 4 years ago and I still remember it till now. It has done a great job in letting viewers remembering this commercial, but not a good job in letting them know more about the product. All I can say is “this commercial is ridiculous, but remarkable.”

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Celebrity Endorsements

Every day as I commute to school by public transportation such as Translink, and Canada line, I always come across and see advertisements with non-celebrative people on ads endorsing for a wide range of products or services.  For example, I usually see an ad campaign mounted on Canada line’s skytrain from a travel agency, using flight attendants to represent and endorse its services to the public. In addition to using non-celebrative figures, other companies like Beard Papa, a well-known franchise which mainly sell dessert products like cream puffs, uses their own franchise managers to publicize its product to its consumers.

Celebrity endorsement has been a widely used in marketing strategies nowadays and is successful, to some extent, in advertising. When companies use celebrity endorsements, they cause many people to subconsciously create a connection between the celebrity and its product, therefore persuading consumers to follow the trend; possibly believing that “if a celebrity uses such a product, it must be exceptional”. Perhaps, companies who rely on celebrities, who are highly recognized by almost everyone, could possibly define the company’s market position and able to build their reputation and brand in the market in a short period of time.

However, I personally think it’s not a good idea to always use celebrity endorsements to advertise a products or a service. If a company uses a highly recognized celebrity, for instance, Britney Spears, to endorse for goods or product line, in this case Pepsi, it would negatively affect the company because the celebrity is extremely famous that all audience’s focus and attention now goes to the celebrity and the product is forgotten. *1

However, the travel agency and Beard Papa’s ads on the skytrain was a brilliant and successful idea because these non-celebrative people that were chosen, not only relates to the product that they represent for,  but also create similar effects as celebrity endorsements and all attention would now be focused on the company’s products or services.

*1: Main idea based on the following article: http://arunkottolli.blogspot.com/2006/07/celebrity-endorsments-as-strategy.html

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