Unethical Wal-mart Christmas Commercial?
November 19th, 2010I recently saw a Walmart commercial on TV that I thought was a bit unethical. I think it’s a rather new one and I unfortunately can’t find it on youtube to show on my blog. I’ll do my best to just describe it.
A couple come home with lots of bags and presents, and it’s implied that it’s the night before Christmas. They begin setting everything up (ie. the presents under the trees) while the captions say things like “you can get THIS at Wal-mart for THIS PRICE”. Towards the end, they plop down in two armchairs, clearly exhausted, and the camera shows milk and cookies for Santa left out by their daughter. The father then drinks the milk while the mother tackles the cookies. The camera then pans on their daughter, arms crossed, glaring at them. The caption then shows something along the lines of “and milk and cookies, for this price”.
While some kids at a young age may not understand the gist of the commercial, this advertisement could very well ruin Santa’s “being real” for children who believe. Of course, Wal-mart’s target market is adults, specifically parents of young children, but that doesn’t stop those young children from seeing the commercial. Way to potentially ruin Christmas for a number of young kids, Wal-mart.