Bingo Biscuits...

Erine says...

Hmm... I don't know whether the mall meeting was intended to bring some humor into this ad or just mainly an attention grabber targeted for teens. What I do know though is that the ad's abruption (surprise factor) is rather insulting on the part of the women since the guy who brought Bingo cookies got turned off when he saw a fat girl in pink and thought she was the one he was supposed to meet. What the execution basically shows is the fact that there are certain - shall we say - imperfections in society (e.g. homosexuality, plain simple ugliness and obesity) that we find unappealing and that we would rather avoid them, but then again, why show them? If a fat person (forgive me for the term) would watch that TV commercial... just try to guess what his (or in this case, her) reaction would be?

Sure the execution is not sexually implicit, I'll say that much for it, but then again what does showing a mall meeting have to do with the crunchiness of Bingo cookie sandwiches? These are snack foods that are being advertised, so if the client company or agency believes that crunchiness of Bingo cookie sandwiches is the unique selling proposition for this product, then show it in a straightforward manner!

One last thing before I finish this entry: If you want a great example of a snack food advertisement, then look for the old Chippy TV ads. If some of you remember that one where a barkada watches a horror flick then suddenly a white lady appears and steals their last bag of Chippy, you'll know what I mean. At the end of that commercial, the guys decide to go after her - completely disregarding the fact that they are up against a ghostly figure, since its THEIR chips that she stole! Now, that's a great commercial! ^_^

Here's something useful that our group found in the Philippine Advertising Code of Ethics, Check it out:

Advertising Code of Ethics – Art. IV, Sec. 2, # 2

“Neither should advertisements directly or indirectly disparage, ridicule, criticize or attack any natural person or groups of persons especially on the bias of gender , social or economic class, religion, race or nationality.”

In layman's terms: Don't put any messages that can insult certain types of people (in this case, overweight people)

Bottomline: Spank this ad! Not becuase its sexually implicit but because the execution simply has nothing to do with the brand's unique selling proposition! (The ad is unethical because it carries an insulting message).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm... Ok, if you say so. But you know, your entry did remind me of what they used to do in Bubble Gang: Those guys would make fun of gays and ugly girls.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

To anonymous who said "Hmm... Ok, if you say so. But you know, your entry did remind me of what they used to do in Bubble Gang: Those guys would make fun of gays and ugly girls.":

Here's something to help you out:

Most of the guys who posted comments say that this ad is insulting for women primarily becuase it shows that fat people (in this case, the fat girl), are the kind of people we'd avoid getting seen with. In other words, the ad is discriminatory on the part of the fat person, not tomentino insulting as well. You should also check out the cited Advertising Code of Ethics section that I cited.

And yes, its true: it does remind me of that bubble gang joke. Thanks!