Offensive Advertising Term Paper

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Offensive Advertising

Theme: The use of popular entertainment figures in print, on television, and on the Internet to sell sugar to children

Print Advertising: Kellogg's Star Wars Pop Tarts

Who could be more worthy of one's trust than the wise, kindly figure of Star Wars' young Obi Won Kenobi (embodied by the actor Ewan MacGregor) when he is fighting the Dark Forces of destruction embodied by the mature, black-mask encased Darth Vader? A recent advertising campaign for Kellogg's pop tarts deployed just such a popular media figure to sell Pop Tarts to children. "Toast up this Jedi Snack!" It shouted from the printed page. In the advertising campaign for the pop tarts, the name of Star Wars is not merely invoked to make Kellogg's Pop Tarts seem more attractive or tasty for breakfast. Rather the new 'Wildberry' flavor of the tart and the images movie are melded into one, erroneously implying that by eating a sugary snack, one can magically become a wise and well-endowed, physically speaking, Jedi Knight. The tarts are not merely endorsed by Star Wars characters, rather they are 'Star Wars' tarts and thus part of the film's imaginary universe and George Lucas' created world -- or so the advertisement implies.

A vision of the print ad is accessible on the cereal and breakfast food company's website at (http://www.kelloggs/) and shows how, by eating products form the Star Wars campaign a child can become part of the galactic universe, by eating in a so-called epic fashion. The Star Wars tarts themselves are actually fairly standard, no more endowed with nutrition or energy than other flavors of Pop Tarts such as the Kellogg Cereal Company's S'mores flavors or Frosted Blueberry Pop Tarts flavors.

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The Star Wars tarts are not fortified, in other words, with extra nutritional substances, even sprayed-on vitamins that give the tarts the added capacity for a child to have more endurance either on the playground or gripping a light saber. The tarts' extra features are their connections to Lord Vader and Obi Won's fight to the death, and they are merely are supposed to have a Lava Berry explosion of delight in the mouth as their extra, added feature of strength and fortification. The tarts themselves, marketing aside, are frosted chocolate tarts filled with sugary raspberry/blueberry/blackberry blended jelly and topped with colorful sprinkles. Darth Vader looms over the image of the two tarts. Each tart bears two bites, presumably from his mouth, or presumably he is longing for this dark chocolaty version of the better side force he abandoned beneath his mask.

The 'wildberry' flavor presumably refers to the dark knight's wildness, and Star War's wildness, although it is admittedly unclear how wild the sugar rush will last, post-consumption, only that the child is assured he or she will become a Jedi eating the treat. Even the two-tart serving advertised is misleading, as the nutritional information given in small letter is for one tart.

Television Advertising: Those Frosted Flakes are not so GREAT for your waistline….....

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