Mercury Reader free essay sample

The ad that I have picked to analyze is the Hyundai Santa Fe â€Å"Big Game Ad†. The first time I ever saw this ad was on Pandora. com, and then once again in class as we were discussing different ads. This ad was also one of the ads that aired during the super bowl of 2013. This is a commercial about a boy who is bullied by a few other boys and is challenged to a football game. This commercial portrays the â€Å"underdogs† as winners because they are driving the new Hyundai. A few of the fifteen basic appeals this ad uses includes the need to aggress, need to achieve, need to dominate, and lastly, the need for autonomy. This commercial starts with a little boy who is playing with his football when a group of bigger boys come and take it from him. The little boy tries to get it back, but they tell him â€Å"come back when you have a team†. The boy decides to accept the challenge from the other boys. Soon after accepting the challenge, he runs into the house to get his mother. Then together, they get into the Hyundai they put their game faces on and start making rounds to get the little boys friends. The first two boys they stop to pick up are lifting weights in his driveway as they drive up. The two boys share similar qualities such as hair color so I’m assuming that they are brothers. They appear to be lifting a large amount of weight on the outdoor gym set. The next stop they make is to a garage to pick up a boy who is working on a car using fire with his dad. The fourth boy they stop to get is wrestling with a big grizzly bear. There is a huge crowd around the boy as he has the grizzly bear in a headlock using his legs. The last boy they picked was carrying a fully-grown man out of a burning building. After picking up all of the little boys in the Hyundai, the mother drops them off to play football with the group of bigger boys. The bigger boy from the beginning of the commercial who took the little boys football asked the smaller group if they wanted to play touch football or tackle. All of the smaller boys replied in unison that they preferred to play tackle football. After the boys reply, there is a voice over part providing information about the car being advertised. After this part, the commercial goes back to the two groups of boys and we see one of the smaller boys kick the ball, which ends up hitting one of the bigger boys in the head. This Hyundai commercial uses ethos and pathos very well. Pathos is used the most in this commercial because it makes people laugh and feel a sense of pride when the group of bigger boys gets what they deserve. Some people have even gone so far as to say that this is also an anti-bullying commercial. Ethos is displayed here because the Hyundai Car Company is one of America’s most trusted car companies. Hyundai is known for their safe, family friendly, comfortable, stylish cars. This particular Hyundai commercial uses four of the 15 basic appeals. It uses the need to aggress and we see this in two instances. The first instance we see the need to aggress is when the group of big boys takes the little boys football and will not give it back to him. The second instance we observe is when the smaller boy kicked the ball and hit the other boy in the head. The next basic appeal shown here is the need to achieve. The Hyundai car company wanted to achieve making the viewers want this car. They want everybody who sees this commercial to need this car because it will somehow better their current â€Å"self† because this car is such a success. The third basic appeal is the need to dominate. This occurs when the group of big boys take the smaller boys football. They feel the need to appear and feel more powerful than the smaller boy. We also see the need to dominate when one of the little boys is wrestling with a grizzly bear and is winning. The Hyundai Company wants us to feel that we are dominant if we are driving this car because it is bigger and better than all the rest of the cars out there. The last of the basic 15 appeals that is being portrayed in this commercial is the need for autonomy. The commercial sells the independence of the vehicle and that you can have it your way and don’t need to be a particular type of person to have this car. For example, all of the boys were tough; however, they are not all the same type of tough. One boy was fighting a bear, another was rescuing people from a burning building, and the other two were lifting weights. Gender roles in this commercial are very set. The commercial has all boys casted with the exception of the mother. The mother does not have any lines, and we only see her driving to pick up the other boys. The mom does; however seem to have an attitude. When we first see her driving, she does have her game face on, along with her son. Gender roles of the boys here is very masculine. The boys are playing football, which is known to be a sport for men, as opposed to playing soccer or maybe even tennis, which is not uncommon for women to play. The boys appear very strong, muscular, and athletic, unlike many other nine-year-old boys. All of the male roles in this commercial show boy as the dominant and strong gender due to their rugged appearance. The target audience is parents with lots of kids or parents who drive many kids around very often. The target audience also includes middle class families who can afford tis car. This Hyundai is not very expensive at all and it actually looks like the people who are riding in this car comes from an upper middle class family. In the commercial, we get a quick glance at the house the little boy lives in. It appears to be a nice family house with a garage with the Hyundai in the driveway. It looks like this family lives in the suburbs with a local park nearby where the boys were playing football. In the background of the park, there are many nice cars parked on the street and driving along the road. The clothes chosen for the actors to wear are nothing fancy, but definitely aren’t inelegant. All of the boys are wearing sneakers, maybe not name brand sneakers, but they are in good condition. They are also all wearing denim jeans and either a plaid shirt and tee shirt or just a regular shirt with a jacket. We only see the mothers’ upper half and she is wearing a nice grey sweater. The only other people in this commercial are the men gathered around the little boy wrestling the bear and the people being rescued from the fire. Those other people featured in this commercial are also just wearing jeans and a tee shirt or a plaid shirt. To some people, this Hyundai commercial may be very effective, but to me it is not effective at all. This commercial is very funny and entertaining and I love watching it, but that’s all it is. As I watch this commercial I pay attention to the story of the boys and not the car they are riding in. this ad is so ineffective that I after watching it several times, I couldn’t even remember what car company this ad was for. This commercial is not centered on the car, as opposed to the Volkswagen Beetle Convertible. The Beetle Convertible commercial is very entertaining and focuses on the car itself. The storyline ties into the fact that the car is a convertible. The Hyundai Company could take a note or two. It surprises me that some people are saying that this commercial is about bullying. I can see how they came to that conclusion. The little boy was being picked on by seven other boys who were much bigger and also appeared to be older. Even when the little boy showed up with his team, they were all still smaller in stature than the other group so it still appears that the smaller group is being bullied. Although the smaller group of boys was tougher than the other group, the bigger group was still picking on the smaller boys, however I don’t believe this commercial was targeting the issue of bullying. The Hyundai Santa Fe car seems like a nice affordable car with great features such as seating up to eight people comfortably. The â€Å"big game ad† commercial was very funny and entertained many people during the super bowl, however this ad was not very effective. The ad could have focused more on the car and less on the boys. If their goal was trying to leave a memorable impression, then they most certainly accomplished that, but if their goal was to make people remember the car, they failed.