Commercial vs. Reality
I bet everyone noticed the unfair difference
between what we see in commercials and what we see in the reality. Every time
when you are inspired by a bright
commercial of a perfect big-mac or fries you face the situation when the actual
food on your tray differs a lot from what you were promised.
Source: http://www.obligation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ads-vs-reality-fast-food.jpg
It is a pretty common solution for the whole food
branch as PR departments have no other choice but to make actual products more
appealing to the general public. Probably you’ve already seen numerous pictures of how the actual food
commercial is made (if not, I’ve put a video of McDonalds Big Mac below).
Right, looks like a piece of art – so much
work, money, and human resources were
engaged in making one burger, definitely more than the net worth of one actual
Big Mac you eat on your way to the university or work.
Also, below you can see a video on the topic – why
does fast food look so bad in comparison to advertisements. To be honest, there is no much explanation,
however, still it is pretty funny to see how the workers of the restaurants are
trying to replicate the ideal commercial look of the food.
Source: https://youtu.be/XrZFM2nvLXA
So here are
questions:
1. Have you
ever felt fooled by bright commercial that the real food decreased your appetite?
2. What
products, besides fast-food, do have this kind of dilemma?
Comments
The greatest example of differences of picture and reality are items from china and those available in online shops, there was multiple articles about that. Here is one of them: http://www.se.pl/styl-zycia/moda-i-uroda/tak-wygladaja-sukienki-z-chin-w-rzeczywistosci-nigdy-nie-kupuj-chinskich-ubran-w-internecie_559386.html.
I expect more respect and following some standards, because there is a line that should not be crossed. It annoys customers and sooner or later they will not buy there because there is a lot of competition in the market.
Personally I don't feel any "cheated" because the cheeseburger looks differently on a photo and on my plate. Especially when it comes to mcdonald, where cheeseburger costs 4zł and I know that a main advantage of this fast food restaurant is that it's FAST and cheap. So I don't really care how it looks and I don't thing it looks any disgusting, just normal :P When I go to fancy restaurant I DO expect them to serve me food that is 1. tasty and 2. good looking :D Because the price and time of awaiting is way longer :)
According to your second question, I think most of things are pimped up in our marketing-oriented world ;) Any ad you see is one big lie, what the product looks like, what ingredients they put in (ex. strawberry yoghurt). That's even more disturbing, because sometimes when you read ingredients you can see that there is like 0,5% strawberries in the yoghurt ;D
Baudrillard claims that it's a tool of power, keeping it in the hands of certain people and distracting the public from the fact that TPTB's power is actually non-existent and could be easily taken away from them. It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory but it's mostly true; we are governed by forces we don't even realise could rule our lives: pharmaceutical industry, mass media, beauty industry, to name just a few.
The sad conclusion is that we can't live with it but we can't live without it either :P
However, I agree with Marcin - Asian clothes are the worst. While you can easily see the food that you order (most of the time), you don't have this possibility when you buy something online. The photos there are fantastic, and when you receive the item, it looks nowhere near to the photo: the fabric is cheap, it doesn't fit, etc. I bought a jacket from Asia from Ebay once, and it was horrible. I would never buy such item again.
Yeah, it is a really sad conclusion :)
However, in the era of internet shopping it's not easy to verify every feature of the product we wanna buy. And that's the area where dishonest and greedy salesman could cheat us. Especially in sale products like clothes or electronics.
So, it's always good to be carefull with buying something.
I belive this kind of dilemma concerns every product being promoted by visual ads. Sometimes the differences are just less striking. PR companies always present products in favouring circumstances, for example clothes are always worn by beatiful models, cars are driven in stuning scenery. Our role is to filter it out : )
I think it is a pretty common solution for the all branches, not only food.
Your film's examples show whole phenomenon really good.
Unfortunatelly that's the truth.
Its just, as you said, a way for people to buy McD's. PR success in its finest.
As to the 2nd question as Natalia said, I think youghurt ads are so "overmade". With all those whole fruits in them, and juicyness. But when you buy them its 3rd grade fruit blended into a yoghurt
Naaah! I mean i really don't care about the looks of McDonald's/Burger King burgers - they taste the same all the time so the only reason i come to this places is to quickly kill my animal hunger with something i know very well and am sure how it will taste. If I somehow know what is inside of that junk food i really think that looks is the least important thing in that. And by the way - it HAS TO look good in the commercials, we are used to everything looking good in tv/on billboards etc. So if it looked bad, then we realy would care, wouldn't we? :D
2. What products, besides fast-food, do have this kind of dilemma?
Hmm actually i don't have anything particular in my mind... Maybe some printed stuff?
Here is an older video from the popular series "Buy Me That" where a "makeup artist for food" shows how she to make burgers and fries look great for a photoshoot. And it isn't a video made by Mcdonalds ;)
And here and here you can learn about various techniques used for different types of food.
http://cs543100.vk.me/v543100113/1e528/delrQYxm3ZE.jpg
Thanks for all your links!
Thanks for a good example!
I am worried that people don't apply the same reasoning to the pictures of fashion models. Their only job is to look pretty, so they spend their whole days working out in a gym and not eating much. They also spend hours having their hair, nails and make-up done before every photoshoot. Then they work pretty hard to pose for this one and only photo that will be next digitally altered to delete any imperfections, printed and hung up on Rotunda or included in a magazine. Even if there were captions "photo digitally retouched" we would still see these "better people" and we would feel inferior. But real life people will never look like models just as a real life food will never look as good as in commercials.
I think adds, especially when it comes to food only represent the idea of a product. We no longer live in a world where we cant buy stuff without checking opinions about them on the internet. On one hand I see it as false advertising, but on the other its no longer something avoidable. We should just learn not to believe pretty pictures on displays.