Ah, yes: I always find painting responsible mothers as
buzzkills is a great ad strategy, especially for foodstuffs, since they do a
lot of the food shopping. I mean, yes, technically this ad is realistic in
showing family dynamics: if it were up to men, food would always come from a
restaurant, and single men almost always seem to live in squalor compared to married men
(unless the married men have toddlers; that is a different matter altogether!),
because men don’t mind living in dirty, dingy apartments; but women generally
don’t like it so much. So yes, this is what things are often like. But…
This ad makes the mom look like the buzzkill disciplinarian,
rather than the responsible adult (or at least, a mom might see it that way!),
raining on everyone’s parade and generally being a Debbie Downer. No fun for
you, says Mrs. Mistreatment Mom! Yeah, someone’s always got to be the villain
if you want to be responsible and safe and have sanity and employment in your
life. But is it really the best idea to make mom the bad gal when she’s the
food shopper, and you’re advertising and selling food products?
But then again, maybe I’m wrong in my reading of this ad.
After all, I’m not a woman, and I’m not a mom, either. So maybe they take it as
a badge of honor to be smacking down everyone’s bad ideas and to be shown as
the resident family buzzkill. And I love the ads, don’t get me wrong! These are
fun and funny, and they’re memorable to boot! (Plus, they’re pretty realistic,
from my experience!) So great job on these ads from my perspective. It’s just
that it seems like mom is being depicted as a real buzzkill here, and I’m not
sure they will like that. (But like I said: maybe I’m wrong!)
This is not even the ad I’m referring to, but it’ll do, I guess:
No wait; here it is!:
