Sierra Mist and Blenders

Blendtec and Sierra Mist are the two companies whose advertisement I chose to analyze. It’s clear that Sprite is a staple beverage in our country, and everyone knows who they are, so I chose to see how an opponent of their, Sprite, advertised. Blendtec is a company that makes blenders among other kitchen appliances. The blender they make is one of the most sophisticated in the world, and it has something like three horsepower. You're probably thinking three? Are you kidding? But I’m going to flip the question on you and say THREE HORSEPOWER?! It’s a blender not a horse drawn carriage what in the world would you use three horsepower for in a blender. For the rest of this short essay I will give a breakdown of both ads and then a conclusion on what it means to us.

Sierra Mist ad: playful music, attacks the opponent, perfect looking can of soda, shine on the ice cubs, and perfect images of carbonation. These are the basic components that make up this ad. The ad starts with a fairy dull can of Sprite and then states that Sprite uses artificial preservatives. Then out of nowhere, a can of Sierra Mist drops down as if it was just pulled out of the cooler on a hot sunny day condensation and all and gives such a strong gust of wind from how it landed that the sprite can falls over and turns out to be a cardboard standup. The catch phrase “Get real” is stated by a friendly sounding woman and then the can is poured over some very shiny ice cubes and all the words on the screen says is real sugar and nothing artificial referring to how it was sweetened. The main strategy of this ad is attacking something we all know, mainly sprite. This is clear form the very opening of the ad, and if sierra mist was confident enough in their own product they might not have to attack sprite from the very beginning. Their appeal is to try to make their product seem real, and made from all natural ingredients. Why anyone would believe them I'm not really sure because all soda’s are made pretty much the same way in a factory. I feel that the ad could be targeting parents who don’t want their kids to be drinking artificially made drinks or kids who should try a different drink. Either way, I can see that from the approach they make towards this ad strategy that they are trying to promote a natural or real drink to the public because everyone seems to be fixed on what is naturally or even locally made these days.

Blendtec ad: no spoken words, pump up music, artistic camera angles, artfully engineered, and slow motion clips. I felt like I was watching an episode of How It’s Made on the discovery channel for this ad. I felt the ad was pretty effective because I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for some big punch line and all I came out with was a silent commercial and the words artfully engineered, which is exactly what Blendtec tried to portray in this commercial. In my opinion they did a pretty good job because they built up the blender to be much more than it is. I mean seriously, after watching that commercial, if the super slow motion strawberry clips were taken out you wouldn’t believe that this was a promo for a blender. It looked like it could be a commercial for GE everything was so sophisticated looking. I took a look at some of the prices for those things and it gave me a clue as to which target audience they are going after. Rich people. These blenders range from 300 to 1000 dollars, for a blender that can supposedly destroy a cell phone. Based on all the high-class preference put on this ad, I think its just shows a more negative side of our country. It shows that people do engineer a blender instead of a playground or something much more useful. The worst is that they turn around and then sell these things for hundreds of dollars and people love to buy them. The ad appeals to the rich because only they can afford something so ridiculous.

Food cultures and values have changed a lot in recent years. Food used to be something that was always local. There were times when towns would supply food for the people that lived there and if there was a food that wasn’t there you didn’t eat it. That’s just how it was. Now everything has been enlarged and people eat whatever they want. It is only now starting to be cool to use local, natural ingredients so ad campaigns are designed after that. Take Sierra Mist for example, their ad is based upon the fact that they aren’t using anything fake. They are trying to let everyone know this so that they form a different opinion on them. If Americans stopped being so foolish when it came to food then they’d realize that being natural is the only way we are going to survive so it’s much of an advertising campaign if we all need to be doing it in the next 10 years.

Blendtec Ad:
http://www.blendtec.com/?gclid=CMryp8LSpq8CFUZgTAodLhJSYg 

Sierra Mist: In the upper left hand corner of the page click "see the ad"
http://www.sierramist.com/