Advertisement Analysis

I watched an ad for Hershey’s Kisses. The commercial features the whistling from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ song “Heigh Ho.” The commercial begins with a Kiss being made in the factory and then being wrapped up, and it is given a chance to look at itself in the mirror. It’s then rocketed through Kiss shaped holes in the wall with slogans such as “perfect happiness” written below them. A man in his late twenties/early thirties is then displayed sharing the candy with his daughter.
I believe a variety of ideas can be pulled from this advertisement. The “Heigh Ho” song incites a feeling of ‘family oriented,’ as Disney is a pure and generally safe corporation when it comes to children. Any who have seen the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will also possibly get an image of people hard at work; hard work seems to be a major American value, and even though the inclusion of the song is not a blatant portrayal of the hard working American spirit, it is alluded to on a subconscious level. When the Kiss is given time to look in the mirror, it’s obviously playing to the conceited side of America and to the ideas that you have to be pretty (or even BEAUTIFUL) to make it out into the world. It could also be taken to mean that they take care to make sure each Kiss is up to par, but I think the message of “beauty sells/conceitedness reigns” is a more believable and possibly more effective. When the man and his daughter share the candy, the company is pressing the idea that once again it is family oriented, and also that candy isn’t something just for young children, it’s for anyone who is a “kid at heart.” I wasn’t sure if this was note-worthy, but the man and his daughter were African American, which kind of pushes the idea that the company is nondiscriminatory and that they are supportive of ethnic groups and view them as the same as Caucasian. They could have just as easily used a white family, but they didn’t, which I think is admirable of them; it’s not as admirable/notable as it would have been in the ‘70s or so, but still I think it is good that they were pressing their ideas of multiculturalism, or even the existence of an “American” all inclusive culture.