The ads end with children of Woodhouse customers saying their names and ages, and then saying, with various degrees of pronunciation clarity, "I am Woodhouse." (One little blond girl with pigtails is painfully adorable.) The ads all begin with a Woodhouse spokeswoman [and family member?--Ed.] cheerfully informing the viewers that Woodhouse is establishing a relationship with the viewers in order to establish a relationship with "the future generations."
It is well-established that a major purpose of advertising is to generate brand loyalty and repeat business--after all, those things guarantee positive cash flow, which in turn guarantees the business's continued successful existence. But it's not usually so blatantly stated in the ads themselves.
So as cute as the moppets are and as friendly as the spokeswoman's tone is, all I can think of every time I see a Woodhouse ad is, "boy, they get them when they're young, don't they?" The use of the children in the ads strikes me as being akin to brainwashing, and that's scary.
Yes, the Woodhouse ads are being honest . . . blatantly so. Nvertheless, I can't help but put these ads on my list of evidence supporting the notion (which I've expressed several times in these posts) that we as a society have lost our collective sense of shame. That's just sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment