Week 5 EOC: Superbowl Commercial

A noteworthy advertisement for the Super Bowl this year was for the new Sketcher’s running shoe. This advertisement was targeted towards men, which is interesting, because we usually see Sketcher’s targeting women with the shape up shoe and other fashion shoes. This is the first time we viewed Sketchers as “fast.” This ad uses drama. “An ad in the form of a story, whether in a still or moving medium, usually involving conflicts and emotions, is considered a drama. Represented through action and dialogue, the story is told or unfolds through events or a situation that is interesting, tense, humorous (comedy), gripping, or emotionally involving”(110). They use the idea: so fast, that it can outrun a cheetah. “Unlike a lecture, a dramatic format often deliberately avoids directly addressing and does not acknowledge the viewer; instead, the drama unfolds as does a play on a stage or a film, where the actors, unaware of the audience, address only one another, without conceding that there are viewers” (110).  The advertisement shows a cheetah hunting an antelope and just when you think the poor antelope is dead a man appears outrunning and tieing up the cheetah with a pair of Sketcher’s running shoes on. The commercial was effective at showing the performance of the shoe as well as bringing a comedy aspect to it in the end when the man ties up the cheetah and give the antelope a fist bump. The commercial showed the man running fast as well as the naroration adding to the comedy part. “Very basically, in advertising, telling is narration—events conveyed by a narrator or presenter; it is also called diegesis or summary. Showing is mimetic, directly visually or dramatically representing events; it is also called mimesis or scene” (110). This was by far my favorite and most memorable commercial from the Super Bowl.