Chad Froomkin

October 21, 1999

TCOM 100

Professor George Korn

There are tons of commercials on television today, and it seems that the audience does not watch the shows on television anymore, but they watch the commercials. To some people the shows are just interruptions to the commercials. People today are addicted to the commercials. Commercials make people laugh more than the actual shows that they are trying to watch. Commercials have become such a part of everyday life, that there is even an award show picking the best commercials from countries around the world. Not only have commercials invaded television, but they have invaded magazines too. Only in magazines they are not called commercials, but they are called advertisements. All these are really are the commercials you see on television condensed on one page, but they still get the message across. I subscribe to the magazine Maxim, and I counted the number of pages of ads compared to the number of pages of context. I was astonished when almost exactly half of the magazine (221 pages, 111 advertisements, 50.2% advertisements) was advertisements. The magazine cost three dollars and fifty cents, so you are basically paying one dollar and seventy-five cents for the magazine and another dollar and seventy-five cents for the advertisements. There is one type of commercial campaigns that I have noticed growing up, that has shaped and structured what kids today believe is the best way to decide to buy this certain product. And that certain product and commercial campaign that I am talking about deals with a simple article of clothing called the shoe.

If you turn on MTV, ESPN, BET, or any cable channel for that matter, you are bound to see some type of shoe commercial if you sit there and watch that channel for about an hour. The biggest commercials always deal with a basketball shoe. The craze started with the Nike’s Air Jordan’s. If you walked into a school in the early nineties, a person can spot a kid with Air Jordan’s on in probably less than one minute. If you ask a kid why he got those shoes he could come up with a whole spiel of reasons. They look cool, or I saw the commercial, or Michael Jordan wears them, or my friend has a pair and he is really cool. They never say: “Well, I went to the shoe store and tried on several pairs of shoes, and after doing so, I came to the conclusion that these Air Jordan’s were not only the most comfortable, but were the least expensive.” That is never the case, because usually the Air Jordan’s are the most expensive brand of Nike shoes made. Why, because Michael Jordan, being the most popular sports star ever to play any sport, wears them, and his influence is not only seen in this country, but in almost every country around the world. Nike should be giving the company Gatorade a small royalty check every time a pair of Air Jordan’s is sold. If it wouldn’t have been for the Gatorade campaign of “Be Like Mike,” then you wouldn’t see kids chugging down a whole bottle of Gatorade and going down to the courts in their brand new Air Jordan’s if the “Be Like Mike” commercials weren’t already embedded into their minds. Shoe commercials take on a hypnotic effect after a while. Kids don’t buy the shoes, because they make they’re feet comfortable, they buy them because Michael Jordan wears them, and everyone wants to “Be Like Mike.”

Today’s shoe company executives have figured out that all they need is a commercial or an athlete that kids like and they will automatically want to buy that shoe. It doesn’t even matter that the said commercial has nothing to do with the particular shoe that it is advertising. Take for example the commercials for the Air Flightposite. These commercials have NBA Basketball stars Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan in them, so right there the commercials get most kid’s attentions. The one commercial has Kevin Garnett, who is six feet eleven inches, going one on one against stand-up comedian Patton Oswald, who is short and stocky and can’t be over five feet and a half. Patton is having trouble playing against Garnett, because of the obvious fact that Garnett makes millions being one of the best players in the league, and Patton is just your average funny man. To make the game more even Garnett proceeds to put one hand behind his back. When that is not enough he ties both of his hands behind his back, and then when that is still not enough, the audience sees Patton taping Garnett’s legs together with duct tape, and during this is when we first see the shoe that is advertised in this commercial. Now from what I have told you about this commercial, would that make you want to buy the shoe. Forget the fact that the Air Flightposite is very hideous looking and if some Joe Shmoe advertised it, that it would make the company have a very large profit loss. The only reason kids want to buy it, is because Kevin Garnett wears them, the commercial was funny, and they want to wear what other people say is cool. Throwing out the window all the reason’s that intelligent people buy their shoes, and that would be mainly comfort. The advertiser in this particular commercial doesn’t put emphasize on the shoe, they put emphasize on the association of the shoe, that will make the consumer remember the commercial and then want to buy the shoe.

Another example of this same type of commercial that concentrates on the entertainment value of the shoe rather than the shoe itself are the Lil’ Penny commercials. Everyone has seen the commercials with Penny Hardaway and Lil’ Penny, whose voice is Chris Rock’s. In some of the commercials they didn’t even show the shoe unless it was for a split second. One example of this was the commercial where Lil’ Penny had a dream that supermodel Tyra Banks wanted him, because he was so hot, letting the audience forget the fact that Lil’ Penny is a two foot wooden puppet. Then he wakes up sitting by the pool with Big Penny cleaning it. In the whole commercial they didn’t show the shoe once. If anything, the commercial was an advertisement for Lil’ Penny. But what the consumers say when they go into to buy new shoes is, “Do you have the new Penny’s.” It doesn’t matter that they don’t even know what they look like. The consumer has it in their minds that if Penny Hardaway is cool, and Lil’ Penny is cool, than the shoe must be cool. That further contributes to my opinion of shoe commercials becoming hypnotic without the consumers even knowing it.

Another shoe commercial that has an advertising campaign very different than the Nike ones, are the new K-Swiss ads. K-Swiss does not appeal to the little kids who want to wear just Nike, or Reebok, or Adidas. K-Swiss has basically concentrated their market on tennis players and fans of tennis. Kids have looked at K-Swiss as being gay, or that if you wear K-Swiss than you can’t afford the newest and most expensive basketball shoes that are on the market. That is probably why that K-Swiss’s new ads are more focused on the rugged individual. The one commercial goes: “How do you go from number one in the world to number two hundred and fifty-three (not exact figure), you turn pro.” The man who says this is a no name tennis player that only pure tennis enthusiasts have ever heard of. K-Swiss is trying to get the message across that it takes hard work and dedication to get what you want, and that K-Swiss can take you there. Although it is obviously different from the basketball commercials in the fact of appearance, the main point is still there. Don’t buy our shoes because they are good shoes; buy them because they will make you better. Most consumers are not stupid enough to believe that, but it goes into the back of their conscious, and even though they know for sure the shoes will not make them better, they buy them anyways because they remember the commercial. The quality of the shoe doesn’t sell itself; the quality of the commercial sells the shoe.

Why are people hypnotically believed to buy the shoe that the television wants them to buy? The premise of this notion goes way back with the saying of “keeping up with the Jones’s.” If someone else has something that some perceive is “cool,” you want that same thing or something even better. You don’t want to be looked upon as a loser, because you don’t know what is cool. But who says what is cool or what is not. Is there a cool jury somewhere that votes on whether things are cool? Until the majority of people realize to buy things because you like it and not because other people like it, the communistic ways of shoe commercials will never stop.