Frith Analysis

 Hot Pocket Ad

The Surface Meaning - A man is making a Hot Pocket in the microwave. His friend and his friend's very pretty sister enter the kitchen. His friend introduces his sister while the man takes a bite out of the Hot Pocket. He says "That's hot!" and the girl walks over and takes a bite out of his Hot Pocket. After she bites it she also says "That is hot!". After that an announcer starts talking and explaining why you should buy Hot Pockets. We than hear the signature Hot Pocket jingle and the ad is over.

Intended Meaning - Hot Pockets are trying to sell their product to a particularly young audience based on the actors in the ad. Probably because young people don't have a ton of money and Hot Pockets are fairly cheap and are something quick to make. The girl in the ad is very attractive and she speaks very seductively when telling the man "That is hot!". She also takes a bite out of the Hot Pocket and stares at him in a very sexual way. In other words, if you eat Hot Pockets you will have very attractive and seductive women wanting your attention.

Cultural/Ideological Meaning - One of the most prominent cultural meanings that I got out of this was the fact that the girl in the ad was the sister of the main guys best friend. The fact that she was coming onto her brothers good friend was strange. Typically getting with the sister of your best friend is a big no-no when it comes to the "Bro Code". Although, typically that is something that some close guy friends will joke about.

The Persuaders

This week we watched an informative film called The Persuaders. This films dives deep into the advertising techniques of different companies in the United States and how they work in one of the most competitive markets in the country. One of the most interesting parts of this film and also probably the scariest to me was when it talked about the company called Acxiom, a data mining company. Data mining is one of the biggest techniques in advertising today. This allows companies to know more about most people in the country than they probably feel comfortable enough to accept. This happens by analyzing consumers based on a multitude of different factors, some being as small as a persons shopping habits. I have always been interested in this just because the ads that I see on the web always pertain to my interests and learning how all of that works was definitely interesting to me. This also scares me because people can know what you are looking at even when you can't see them. Although this is scary, this has proved to be one of the most effective marketing strategies in modern America. Not only can this help improve peoples experiences with advertising, it can also customize it. The film also goes into how people are more demanding of an emotional attachment from the brands that they love. This has caused many of America's companies to do anything to get that emotional reaction that consumers love. Many CEO's feel that if they can get that emotional reaction from their buyers than that will develop into loyalty, ultimately making people use the brands that they feel loyal to. To me this is also one of the most effective strategies in the advertising industry today. People do want to feel like they can trust and can be friends with the brands that they choose, which is going to make them buy those products. This film taught me a lot about the marketing strategies of advertising and how brands make people buy their products.