When most people think of advertisements, they tend to think of those annoying breaks we have in between the most dramatic parts of our favorite show. Or we think of the annoying, unskippable 15-30 second clips before our Youtube videos. And now, for the most part, I would agree with people on this. I hate commercial breaks in my shows that I am watching, which the hatred has grown more since I watch almost everything exclusively on Netflix. That means no ads, so when I go back to normal TV, I forgot that they existed and tend to get frustrated that the show doesn't just continue on.
Anyway, to get off that rant of how they annoy me, Ads are good too. They show us our favorite products or maybe products we haven't heard of yet. They intrigue us to buy their product, I mean, that is their job, right? They get us into the movie theaters so we can check out the latest movie, or let us know when our favorite TV series is coming back with their latest season. Ads are useful to get people to know about the new and upcoming products or events.
However, I have lately noticed that there are more and more ads that sell their product or whatever, but they use a non-normative message. These ads always intrigue my mind and they make me want to use their product even more now because they embrace some sort of stigmatized situation and make it normal enough to appear in an advertisement.
The first one that I'm going to talk about is the "controversial" Coca-Cola ad that ran during the 2014 Super Bowl. This ad was entitled: "It's Beautiful" and throughout the ad, "America the Beautiful" plays in the background, mixing images of many different people and cultures. One aspect that was most upsetting to a large part of the American community, was that not only was there a wide variety of races and cultures (Muslim, LGBTQ, White, Black, Judaism, etc.) but also the song was translated at different points into different languages. Many, if not all, would correspond with some ethnic group that was presented in the commercial. When I first saw the ad, because I was watching the Super Bowl that night, I was awe-struck. I thought, "What an awesome ad! It shows the diversity of our country and it's beautiful." I was then shocked to hear the next morning that not everyone thought this way.
Another commercial and this one is more recent, is the Amazon Christmas ad of 2016. In the video, we see a priest and an Imam greet one another at the priest's house. They treat each other like old friends and continue to have a conversation. They seem to acknowledge that their joints, specifically their knees, aren't like they used to be. So they get each other the same present of knee pads so they can perform their religious duties. Especially during this time of such xenophobia and prejudice against those who practice Muslim traditions, or even if they just look that way, this ad was eye-opening and heart-warming to see this portrayal of friendship across religious lines, specifically in the friendship of these religious leaders.
The last commercial I want to discuss is the Secret Deodorant ad that came out in October of 2016. This is part of the "Stress Test" series that Secret has been using for this season. This one is slightly different just because the woman that the ad is focusing on is a transgender woman. She is hiding out in the bathroom stall in the ladies room, at some sort of club or possible restaurant, because she is dressed formally. Enter in two more women and the transgender woman is afraid to exit her stall. Eventually, she, who is later named Dana, exits the stall and we hear a conversation between these women, one complimenting another's dress and the other confirming that it is indeed a great dress. This is such an important ad because it not only lets transgender women be a part of these ads for these items that they might be more inclined to use now. As well as showing the stress of making the decision of whether or not coming out of the stall in front of other people who could either treat you like a person or ostracize you for being out of the norm.
There are other ads that speak about these sort of topics, but it is really important to make these sort of commercials because not everyone is the same, heteronormative, caucasian person. There are many ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, and just life in our country and they use these products just like the majority of society does too. It opens the eyes for people to see these groups in such a presence, it gives them visibility in a day where we tend to suppress their identities.
