Popcorn Protection Plan

This new piece of data will blow your minds away.

Here is an interesting new finding: eating popcorn in the movie theater makes people immune to advertising! A new study that was conducted by Cologne University has come to the conclusion that chewing makes advertising ineffective when sitting in the movie theater.

A researcher from Berlin has come out to say that “the mundane activity of eating popcorn made participants immune to the pervasive effects of advertising.”

I usually get irritated when I hear people munching and crunching on their popcorn, but apparently advertisers are beginning to get irritated as well.

The first thing that came to my mind when I was trying to process this study is how

scientists came up with this unique conclusion. A quick summary of the findings suggests that the reason why adverts have the ability to implant brand names into our brains is because our lips and tongues automatically stimulate the pronunciation of a new brand name when we first hear it.

Every time we see the name again, our mouth subconsciously practices the pronunciation of the name and that is how it manages to stick in our heads.

But chewing is disturbing this “inner speech” that advertisers have been using for so long to make us memorize the brand.

There was even an entire experiment where 50 people in a theater were given popcorn and 50 people were given nothing to eat during the show. I always snack on something when I watch previews in the movie theater and I never remember anything being commercialized.

At the end of the screening, there was a test and the study showed that the commercials had no effect on those who were munching on popcorn the entire time.

The man who created this study suggests that his research might in fact be the end of selling traditional popcorn in the movie theater. Any thoughts on that?

I personally think that it is a really out-of-the-box claim to say that popcorn is the reason why advertisements do not sink in our heads. However, I am not a psychology major, so I do not know the extent of this whole “inner speech” thing, but after reading the article in the Guardian I guess it makes sense.

Could food be the ultimate killer for all commercials?

Have advertisements found their ultimate weakness?

Do you guys buy this new study?

Poking at Apple

Microsoft’s Windows Phone crew posted a long advertisement on YouTube that takes a punch at Apple and the two new types of iPhones that the company released last week. The video is called “a fly on the wall in Cuptertino.” If you watch the interesting video above, it shows two fake Apple employees (that are rumored to depict look-a-likes of the real Apple CEO and vice President, Tim Cook and Jony Ive).
This commercial is different from the commercials that Windows usually makes when poking fun at iOS and Android cell phones. In the video, the person who the two employees are pitching their ideas to looks just like Steve Jobs. In the video, it shows the two workers calling the iPhone 5c phones fancy colored names (saying “vermillion,” when it is just pink and “chartreuse” for green). The commercial makes fun of the fact that it took Apple 6 months to create the idea of coming out multi-colored phones.
The commercial then moves on to attack Apple yet again after saying that they created the newer phones out of plastic to save money. The man jokes and says that the company will not tell the customers that they are actually made out of plastic.
Another memorable joke that they use against Apple is regarding the fact that the new iPhone 5s can not come in gold. The man says, “everyone likes gold, pirates, leprechauns and this guy (a random hairy-chested man, which I did not understand why it was meant to be funny).
The video closes with a black backdrop and the hashtag “#timetoswitch” (implying the idea that consumers need to switch from IPhone to the Windows products).
Right after I saw this advertisement, I rolled my eyes at how desperate and embarrassing Microsoft look in this ad. A day after the video was released on YouTube, Microsoft released the statement and said that they intended for the video to be a “light-hearted poke at our friends from Cupertino. But it was off the mark, and we’ve decided to pull it down.”
In my opinion, I think the real reason they removed the video is because they realized from all of the negative comments and feedback from viewers that the video was very poor in creating a funny or good attack at Apple. We all know that these two are really competitive companies, so I expected a lot more from Microsoft.
Although the company took it down, the parody commercial still lives on. I was reading the YouTube comments and one comment that got many likes on the site simply said, “lamest ad ever!” I agree that this was a bad move on Microsoft because they look really stupid at trying to come up with an attack on iPhone and then failed miserably at creating it. If anything, it just makes Apple look better!

A Bold, Brave and Black Ad

Many people do not know, but Dunkin’ Donuts is a worldwide company and has many locations all around the globe. The “DD” in Thailand has recently had a 50% increase in sales and many say that it is because of a very popular, yet very controversial ad that was just released in the country.

The advertisement pictures a beautiful, smiling young lady, whose skin was painted charcoal black, wearing a bright pink lipstick and holding the company’s new “charcoal donut.” Obviously, this sparked some anger in people, but none of these offended people are Thai…they are American! The CEO Nadim Salhani says, “So what? It’s just paranoid American thinking.”

His daughter is the one who is the model for the ad. The CEO told the Associated Press that he did not understand why he is not allowed to use the color black to promote the new product, because if the donut was white and he painted someone’s face white, would it still be considered racist? He thinks not.

The American Dunkin’ Donuts posted an apology on its website and promised to take down the advertisement because of it’s “bizarre and racist sensitivity.” The Human Rights Watch even complained about the ad and could not believe how offensive and crazy the campaign was.

I have attached both the magazine/Facebook advertisement for the “charcoal donut,” as well as the commercial for it (sorry it’s all in Thai I could not find English subtitles). Personally, I do not think it is offensive and I believe that it is important to understand the global context of the situation, because even if Americans are offended, the ad is not running in the States. If it was broadcasted in America, people would obviously react in a negative way, but it is on the other side of the planet, so the people of America and every other country need to be more understanding and open-minded about global mindsets in marketing.

The Thai Dunkin’ did not create the advertisement with the intentions of offending people or being racist. They wanted an ad that would be appealing to the eye and of course a pretty girl with bright lips but a pitch-black face would make consumers curious.

I like the concept of the commercial, I think it makes people interested to know more about the donut and makes them want to go out and purchase one. I don’t think that it is insensitive in any way; it simply appears to be a creative marketing tactic.

Sorry America, I’m going to have to side with the Thai people on this one. Stop taking things so seriously!!!!!!!!! Take a chill pill, people!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQMKqeHgEEs