In commercials, anthropomorphized foods are always on the verge of death. Why is this funny and not macabre? We consult the experts.
Chicken McNuggets gleefully dunking themselves in sauce. Chocolates cowering, fearing for their lives. Pop Tarts springing themselves loose from a toaster and yelling “Freedom!” And last week, Chips Ahoy! reintroduced its Cookie Guy, a mischievous cookie whose antics are cut short by a human’s hand. In a certain kind of ad, these are the tragic spokesmen of snacks: living creatures aware of an impending death-chomp. Their short lives are a hell of fear or resignation.
It is worth wondering: How do ad makers decide that these characters make us laugh and want to buy snacks, rather than totally creeping us out?
Next, there’s the type cursed with self-awareness–the one that knows he is food in a man-eat-food world–but embraces his place without protest. A stick of Slim Jim yells “eat me!” and a bunch of Frosted Mini-Wheats bathe in a hot bowl of milk as a murderous child blows on them. Historical characters, like this pig happily carving itself in an old print ad, are even more perversely gleeful.
And finally, there are the characters that fear their fates. These are the most complex type, the ones that cast us as the bad guys. For the creators of those characters, a major question must be answered early: How will the food face its fate without crossing the line into totally macabre?
Some companies don’t particularly like talking about this.
Consider, for example, the case of the M&M characters. Recent hits include Mr. Yellow in the trunk of a car, as a Russian mobster threatens to chop him up and sprinkle him over ice cream, and Ms. Brown taking out life insurance. Funny, sure. But the potential for creepiness is high, because the M&Ms are portrayed as the size of a small child. Were you to actually eat one of them, you couldn’t just pop it into your mouth, take a bite, and snuff out its life. You’d have to pin it down and gnaw, like a lion eating a gazelle, while the M&M’s cartoony arms and legs flap in agony.
BBDO New York created these ads, but at the request of Mars, maker of M&Ms, passed on discussing this subject. Mars also asked LAIKA/house not to talk specifically about M&Ms (which they didn’t). But Susan Credle would talk; she headed up the M&Ms team at BBDO for years, and is now chief creative officer at Leo Burnett Chicago.
Credle sees only one line not to cross: The food must always look appealing, even if it’s walking and talking and fearing for its life. “If you went too far and started conjuring up blood and guts instead of chocolate-y deliciousness, that’s when I think you’ve gone too far,” she says.
Which is to say, he’s an advocate for being eaten?
But deep down, somewhere in that nut-brain of his, Al knows.