Jeff
Neff (Advertising Age, January 2015) quotes Devra Prywes as stating, “ad’s
showing dad’s tend to outperform others in terms of sharing and positive
sentiment”. He also cites Census data as showing an
increase in single dads from 3.2% (2006) to 4.1% in 2013. So advertisers are beginning to pay attention
to the increase in dad’s that are shopping.
Ads featuring dad’s also affect women that are part of dad’s lives. So in all, advertising to dad’s is practical
from a business sense.
As
a dad, Toyota moved to the top of my list last year with the tear jerking,
insightful, endearing, and informing documentary styled Super Bowl commercial from
Director Lauren Greenfield, “Here’s to
all the Dad’s that Choose to be Dad’s” (https://youtud.be/mI9nW8k1xZA). This 6-minute-long commercial rolls
out like a documentary asking dad’s: how did you learn to be a dad, if you
didn’t learn it from your own dad how did you learn, and how can you be a great
dad without having one yourself? The fathers represent a wide variety of dad’s.
Featuring some NFL Players mixed with a
variety of other dad’s “regular Joe’s” effectively bridges the many different
kinds of hard working dad’s raising children.
This is quite different from typical media that marginalizes fathers
that are failing and brushed broad strokes about fatherhood in general. The other dads also represent a variety of
fathers of different races, ethnic backgrounds and birth parent experience, as
well as illustrates the different ways men become fathers (adoption).
The commercial is all male, with Lauren,
a woman, asking questions from an interviewer perspective. The film is shot against a bland tan
background with dad’s sitting around a black table. The simplicity allows the viewer to be sucked
into the color, life and individual aspects of the dad’s that are talking. The narrator transforms the discussion to
include asking questions of their children (sons and daughters), such as: how
do you know your dad loves you, what’s the best thing about your dad, what have
you learned from your dad and how do you know your dad loves you? This is just a sampling to name a few. And as the children are answering questions
the camera lens opens wider for the viewer to see that they with their dad’s
next to them, are sitting in a classroom.
A place of learning and transformation.
Toward the last 30 seconds of the
commercial, the camera lens opens up so that the viewer can get the “big
picture”. The big picture includes the
dad’s building things with their children, doing school work, walking down
hallways and even one son in a wheel chair racing his dad at the school. From the beginning to the end, there is a
quiet piano playing simple long notes building it’s crescendo. The final message from the dads’ is: “being a
dad doesn’t have anything to do with blood, it’s not biological, it’s a choice
you make to love your children”.
Toyota’s tag line message, simply written and not spoken at the end is,
“one bold choice leads to another”.
This estimated 45-million-dollar
commercial (http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/02/how-much-does-super-bowl-ad-cost) drove it’s product (Toyota Camry) home
to consumers without ever mentioning the name or showing an image of a
car. The entire commercial was a nice
and fluent mix of all the different kinds of dad’s that make up our culture
without playing up or down to anyone else.
The feelings that this commercial creates for the viewer about Toyota
are those of: care, dedication and loyalty.
This certainly had to be a subliminal message they wanted viewers to get
and I believe they did so instrumentally.
Toyota’s
ad is an attempt at creating a more socially responsible way of looking at
fatherhood in our culture. All too
often, the dominant culture, media, news, and advertisements, make fun of dad’s
as buffoons or look at the isolated population of fathers that are not a part
of children’s lives, and terms them with the popularized “dead beat dad’
slogan. While there are fathers that are
struggling, Toyota gave credit to the many dads’ that are loving and caring
fathers that make a difference in our culture.
This ad is also about citizenship.
The commercial starts out with some dad’s talking about what they lacked
as a role for fatherhood in their experience and how they were going to “break
the cycle” and transform fatherhood for their children, both boys and girls,
creating stronger children though fatherhood connection, care and concern.
Resources
Greenfield, L. (2015). https://youtu.be/mI9nW8k1xZA, Published on
Jan 26, 2015. Toyota Camry
commercial.
Neff,
J. (2015). Move Over, Mom, It’s Dad’s Turn In Ads. Advertising
Educational Foundation, Advertising Age.
Crain Communications, January 27, 2015.
Schwartz,
N.. (2016). Stunning Infographic Charts
the Skyrocketing Cost of a Super Bowl Ad.
USA Today, February 6, 2016 3:12
pm.. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/02/how-much-does-super-bowl-ad-cost
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