Sunday, April 8, 2012

Food Culture in Advertisements: Japanese Tea & American Coca


Food culture usually could be reflected in food advertisement because advertisement is designed according to the local food culture to attract audience to buy their products. In this short essay, two advertisements from America and Japan would be mentioned, as well as the food cultures they are appealing.



The topic of the Japanese food advertisement is “Japanese/Thai tea Commercial with caterpillars”. The advertisement describes a story that both caterpillars and the worker from the Japanese/Thai Tea Company want the top leaf from the green tea plant. In order to get the top leaf, the baby caterpillar cried and he hoped the worker could take pity on him. However, the worker cried too because he wanted the top leaf too. Then the baby caterpillar tried to use curses to force the worker give him the top leaf. At the end of the story, the curses didn’t work too. Generally speaking, the worker from the Japanese/Thai Tea Company putted lots of effort on getting best tea leaves (the top leaves) to make the tea beverage.

In this Japanese advertisement, the designer used a funny cartoon to attract audience and let them know the raw material of tea beverage from their company is the best. Moreover, the advertisement tells audience that all the stuff in this company is putting 100% effort to make the best tea beverage and the tea beverage should be loved and appreciated. Also, the advertisement is high definition (HD) and the background is the natural and lovely green forest. Green always stands for healthy and natural and audience would love to buy the tea beverage because healthy and nature is Japanese customers looking for.

According to the Japanese tea commercial, some parts of Japanese food culture are showed. More specifically, Japanese prefer food with high quality rather than high quantity. At the last 3 seconds in the advertisement, we could see that the tea beverage is contained a small green box. The Japanese/Thai Tea Company attracts customers by showing their tea products are healthy rather than large quantity. Furthermore, this advertisement shows the sophisticated tea culture in Japan. The top leaf of a green tea plant is called white tea. White tea is the best tea with the most essential part of the tea plant. Only people who have a good taste on tea would know the fact. In this advertisement, people could see that Japan tea culture should be an important part of Japan food culture.
 
Another advertisement is an American coca cola advertisement. The topic is “Coca Cola Best Commercial”. In this advertisement, coca cola is promoted through a cartoon story too. A rat dressed like an eggplant because he wanted to slip into the refrigerator when the owner of the house opened the refrigerator to get two cans of coca cola. When the rat successfully slipped in and stared at the only one can of coca cola, he realized that there were many other rats dressed like him to get coca cola. Finally, the rat owned the can of coca cola after a big fight. He happily drunk it on a sofa with satisfy and relaxing. Similar to the previous advertisement, everyone tried their best to get a can of coca cola. It seems that people would love and appreciate something that everyone compete for.
Coca Cola Best Commercial” is designed into a funny cartoon story to attract more customers of coca cola. The development of the story is out of people’s expectation. The close-up of the can of coca cola could attract people’s eyeballs. People could find some tiny water drops on the outside of the can because the can of coca cola is cooled and taste would be delicious. Besides, the face and body expression of the rat when he drunk coca cola shows the product is really delicious and attractive. Moreover, the can of coca cola is almost as tall as the rat. However, the rat drunk it all with happy and satisfy. Audience could be told that the large quantity of coca cola would meet whatever amount you are looking for.

In this American food advertisement, America food culture is showed. First of all, Americans love food that could make them relaxed and happy. According to the face and body expression of the rat when he drunk coca cola, American audience would know that lying on a sofa with a can of delicious drink and being relaxed and happy is exactly what they want from food and drink. Besides, cold drinks are quit popular in American. The close-up of the coca cola can and those tiny water drops on the can shows probably most of American audience love cold drinks. The last and most importantly, large quantity is attractive too for a part of Americans. In this advertisement, the can is even much larger than the rat. However, the rat finished it all and he was quit enjoyed it. This turns out that probably a part of Americans love food and drink with a large quantity.

Through the compare and contrast of the Japanese and American food advertisement, there are some similar points too. For example, cartoon is used a lot in food advertisement. Because, abstract is a key element in food advertisement for attracting more customers and cartoon is a good way to show abstract. Except cartoon, funny is another universal element in food advertisement. If people enjoy the food advertisement, they would be curious the kind of food. As a result, the number of potential customers would increase dramatically. The last point is competition. Both two advertisements emphasis everyone is going to compete for the products. Audience would be encouraged to buy their products too.

Food culture is reflected through the food advertisement. Knowing about the food culture of a country or a region, finding and analyzing food advertisement could be a great path.

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