Friday, December 7, 2012

2013 Kia Optima + Blake Griffin Commercial

Blog #4
December 7, 2012
When I was watching an NBA game on ESPN, I saw this commercial. It was a Kia Optima commercial starring Blake Griffin. It starts with Blake saying, "UVO, play jukebox." Then the song, "This is how we do it" by Montell Jordan, starts playing. He then goes back in time to 1995. Small and young, a little boy is hanging on the rim of a basketball hoop which is attatched to the top of a garage. The kid asks who he is and Blake says to him, "I'm you, from the future." Then he also tells the kid to practice his free throws...a lot. The young Blake also asks him if the Kia Optima car was his spaceship. In response, Blake says that the car is better and gives a brief description of the car about voice activation controls and UVO.

This commercial was made to attract potential customers to buy the Kia Optima car. Using Blake Griffin, a famous NBA player, automatically grabs the viewer's attention since he is known for his high flying ability and huge dunks.

A technique being used here is the humor appeal. This commercial has a lot of humor because it shows a guy going back in time and seeing a kid dunking. If people who know about Blake Griffin, they can laugh at the scene with the kid dunking since that's what he excels in today. It is also funny how Blake talks about how he is the kid in the future and tells him to practice free throws. Again, those who know about Blake is that he is not a good free throw shooter so it shows him missing one so bad it gets stuck on the side of the rim.


In addition to the humor appeal, the transfer/association and testimonial technique is used because they are showing Blake Griffin who is a famous professional basketball player. Fans of Blake Griffin might just want to buy the car since they will remember that Blake Griffin was in the commercial.

I feel like this commercial could talk more about the car because after all, the whole purpose of this advertisment was to get people interested in buying it. Also, it might give false hopes to someone who believes that the car can actually time travel.

In conclusion, I believe this commercial was effective because it uses a famous professional basketball player. It also includes humor and an entertaining short story. I do feel like more information on the car would attract more potential customers especially to those who don't know about Blake Griffin because they might not get all the humor in the commercial.  Another downside is that this commercial only appeals to a select audience  who enjoy watching sports or younger viewers.  Elderly folks won't care for this commercial as much.

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