Reese’s Puffs Cereal Commercials Analysis Essay Example

In 2009 the well-known cereal brand, General Mills, composed an advertisement commercial for their Reese’s Puff’s cereal. This commercial would air on television between episodes of children's tv shows on channels such as Teennick and Disney. Drawing in the attention of their target audience with an upbeat custom rap song, colorful visuals, and persuasive appeals this ad includes a teen boy, trendy attire, and setting/ background to sell their name and product. 

The commercial is a jingle that is upbeat, catchy, and contains electric-like sounds. Creating a rap song custom for their product was Reese’s puffs form of advertising, producing multiple other similar advertisements. Using a rap song as their choice of music allowed the producers to entertain and intrigue their young audience that they intended to reach. A cereal combining chocolate and peanut butter will not appeal to many adults due to the sugar content in the cereal, with this knowledge the company decided to use a rap to entice young teens and children. To give the product a ‘cool and hip’ appeal, the producers chose a music preference they knew their audience would be interested in. This added to the persuasion to buying their product. The rap included electric-like sounds creating a futuristic aesthetic, with this aesthetic, it made the product interesting, keeping their product engaging with the current day’s trends.  

The commercial uses many eye-catching visuals to appeal to their consumers. The breakfast cereals box design features a peanut butter cup wrapper as a bowl holding the dark and light brown circular cereal. The background of the box is a bright orange and yellow color. Consumers are familiar with Resse’s puffs colors and corelate that brand and color in their minds. In the tv commercial the colors that were featured were white with dramatic pops of their notorious orange and yellow colors; alongside added browns and tans to match the cereal. As the ad is running, the camera angles often change rapidly, keeping the attention of the viewer. As the boy is rapping the Reese’s puff jingle, the background is overwhelmed with imagery of chocolate and peanut butter sauces being mixed and swirled together. These effects continue to hold the viewers' attention to finish watching the advertisement, it also further sells the product by highlighting what it is made of. Using visuals, the advertisement emphasizes how well the combination of chocolate and peanut butter go together by utilizing the background. The background of the commercial is consistently filled with the blend of chocolate and peanut butter, this gives the product a further appeal and desire to buy the product.  

The persuasive appeals in the advertisement for the cereal include the character they chose to rap the song, the color pallet, setting, and an orange propped up on the table; these were all used by the producers to make their product more appealing. To sing the rap song through the commercial, they hired a young teen wearing an orange and yellow varsity jacket paired with casual attire. The producers used a young teen boy to convince their audience that the cereal was a product they wanted to start their day off with. The setting was a pristine white kitchen with pops of colors of the cereal emphasizing the product, this would draw in the attention to what they were selling. Companies tend to create advertisements with white backgrounds with highlights of the color of their product. This connects that certain color and that certain product together in the brain. The producers used this to their advantage in the commercial, allowing the colors to be connected to the cereal automatically makes the brain have their product in the back of the mind. Using the visual appeal of the colors of their products they wanted the audience to remember their product, and have them thinking about the product even when they are not watching the commercial. The commercial ends by saying that the cereal is, “a part of a complete breakfast” (0:27-0:28) when they include this in the advertisement it is suggested that the cereal is a part of a well-balanced diet should consume something else along with the cereal. In the commercial, sitting on the table, there is an orange sliced in half. The orange provides consumers with the idea that the product is fresh, healthy, good to eat, as a viewer this makes the product more appealing. If the producers chose to put a donut or cup of coffee next to the cereal, it would not give the same ‘fresh and healthy’ appeal that they achieved with the orange. The reason they would want their product to have this connotation is they know people are more likely to be drawn to buying their product if they are not worrying about the sugar contents or nutrition factors.  

Teens and preteens being the main audience for this product, the producers created an original song featuring the product, used colorful visuals, and persuasive appeals to sell their product. Producers used many tactics in the advertisement to appeal to their audience. To sell their product to the public, they targeted their audience and chose to create an advertisement that would appeal to them the most. They not only sold their product, but their name, as Reese’s puffs are now notorious for their unique commercials that still affect the public today. Many people still connect the rap song from 2009 to the cereal in 2022. The producers used many strategies to keep their product in the mind of the public, and they did so by creating a one-of-a-kind memorable commercial.