Review on Taco Bell Ad

Young and Reckless Commercials have become a major part of our lives today. There are those that stand out when they are viewed and others that do not deserve to be aired. The Taco Bell advertisement features an old man and his clique who decide to sneak out of a retirement home and go out for a crazy night as they re-live their younger days. Generally, the advertisement has a need for sex, escape, aesthetic sensation and attention as it targets all age groups in the society from the young to the old. Taco Bell shows us that age is nothing but a number, and it is not only young people that can get wild and loose.

This particular commercial shows us how a group of senior citizens snuck out of their retirement home to let off some steam with a crazy night out. The background music for this rebellious evening was perfectly chosen: the Spanish version of “We Are Young,” by Fun. The old folks embark on a series of mischievous events that are typically associated with children and young adults. They start by invading someone’s property and dive into the owners pool, lighting firecrackers on someone’s front door, go partying in a club where they have fun, and one of them ends up with a “GOLDBATT” tattoo across his back.

After a long night of mischief the gang winds up at Taco Bell for some delicious Mexican food. The advertisement is freaky, hence catching your attention by elderly folks being put in certain situations that are past their age. In most cases, not every viewer will relate to the age of the characters, but what is seen in the commercial is enough to attach you to it. This commercial targets all age groups, from the young to the old, but in my opinion it mainly targets teenagers and young adults, around the ages of fifteen to twenty-four.

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This age group contributes the most to fast food industries, one of them being Taco Bell. By featuring senior citizens in the ad, it adds humor and brainwashes young adults who want to have the same fun the commercial portrays, then finish the night by eating at Taco Bell. By a small percentage, it also targets people with low income, people who have cars and alcohol users. Taco Bell’s commercial comes out strongly with the need for escape. This is quite evident, as most of us know how retirement homes work.

Senior citizens are confined in a home with not much to do, but in this ad we assume that the elderly folks could not take it anymore and decided to sneak out and have an adventurous and pleasurable night: one that they would never have experienced at the retirement home. At the end, they are seen eating outside Taco Bell, presumably very early the morning. Many people would also say the commercial has the need for attention. This is evident, as you would not expect a group of senior citizens to sneak out of a retirement home to go do activities that young adults do during the early hours of the night.

That is why it gets your attention and makes you want to see what happens next and, before you know it, you have already been brainwashed by the tacos the elderly have after a crazy night. Also Taco Bell goes ahead and establishes a need for aesthetic sensations, though not common in this ad, but it is evident. This need is achieved when the featured elderly went to a club and had fun dancing and drinking as the night goes by, experiencing pure bliss. The final appeal that this advertisement portrays is the need for sex.

This is evident with the scene at the club where an elderly woman comes out of the bathroom with a young man who apparently has lipstick marks on his cheek. Also in the club, we see many people making out and the kind of dance that are being danced at the club. Advertising has been around for a long time and ads are used to introduce new products to the market, hoping for better returns. Most of us take ads for granted as we think that they are not able to influence us, but we are wrong. Advertisers have sat down and worked out strategies on how to manipulate us without us even realizing it.

One way they manipulate us is by having ads that appear in the clear in order to have an influence. In the article “This Is Yours Brain On Ads: An internal Battle,” Maya Cueva talks about how the brain responds to advertisements that we watch on a daily basis. She talks about how kids were watching an ad and how they used to go into a zone where you stop thinking and just watch, which is exactly what the ad wants. She meets up with Mark Kishiyama, a lab director at NeuroFocus, who shows her how her brain reacts to advertisements in three different ways: attention, emotional engagement, and memory.

This study of how the brain reacts to ads is how advertisers come up with ways to make their ads more effective in a short amount of time. With this article and the Taco Bell ad, we see that advertisers capture our attention by having featured elderly people in the commercial which captivates the viewer to want to see more, but we are being manipulated and put in the zone where we stop thinking and just watch, thinking that a 30-second ad is fast and that it's not going to influence us, but it does.

Taco Bell sums up their advertisement with the needs for attention, escape, aesthetic sensation and sex which are all very evident in the commercial. With the inclusion of senior citizens in the ad’s cast, Taco Bell created a curious environment for viewers who wanted to know what would happen next, because no one would expect to see elderly people doing what teenagers would usually be doing, at their age.

In my opinion this ad was well done and am sure it manipulated many other people, not just me. Featuring the elderly partying, having fun, then ending up at Taco Bell for food was the highlight of this ad and, personally would go out and have fun with this posse of senior citizens because they are fun.

WORKS CITED

1. Maya, Cueva. "This Is Your Brain On Ads: An Internal 'Battle'. " NPR. N. p. , 14 june 2. Web.

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