Want to be Big, Beautiful or Strong? Try Milk!

Milk Fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wya3Za9Zjk&feature=related

Did you know that milk can make you big? Beautiful? Strong? I certainly didn't...that is, until I watched an overly exaggerated milk promotion.

Is that a glass of magical milk I spy in your hand?

The commercial begins with a rather depressed looking basketball team. They say that it's the "big game". To solve the issue where they might lose, the guy in the pic above says to drink milk because it makes you big. Simple Solution? Yes. Does it work on, say, people like me? No. I've been drinking more milk than any of my younger siblings and yet one has surpassed me in height. Milk isn't going to make me big like the basketball players are after drinking the magical milk. Just look at the size difference:


Why aren't these guys in the Guinness World Record Book?

Just note the difference. The boys are now twenty-something feet tall! The exaggerated height is  unbelievable. Why are they letting such giant people play against small people? Someone might get squashed! Another question is how did they get in the gym in the first place? Magical Ingredients in the milk teleported the players there? Who knows..........

Another milk ad shows up about a girl who wants to be told she is beautiful and to land her crush, Jun. She dreams about a ton of boys sending her love letters, eventually causing a river of correspondence. The "need" addressed here is the need for attention. The girl (Yuko) wants to be looked at and salivated over by the boys in her school. The milk fulfills that need, but to an extreme.

How many people have drowned in a river of letters before? Hmmm.... I wonder.

Look! There's Yuko, drowning in the sea of the letters that she wanted in the first place. Quite sad. But this scene where she is being swept away by the letters keeps the viewer wanting to know what happens next to the girl. Is she going to die?

Wait! There is someone coming to rescue Yuko!

Not everyday you see a guy swimming in a river of letters.

It happens to be Jun, her crush! He rescues her from the letters and the girl wakes from her daydream. Then, the final milk commercial begins.

All hail the milk bottle!

This one is my personal favorite because it involves gestalt. The friend tells our hero about milk's magical properties, only this time it makes you stronger. The hero then daydreams about fighting a lion over a girl.

Ninja lion? Anyone?

You see the lion fighting with the boy and what is your first impression? I thought, "Why is there a lion fist punching and kicking like a humanoid would?" It seems so very odd, yet it adds to the humor all throughout the ad.

That looks like it hurts!

Finally, this happens, marking the conclusion of the commercial. As you can see, the two guys from the last clip are drinking milk in awkward positions. It looks really painful or difficult but it certainly draws your eye, doesn't it? Repetition also works in conjunction with this snap. After the end of every segment (the giant basketball team's ad, Yuko's drowning in letters promotion, and the ninja lion commercial), they show the actors/actresses drinking milk in an uncomfortable position.

Very interesting to see how Japan does their ads differently from the United States. These ones seem like mini stories and have some kind of humorous plot or dialogue. But, in my opinion, foreign clips have been far more interesting than most American created ones (except a rare one pops up from time to time).

What do you think? Are foreign or American-made commercials better overall? If you wish, leave a comment below.