One in every 15 fathers had a child while they were a teenager. Sex and birth rates in the United States, are among the highest of developed countries. The issue of sex and the use of protection have been hammered through out the world with various types of ads. Television, magazine, and billboards are the top advertisements for companies. For every woman out there having a child out of wedlock, there is also a man behind the picture. In this commercial, for ZaZoo condoms, they simply demonstrate what happens when you do not use a condom.
As the commercial starts off, there is a young father with his 4 or 5 yr old son shopping at the grocery store. The father who is wearing a black jacket, blue shirt, brown slacks, and black shoes is pushing the shopping cart full of fruit and vegetables. The little boy has on a grey sweat jacket; a red shirt faded blue jeans and is a little cute boy. In the background are a man and a woman in the meat section browsing for their selection. The father stops to browse through the last aisle in the store and the kid reaches for a big bag full of goodies. The father goes to grab something off the shelf and the little boy throws in a bag of candy. The little boy looks up at his father with puppy dog eyes begging him to let it stay. The father takes the bag throws it back in on to the shelf, then the boy looks at him with a weird I hate you look. Then the little boy grabs the bag again throws it in the cart they are shopping with, folds his arms and looks straight up at his dad. Then the dad puts it back on the shelf, looks at his young son and his son starts to yell and cry. The little boy is screaming like a siren and keeps saying, “I want the big bag”. The scruff looking father puts his finger to his mouth telling the little boy to be quiet. The little boy is screaming so loud everyone in the entire grocery store can hear him. As he keeps repeating “I want the big bag”. Tears are coming out of the little boy’s eyes as he continuously yells and screams the same phrase over and over again. The father takes a deep breath in with the look on his face indicating that he’s unsure what to do. The little boy is now shaking the shopping cart back and forth and making quite a big scene. A lady in the produce section looks at the little kid then the father and you can see she is thinking, “Take control of your child.” Two other people in the same section also give him dirty looks. The boy runs over to another section of the grocery store screaming and yelling, and then he picks up an item that looks to be a toy and starts throwing it on the ground in a rage of fury. He then runs over to the produce section and starts tossing vegetables on the floor. Then he rolls around on the floor moving his feet and arms while screaming. Then the last thing you see is the father looking down at the floor with the phrase “Use condoms.” The commercial then goes to the product icon it is selling, ZaZoo condoms. There catch phrase is “fun, sexy, safe”.
This type of advertisement is a good lesson in safe sex. The company, ZaZoo, who made this commercial chooses a pretty good approach on why to buy there product. The target audience is most likely in the teens to upper 40’s. This advertisement appeals to the target audience for one simple fact, most of us do not want to have unwanted kids. This advertisement shows the effects of not practicing safe sex. The values that this advertisement appeals to are those involved in the practice of safe sex in our society. Since 1996 the teen birthrate has dropped 8 percent over a 5 year span. This particular advertisement helps the viewing audience and the target audience by showing the importance of condoms and why they are good for you. Granted the company is helping society become a little wiser about safe sex, but it is also trying to make a profit by showing off their particular brand of condoms.
This particular television advertisement depicts a lot of different images from our society. The grocery store, where the kid throws his fit, is the most common public place for a kid to embarrass his or her guardian. It is many parents’ nightmare, especially new found fathers, to have their kid embarrass them in public in front of their own group of peers. Most kids who live in our society are bratty and think they can get whatever they want. They will throw a fit to get what they want, when they want it. Parents are not taking control of their kids. Often it is because parents did not want to become parents, but became ones because of there reckless actions when they did not use a condom or a form of birth control. Premarital sex is accepted by most people in our society. This advertisement also implies that if you use a condom you will not have a child, which is not entirely true. A recent study shows that 8.7 percent of condoms either break or slip off during intercourse. Also, this commercial portrays that having a child wrecks your life when you are not ready for one.
Using condoms, such as the one in the advertisement, ensures safe sex. Safe sex significantly decreases the chance of unwanted pregnancies. The advertisement directly appeals to the target audience, men in their teens to mid-forties, by accurately depicting the fears most men have in regards to unsafe sex. This accurate depiction brings the fear home. The advertisement also conveys things about American society. People in America are having pre-marital sex, and a child can wreck havoc on someone who was not ready to have children. Therefore, this advertisement makes the solution to those fears simple: “Use condoms.”
