A Game of Senses: The Presentation of Food and Beverages in Super Bowl LIII Advertisements
tl;dr: There is a reason why you are finding food more luscious than ever. This might or might not be it.
Sweet, savory, or sultry? In the world of the advertisements shown at Super Bowl LIII, Devour’s frozen foods are so good, one can develop an addiction to food porn. And the sensation one feels at the organic taste of Michelob Ultra’s Pure Gold beer can only be conveyed through a technique called Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), the experience of tingling sensations triggered by audio-visual stimuli such as whispering, tapping, and hand movements.
Yet whereas Devour’s ad was shortened from 60 to 30 seconds to exclude the mentioning of the phrase “food porn” and particularly questionable scenes, Michelob Ultra’s ad remained a mere starting point for discussions on ASMR and its effects.
In Devour’s ad, a man and his wife struggle with the man’s addiction to food porn. As a result from that addiction, the man hides from his wife when eating Devour’s food and spends more time microwaving frozen foods than with his wife which has harmed their marriage. At the end of the uncensored version of the ad appears the tagline “Never just eat, Devour.” The same tone also underlies the brand’s original slogan, “Food you want to fork.”
In order to present an ad appropriate for the Super Bowl audience, Devour collaborated with CBS to shorten the ad and strip it of the phrase “food porn”. The end result was a 30-second clean version of the original ad which presented the family’s struggle with an unnamed addiction which was only depicted visually.
Food porn is anything but a recent phenomenon. Even though pictures of exotic foods and visually appealing meals flood the news feed of contemporary users of social media platforms such as Instagram, research shows that our predecessors enjoyed looking at indulgent foods as well. A 2016 study conducted by Cornell Food and Brand Lab researchers analyzed the contents of American and European paintings dating back to the 16th century. Similarly to Instagram users who post pictures of exotic meals, painters from centuries past depicted indulgent, expensive foods rather than what could be found on an average household’s dinner table.
More recently, the meaning of the term “food porn” has expanded to include the resemblance of cooking as portrayed in media to sex and pornography. An example of this similarity is cooking show hosts’ usage of sensual terms while preparing food in front of TV audiences.
Furthermore, Brian Wansink, Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, said that depicting meals that include unhealthy food is not a recent craze but was also evident in the paintings included in the Cornell study. In fact, the term was coined by Michael Jacobson, co-founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, to describe meals that are so unrealistic that they should be seen as pornography.
Resting their argument on that precise meaning of the term, Fight the New Drug, a non-profit organization aiming at raising awareness about the negative effects of pornography, condemned the Devour ad. The organization used the ad and the controversy it caused as a platform for denouncing pornography, in line of the objectives of their campaign, and for expressing indignation at the sexualized tone of the Devour ad in particular.
Yet while the criticism against the explicit content in Devour’s ad resulted in the ad being shortened to suit the audience, the implicit appeals in another advertisement, that of Michelob Ultra’s organic beer, probed right into viewers’ brains through ASMR. Yet the only controversy around it pertained to the personal preferences and experiences of its viewers with ASMR increasing to attract Internet users while many who had not been acquainted with the technique tweeted that they did not like its use in the Michelob Ultra ad.
Unlike food porn, in both of its connotations as explained above, ASMR is a recently discovered, currently growing, and yet to be fully explored phenomenon. The nonclinical term was coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010 so the people who had the experience could discuss it. It wasn’t until 2015 when the first peer-reviewed study on the technique was conducted. Yet with the increasing application of ASMR in and outside advertising, research on the matter remains scarce and limited.
As the existing research on ASMR is not decisive on the effects of the technique, researchers speculate that it could potentially be used for therapeutic purposes as it has shown to alleviate pain and symptoms of stress or depression.
Researchers also remain uncertain about the characteristics of the technique itself that make for its popularity among Internet users. While so-called ASMRtists upload videos of themselves whispering into microphones or of their cats licking themselves and get millions of views, scientists are yet to pinpoint what makes the technique so effective.
Craig Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at Shenandoah University, Winchester, VA has launched the website ASMR University in his aim to better understand the phenomenon. A non-scientific theory that Richard suggests is that the technique offers womb-like comfort and sensations to its fans. That is, ASMR could be used to appeal to people’s innate experiences and early childhood memories.
Cuing out meanings which are already stored in an individual’s mind, be it on a conscious or unconscious level, and connect to current events and circumstances is what Tony Schwartz called “experiential meaning.” Messages that employ such appeals, Schwartz argued, are more effective in resonating with viewers and driving them to action than messages that people analyze and rationalize (Larson 2013).
The features which make for such powerfully persuasive messages — appropriate sounds, pleasant visuals, and initiating action or reaction based on emotion rather than reasoning (Larson 2013) — also make up Michelob Ultra’s ad.
Furthermore, those features also liken the ad to another controversial form of influence: subliminal marketing. Similarly to the persuasive messages Schwartz outlines in his theory, supporters of the existence of subliminal messages argue that such messages gain their power of influence from their ability to bypass the critical functions of the human mind and probe into the unconscious.
Additionally, the common thread that runs through both Devour’s and Michelob Ultra’s ads and links them to subliminal marketing is the use of sexual appeals. Whereas the sexual elements are evident and explicit in Devour’s ad, for which it was censored, Michelob Ultra’s ad tone can be viewed implicitly sensual.
Even though the first study on ASMR found that only 5% of the 475 participants in the experiment claimed that they watch such media for sexual stimulation, ASMRtists remain primarily attractive women showing cleavage. As a result, terms such as “braingasms” and “whisper porn” are commonly used to refer to the sensations caused by ASMR.
Consequently, though seemingly distinct for their use of explicit versus implicit, or sexual versus sensual, appeals, the two advertisements fall in the same category of sexual messages outlined by Larson (2013). More specifically, both ads employ sophisticated sexual appeals. Unlike blatant appeals used to advertise products such as Viagra which promise sexual satisfaction and/or prowess, more sophisticated sexual appeals only hint at sexual satisfaction through subtle cues. For that reason, the two ads should not be seen as lying on the two extremes of the use of sex in advertising but belong to closer points on the same spectrum.
Admittedly, the existence and viability of subliminal marketing remains yet to be proven. Yet, speculations about its potential influence on media consumers were alarming enough for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to claim it as “contrary to the public interest”. Insuring against the possibility of subliminal messages to be exploited, the FCC barred the technique (Larson 2013).
While sufficient research on ASMR is yet to be accumulated, an advertiser can take advantage of the existing research on sexual appeals used in ads of different types of products. Such research suggests that using sexual appeals are effective when used in ads for sexually related products such as perfumes, designer clothing, tobacco products or alcoholic beverages (Chang & Tseng 2013). In other words, Devour’s sexualized ad was not appropriate or even necessary for the promotion of food products.
In that sense, the implicitly sexual approach in Michelob Ultra’s ad is more understandable as it does advertise such a sexually related product. However, the ad fails to meet another criterion which possibly makes for successful sexual appeals as found by research in the field. Research suggests that such appeals are more effective when used for the promotion of products which provide distinctiveness such as expensive cars or clothing (Berger & Shiv 2011). In other words, the sensual tone of the ad would have been more well-placed if it promoted fine wine rather than beer.
The ruling of the FCC on subliminal messages should serve as a cautionary tale to media professionals in the field of advertising. Rather than employ trendy yet little researched tools and techniques such as ASMR, advertisers need to be cautious with the use of sexual and potentially illegal appeals. In the case ASMR is categorized to be as potentially harmful as subliminal marketing, Michelob Ultra could face lawsuits owing to their desire to tailor a powerful message that probes into viewers’ brains.
What is more, existing research indicates that the use of such controversial techniques might not be necessary for certain products. That is why an advertiser needs to consider the nature of the products they offer when tailoring promotional messages in addition to being aware of research findings in the field and legal threats.
References
Berger, J. & Shiv, B. (2011). Food, Sex and the Hunger for Distinction. Journal of Consumer Psychology 21(4), pp. 464–472. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23049316
Chang, C. & Tseng, C. (2013). Can Sex Sell Bread? The Impacts of Sexual Appeal Type, Product Type and Sensation Seeking. International Journal of Advertising 32(4), pp. 559–585. doi: 10.2501/IJA-32–4–559–585
Larson, C. U. (2013). Persuasion: Reception and Responsibility. Boston, MA : Wadsworth Cengage.
