How do you make viewers want to buy some unnecessarily poncy overpriced pet-food in the agonising doldrums of a crippling recession?
Do everything that could conceivably appeal to the gullible and drooling consumer-driven nation, of course!
First of all, make them think they are buying an Apple product. As long as it utilises Steve Jobsâ complex iconic cult-branding model â whacking an âiâ? in front of everything all the time â then the fooled viewers will be hankering for it, digging deep into their pockets for money they donât have, in the hope that IAMSâ new-look packaging descriptor âProactive Nutritionâ? means âInteractive Nutritionâ?, supplying them with the switched-on, interconnected escapism required to shut out the hideous realities of the 21st century, and basically trick them into thinking it has loads of cool apps and stuff.
Second, make it CGI. Build a wise-cracking computer-generated quadruped, and they will come. Living, breathing cats are far too authentic and ordinary to drive a callously cynical commercial agenda, and who even has real cats these days anyway? Give the people what they want â a food that is not too âwetâ? (as IAMSâ competitor is bizarrely criticised for being) to mash onto a screen in order to nurture their Tamagotchi kittens. Plus it will have the nostalgic appeal of those halcyon hours last week when they went to see that Disney Pixar film at the Acton Vue.
Lastly, use a voice that sounds like Stephen Fry. Rent-an-intellectual Fry perpetually has the public in raptures with his scripted spontaneity and calculated quips. Who else to purchase pet food from than an adorable yet emotionally wounded upper-class Dave comedian? Even better, instruct him to remark âI canât readâ? diffidently at denouement, so that gibbering viewers can identify with their benevolent narrator.
Sold!
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