Skittles

Who wouldn’t love to turn everything into Skittles? Well I guess a diabetic wouldn’t, but I should would. Or so I thought before I watched this commercial. In this commercial, everything a man touches turns into skittles. He is at a desk and a girl comes up with a guy and tells him to show the guy how everything he touches turns into Skittles. He touches the stapler and it turns into skittles. The guy says “That’s awesome!” The Skittles man then says how it isn’t awesome, how he can’t hold his newborn baby boy, can’t feed or dress himself, how he shook a man’s hand and he turned into Skittles. He finishes by saying, “Yeah, that is pretty awesome I guess.” The phone then rings and he goes to answer it. It, of course, turns into Skittles. He then gets angry and hits the desk, turning the desk into Skittles.
The speaker is the Skittles company. They are trying to get people to buy and eat Skittles, or as they put it “Taste the Rainbow.” The audience is the younger generation. I would say teenagers up to the people in their 40’s. This commercial uses humor to make you want to buy the product, but the humor in the video is a little complicated, yet a child would still think it was funny. What child wouldn’t think it was just amazing to see a man turn a stapler into a bunch of Skittles? Now that is just awesome. So in this aspect it catches the younger kid’s attention, yet the humor is advanced enough to get the middle aged people to laugh.
The Skittles Company is an authority in itself. It has been around for many years and everyone knows what Skittles are. Using the slogan “Taste the Rainbow” is a slogan that everyone knows. If your were to say this in a crowd, everyone would automatically think those small, sweet, colorful things we all call Skittles.
Also I would say that the magic in this commercial is an authority also. Changing objects into Skittles is something that grabs your attention. Magic makes you wonder, “How does he do that?” and brings awe and wonder. That is why magic plays a key role in this commercial. It brings a mysticism that nothing else can bring.
This commercial mainly plays off of emotions. The audience feels a mix of emotions during the ad. First of all we feel awe and amazement as the man turns a stapler into skittles. Like the guy says, “That’s awesome!” I thought as I watched it, “I wish I could do that.”
Then we are taken to a mixture of emotions where we don’t know whether we should laugh or feel sorry for the Skittles guy. He goes on to tell how he can’t hold his newborn little boy, or he can’t feed or dress himself, or how he met a man on the bus and shook his hand. The man will never see his family again, because he was turned into Skittles. He then says, “I guess that is pretty awesome.”
After answering the phone and turning the phone into Skittles, the man gets angry and hits the desk, sending Skittles flying everywhere from the desk turning into millions of Skittles. This is just a perfect ending. I broke out in laughter after this. Normally, hearing these things, a person would feel sorry for the guy because he couldn’t have a normal life. The commercial plays on this perfectly, making it humorous because it is unreal. No one could really turn things into Skittles. That is what makes the commercial, playing on the emotions that would normally make a person sad, but turning it into comedy.
As far as Logos, there really isn’t any reasoning to this commercial. The only reasoning I could find is that everyone would love to turn things into Skittles at the touch of a finger. But then again that doesn’t really make any sense at all. Well I guess all things don’t have to make sense.
I believe this commercial was very effective in using comedy to draw on the emotions of a person to get their attention. Then with the slogan at the end they say “Touch the Rainbow, Taste the Rainbow.” Using the authority that Skittles brings. I wanted to go out and eat Skittles after seeing the desk turn into Millions of Skittles. “Taste the Rainbow.”