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WHY DO BURGERS LOOK SO GOOD IN COMMERCIALS


Joblin
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1 hour ago, Major C. said:

People know the burgers look like that, but everyone eats there anyway, so there’s no reason for the restaurants to make them better.

^

Also those sloppy burgers be hittin different

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TL;DR. If you want more information about this, read the sources below

Fast food companies target children as their primary audience for their commercials. The reason marketers make their fast food products look enticing in a commercial, despite looking horrible in reality, has to do with how children can be easily influenced by visuals of enticing foods. When a kid watches a commercial for, say, a McDonald's Big Mac, it needs to look enticing and delicious in appearance because that's what convinces (specifically, primes) children to want a Big Mac, either going out to buy it themselves, or requesting it from their parents, which affects their eating habits. The sight of appealing and delectable food activates reward circuits in the brain, outside of one's awareness, which prompts them to seek out the food they saw, or something related to it.

So, I want to make it clear that this isn't considered "rigged". This is simply deception by the marketers to lure in their target audience: children, but I can understand why you see it as rigged, since you aren't getting what you paid for. If fast food companies chose to advertise exactly what they sold to you in-person, they probably would not make many sales. Why? Because the food you buy looks disgusting in appearance, and showing that on TV or online immediately switches off reward circuits, disabling you from even considering buying the product being advertised. Remember: these companies are targeting children; they need to attract them the most to their products.

So, the next time you watch a fast food commercial, try and recognize your unconscious desire to have whatever is being advertised. Best way to do that: see if you are slightly salivating.

 

Couple of misconceptions I want to clear up being posted here:

4 hours ago, Admiral MacK said:

Fast food places are run by kids with a 1.7 GPA, nicotine addiction, and temper tantrums. If we considered fast food a professional's approach to the cooking industry I'd say that we could get pretty close to the advertisements. 

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, but this isn't true. Fast food restaurants, like any other eating establishment, have managers, and these are not children. The lower employee subordinates can include people among the middle-to-late adulthood age groups, but these are not children.

 

1 hour ago, Kenji said:

Minimum Wages, laziness, people not complaining very much about how the food is structured and just eating it.

Laziness and non-complaining are potential contributors to why people easily buy fast food they see in a commercial, despite it looking disgusting in-person, but minimum wages has nothing to do with it. The factor of "just eating it" would apply in the case of just finding something to eat for the sake of eating and satisfying hunger, but more often than not, people will think about what they eat.

 

Sources

Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior (Harris, Barngh, & Brownell, 2009)

Why do McDonald’s products look different from their advertisements? (Garun, 2012)

How Fast Food Advertisements Get Under Your Skin, Whether You Realize It Or Not (Pirnia, 2019)

Influence of child-targeted fast food TV advertising exposure on fast food intake: A longitudinal study of preschool-age children (Emond, Longacre, Drake, Titus, Hendricks, MacKenzie, Harris, Carroll, Cleveland, Gaynor, & Dalton (2019)

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4 minutes ago, Snowyamur said:

TL;DR. If you want more information about this, read the sources below

Fast food companies target children as their primary audience for their commercials. The reason marketers make their fast food products look enticing in a commercial, despite looking horrible in reality, has to do with how children can be easily influenced by visuals of enticing foods. When a kid watches a commercial for, say, a McDonald's Big Mac, it needs to look enticing and delicious in appearance because that's what convinces (specifically, primes) children to want a Big Mac, either going out to buy it themselves, or requesting it from their parents, which affects their eating habits. The sight of appealing and delectable food activates reward circuits in the brain, outside of one's awareness, which prompts them to seek out the food they saw, or something related to it.

So, I want to make it clear that this isn't considered "rigged". This is simply deception by the marketers to lure in their target audience: children, but I can understand why you see it as rigged, since you aren't getting what you paid for. If fast food companies chose to advertise exactly what they sold to you in-person, they probably would not make many sales. Why? Because the food you buy looks disgusting in appearance, and showing that on TV or online immediately switches off reward circuits, disabling you from even considering buying the product being advertised. Remember: these companies are targeting children; they need to attract them the most to their products.

So, the next time you watch a fast food commercial, try and recognize your unconscious desire to have whatever is being advertised. Best way to do that: see if you are slightly salivating.

 

Couple of misconceptions I want to clear up being posted here:

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, but this isn't true. Fast food restaurants, like any other eating establishment, have managers, and these are not children. The lower employee subordinates can include people among the middle-to-late adulthood age groups, but these are not children.

 

Laziness and non-complaining are potential contributors to why people easily buy fast food they see in a commercial, despite it looking disgusting in-person, but minimum wages has nothing to do with it. The factor of "just eating it" would apply in the case of just finding something to eat for the sake of eating and satisfying hunger, but more often than not, people will think about what they eat.

 

Sources

Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior (Harris, Barngh, & Brownell, 2009)

Why do McDonald’s products look different from their advertisements? (Garun, 2012)

How Fast Food Advertisements Get Under Your Skin, Whether You Realize It Or Not (Pirnia, 2019)

Influence of child-targeted fast food TV advertising exposure on fast food intake: A longitudinal study of preschool-age children (Emond, Longacre, Drake, Titus, Hendricks, MacKenzie, Harris, Carroll, Cleveland, Gaynor, & Dalton (2019)

you didn't have to fucking end them snowy damn

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On 11/16/2020 at 4:04 PM, Admiral MacK said:

Fast food places are run by kids with a 1.7 GPA, nicotine addiction, and temper tantrums. If we considered fast food a professional's approach to the cooking industry I'd say that we could get pretty close to the advertisements. 

Ah yes, because everyone who works at fast food restaurants are all dropout teenagers 

You're pretty disrespectful for saying this no cap, but hey, I guess people that are forced to work these jobs for their families are just nicotine addicted schoolkids

Pretty cringe that a director would publicly flame people for working jobs :/

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On 11/18/2020 at 5:37 AM, Slap said:

Its all rigged

Just seeing this process gives me a better visual of how the behind-the-scenes marketing works, and I can see why people think it's "rigged" since, well, clearly they are using Photoshop (looks like it??) to artificially alter the burger to appear more delectable. "Rigged" wouldn't be the term I would use, though, because rigging something would be creating a system intentionally designed to scam someone. And from this video, what they're doing isn't scamming people.

What I'm seeing here is more like "deception" and "lying" for lack of better words. They're creating an artificially improved visual of the original burger to market it off better to children, even adults, which is something that has been going on in the fast food industry for decades. Doesn't really hurt anyone because you still have the choice of purchasing the burger or not, but still, it's deceptive, and it works off of the reward circuits of the brain.

Edited by Snowyamur
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