Use in Advertisement
About a week ago, I went to a Chinese Japanese restaurant for dinner to celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday. I had never been to this place, so I was not quite sure what to expect from the menu. As one would normally expect, most of the menu items listed came with a small list or description of the ingredients found in the dish. However, I was surprised to find that some of the food items and drinks listed instead came with small story-like descriptions that had no indication of what was actually to be found in the item.
The place served three different types of volcano drinks; two of them listed the kinds of alcohol and juice the beverage contained and the last, one of these story descriptions. “When two lovers quarreling drink this drink, they will no longer be fighting after they are finished.” From memory, this is pretty close to the description for this third drink. My friends and I were confused and sort of frustrated by this… How are we supposed to know what to expect?
Thinking about it, this is an interesting way to get customers to order the item from sheer curiosity. This is exactly what happened to us; we ordered one and though we never found out what was in it, we simply wanted to know what the result would be. There was a food item called the Dragon and Phoenix which meant lobster and chicken. This item also used this sort of story-telling technique for a description.
Story-telling was most often used to entertain and educate the readers and listeners, but nowadays it can be used for promotion and advertisement. A well-built and developed story will draw the audience in and capture their attention. One should be able to see where this would be a useful technique for trying to sell any sort of good or service. More and more, especially for time like during the Super Bowl, television commercials and ads have started creating small stories. These stories whether memorable because they are funny or memorable because they are sad and tug at our heart strings, are meant to convince and persuade us to purchase whatever is being advertised. One of my favorite commercials is Volkswagen’s “The Force” commercial from the 2011 Super Bowl which I have linked below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdZMypElBpo