Textual Analysis: Wheat Thins – WHheat Thins

Wheat Thins – WHheat Thins

This advert contains features such as:

• Real Time
• Repetition
• Speech – This advert doesn’t contain any voiceovers, just the characters speaking.
• Demonstrative Action – Brain Griffin is shown to be eating the Wheat Thins at the start of the advert.
• Dramatic Action – This advertisement was created to support the tagline “Do What You Do”. It is based on Family Guy, and a recurring joke about “cool whip”. In order to make the advert emphasise the tagline, they have two characters from Family Guy, Brian and Stewie doing what they do best, which is argue with each other. Stewie puts a large amount of emphasis on the letter “h” when he says Wheat Thins, and this gag will instantly be recognised by the fans of Family Guy.

This advert is a dramatization as two animated characters are arguing over the product. They have included Brian and Stewie Griffin, two popular and well known characters from Family Guy. Incorporating those famous faces in this way would allow them to appeal to the masses of Family Guy fans all around the world. They are attempting to get the fame and popularity of the characters to rub off onto their product.

Although Family Guy is generally for teenagers and younger adults, the exclusion of any rude gags has allowed this advert to appeal to masses of people on a wider scare. There is no particular gender, ethnicity, social class or age group that has been isolated or targeted.

This advert wants to say that popular television characters like Stewie and Brian Griffin enjoy the product, and so the viewers will too. They want to trigger an impulse buy in the viewers, so they will watch this advert and then head out to buy some Wheat Thins. They want to show their product is fun by throwing in popular gags from Family Guy, and incorporating a little bit of the characters’ personalities.

Family Guy feeds off negative stereotypes of all different types of people, based on age, gender, social class, ethnicity, intelligence and sexuality. In this advert, they were ensured that none of that crude or offensive humour was included, which will allow it to appeal to everyone.

This advert takes a funny and informal tone, as is typical in Family Guy.