Products like the subservient chicken and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign can be good and bad in reaching audiences. The chicken is pure entertainment and fun to play with, which people will like. Often times, really entertaining commercials distract from the product itself. After watching, people enjoy it for the entertainment value, but have no idea what it was selling. However, this causes people to pay more attention the next time they see it because they know it was good and eventually they will know the product. I don’t know if this would work the same way for the subservient chicken. People can easily ignore the small link at the bottom for Burger King and just play with the chicken. Having the chicken link sent around to lots of people is the main goal though, and I think that was accomplished.
With the Dove commercial, it is hard to miss the product name, which is good for the advertiser. The more serious subject matter, however, puts Dove in a different position than Burger King. People will either feel Dove really cares as a company because at the heart, they are parents and neighbors and people who care about children and families. It also would them set apart from other beauty products and but them more with health products, which are more of a necessity. On the other hand, people may think Dove is just a big corporation that is trying to use our emotions to sell their product, which is heartless and wrong. It seems more risky to me to do what Dove did because of the possible second response, but it also seems to have a bigger possible pay off. The biggest problem with the Dove commercial that I see is that although parents may be grateful that Dove brought the problem to their attention, they will not necessarily switch. They may think Dove is a good company, but they may also have a lotion that is working well. I think selling the actual product rather than an image helps more because the product is what makes people keep buying.