Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Advertising Campaigns
by Folklore has long been used to attract attention in advertising slogans and texts. While proverbs, folk songs, and nursery rhymes are particularly prevalent, folktales have also been used to lure people into a purchasing choice. In fact, the “Pied Piper of Hamelin” can well be considered as a symbol of the world of advertising, with the pied piper playing his pipe ever so sweetly and the consumers following him without resisting his charming and manipulative music.
Cosmetic firms in particular have found fairy-tale allusions useful to sell their products. Revlon used the slogan “Cinderella-nails and the Magic Wand,” claiming that its cosmetics make all the difference between homeliness and beauty. The U.S. Forest Service asked provocatively, “Where would Hansel and Gretel be without a forest?” The car manufacturer Subaru used the catchphrase “Don’t let your coach turn into a pumpkin,” with the illustration making the allusion to the “Cinderella” fairy tale perfectly clear. The Lindt chocolate company used illustrations from the Walt Disney’s animated version of “Snow White” on its wrappers to sell its milk chocolate as heavenly sweets. And an antismoking advertisement carried the message “Kiss Me-I Don’t Smoke,” with the illustration showing that the frog to be kissed is the nonsmoking prince from “The Frog King” fairy tale. In any case, such advertisements suggest a better world where wishes can become true, and the slogans, texts, and illustrations make this look as easy as fairy-tale magic. Some companies have built entire advertising campaigns on fairy-tale motifs. For example, the Waterford Crystal Company frequently uses fairy-tale allusions for its marvelous glass creations. With cultural literacy being high regarding the most popular fairy tales, people will have no difficulty recognizing the fairy tale behind the slogan “One of her glass slippers fell off.”
The same is true for the slogan “Oh, what lovely ears you have” above the image of several pitchers whose handles brought about this variation of Little Red Riding Hood’s questions to her grandmother. Such wordplay presupposes that the reader and consumer will also recall the traditional tale, thus creating a world where magic and reality can meet in harmony. Perhaps the most elaborate use of fairy tales for advertising purposes was AT&T’s special issue of Time (spring 1995) entitled “Welcome to Cyberspace.”
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