Sam Worth

1. 0:00 Hey, so today I want to talk about food ads and the way that they've changed over the last few decades.
2. 0:05 So back when food ads and advertisements really started, uh, they were using not real food when designing food for ads.
3. 0:15 Ice cream could be mashed potatoes, grill marks with shoe polish, and milk could be glue, or just a few examples.
4. 0:23 And that obviously looked great at the time because cameras weren't developed enough to catch that sort of thing, especially after editing and you know, watching it on a TV that might not have the highest resolution.
5. 0:39 And also, fast food was still novel, and these items that they were selling were still novel, and so people were really focused on the item.
6. 0:47 But now that cameras have gotten really high def, they're gonna catch what fake things look like, and everyone who watches it is gonna know that that's not really the item you're trying to sell.
7. 0:58 And consumers really want authenticity now and something innovative, something novel.
8. 1:04 So the same ad, but using the real food, yeah, it's better, but it's still not enough.
9. 1:10 So ads have started to play more on emotion and feeling and the way that you know you would feel having that food if you were to get it.
10. 1:23 So they have food stylists now where they will use the exact weight, quantity, brand of the food that'll actually be in the restaurant, but they style it in a way that it looks as perfect as possible on camera.
11. 1:37 So for a burger, they would put you know, place the patty, but maybe scoot it towards the front so it looks a little bigger.
12. 1:45 And then the lettuce, they would only put the lettuce on the front half of the sandwich where the camera will see it so that it looks full and fresh.
13. 1:52 They'll use a water spray bottle and spray onto the lettuce to make it look super fresh and clean, and they use heat guns to get cheese dripping in the right way, and they'll use paintbrushes to get sauce to look the right way.
14. 2:08 And it's interesting that the ads aren't even really convincing us to buy the item anymore.
15. 2:14 They're more convincing us that we would be happier or one of those, you know, positive emotions if we were to buy the item.
16. 2:23 They're using a lot of food crave shots like cheese pulls and big bites, and that's the feeling that they want you to feel.
17. 2:31 They want you to want to indulge in that item.
18. 2:33 They want you to see the freshness of that item, the comfort and the happiness that the people in the ads are feeling, rather than just look how delicious this item looks.
19. 2:43 It's just kind of interesting that we're kind of being convinced to buy items in a totally different way.
20. 2:49 Rather than faking the way it looks, now you're just adding emotion to that item based on you know what the item might be or who you are as a brand.
21. 2:59 So next time you're looking at an ad, it may not look the same on your plate that it does in the ad, but you know, maybe you will still feel that same emotion when you get that item.