Burger King commercial

Sticking with the advertising theme, here's a Burger King commercial in which the product is apparently even more tempting than a (bizarrely sexualised) Red Riding Hood.

Bensons for Beds commercial

Once again, the product trumps true love in this advert for Bensons for Beds.

Hansel Sandwiches commercials

In this series of adverts for Hansel biscuit/cookie sandwiches, the message seems to be that the product is tasty enough to tempt these familiar fairytale characters away from the established narratives and help them avoid their traditional trials (the exception being the Sleeping Beauty commercial, where the product instead enables the expected ending; true love is overrated compared to chocolate snacks, it seems).

7Up commercial

This 2000 commercial for 7Up seems to sexualise the product to the point of parody...

...And then you realise that that's the whole point.

Target Women: Story Time/StilletoREVOLT

I adore Sarah Haskins, and wouldn't you know it, she's gone and done a fairytale-related piece for her regular piece on stupid advertising aimed at women, "Target Women".

Also, allow me to point out this awesome post on fairy tale images in advertising over at StilettoREVOLT. Here's a little preview of the kind of stuff they cover (note, as they rightly point out on the site, how exactly the reality of the Britney/Kevin relationship went).

The Red Hat and the Wolf

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely certain what this is. It appears to be some sort of public service announcement to do with (online) sexual predators. This is actually a fairly common reading of some of the themes at work in the LRRH story. Still, I'll be honest, this isn't exactly the greatest vid I've ever posted on here.

Plazma

The fact that so many popular fairy tales feature imagery that can traverse cultures and languages can be a boon to those in advertising, who are often trying to reach as broad an audience as possible in order to best hawk their wares. Still, I'd be lying if I said that I can actually understand the actual text of these adverts, or even what Plazma is, other than some generic-looking type of snack food/biscuit-ty thing.

To be honest, I'm not even sure that this is such a good commercial. I mean, what is it saying, exactly? Eating Plazma will attract wolves? It'll make you sexy and therefore attractive to figurative wolves? It'll make you feel like you're a little kid who's lost in the woods? A certain Luc Besson commerical this ain't.

Honey Nut Cheerios Commercial

A 1998 advert for Honey Nut Cheerios featuring Little Red Riding Hood.

Red Riding Hood and other fairytales appear to crop up a lot in advertising. I suppose because it's easy to hint at a narrative that people are already largely familiar with, rather than try to create an original one within 30 seconds.

Also: this is a rather strange advert really, isn't it? I mean, what's the tagline supposed to be "Cheerios: they taste marginally better than little girls"?

Chanel no. 5

Probably the most famous use of LRRH in television advertising is this commercial for Chanel no. 5 starring model Estella Warren and directed by Luc Besson (of La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element fame) and with music by Danny Elfman. As a treat, a somewhat more obscure variation on the ad is included below, also.



Critic Catherine Orenstein writes extensively about this and other examples of the inherent sexuality of the Little Red Riding Hood story being exploited by modern media in her wonderful book Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, which comes highly recommended by this blogger.

Optimum commercial(s)

Sticking with the theme of adverts for the moment, here's an ad (in both Spanish and English language editions) for digital TV/DSL/phone providers Optimum, which actually makes quite clever use of the common Little Red Riding Hood trope of "Oh grandma, what big x you have..." to highlight their various services.

Japanese commercial

And now, some random silliness from youtube. If anyone can offer any information on what this LRRH-themed ad is actually about, I'd be much obliged.