Stride Gum

Is It Ridiculously Long Lasting? In the recent Stride commercial, Shaun White endorses their new Whitemint flavored gum. The advertisement’s main purpose is to promote the gum by creating an ironic situation that grasps the audience’s attention with a humorous tone. Without stressing the product so heavily, they provide a less demanding approach for the audience to buy their product. The advertisement promotes the gum as ridiculously long lasting. Although, throughout the commercial, the marketer’s debate over solutions for the consumers to chew another piece.
By the end of the commercial they come up with the solution for consumers to either “Spit it out. or Yeti will find you. ” Stride Gum Inc. uses irony, social appeals, and tropes to lure the audience. The ironic situation in the Stride Gum commercial is how it is an advertisement within an advertisement. Obviously an advertisement’s purpose is to promote a specific product. But in this advertisement, it shows the marketing professionals for Stride Gum deciding on ways to promote their product. It is ironic to see a commercial that is about their company making their commercial.
Another ironic appeal is Stride Gum’s use of a yeti. At the end of the commercial, Shaun White comes up with an idea to get the consumers to chew another piece and quickly gets on his phone. Suddenly, a giant yeti comes barging in the meeting room and punches the head-marketing executive in the gut, forcing his gum to shoot out of his mouth. The audience clearly knows a yeti would never come force their gum out by punching them in the stomach, let alone even encountering a yeti. This sets a humorous tone for the audience to relate to which increases their interest for the product.

Another tool Stride Gum incorporates is their usage of a social appeal. In their commercial, Stride features Olympic gold medalist Shaun White. Just this year Shaun White was named the second most powerful athlete behind Peyton Manning. Not only is White a tremendous snowboarder and skateboarder, he has become a celebrity and role model for the youth culture. Stride purposely uses Shaun White to target the youth audience because of his friendly face, personality, athletic ability, and popularity.
Once the youth audience sees him on TV, they instantly feel a connection that the older generation cannot relate to. Being a popular hit for sports and role modeling for the fans, White makes Stride Gum a sure way to instant marketability. Lastly, Stride Gum uses the appeal through tropes to capture the audience. The first trope used for the Whitemint flavored gum commercial is, “The ridiculously long lasting gum. ” When they first advertise this gum as long lasting, Stride’s main purpose is to suede the audience in believing their gum lasts longer than other competing products.
But throughout the commercial the main concern for the marketers changes into getting the consumer to chew another piece. The change is ironic to see because at the beginning Stride really wants the audience to believe their gum is ridiculously long lasting. But by the end of the commercial, they act like the viewers have already believed their long lasting flavor proposal. This then puts the stress on the idea that the marketers are trying to find a way to get the consumers to stop chewing it and get another piece.
By using these two different tropes, it represents Stride as being confident that their gum is long lasting, and its so long lasting they have to find a way for people to spit it out and chew another piece. By the end of the commercial the slogans change from “the ridiculously long lasting gum” to “spit it out, or Yeti will find you. ” Stride purposely changes the tropes because they want the audience to believe that the Stride marketers have perfected long lasting gum. They now want the viewers to believe their Whitemint gum is so long lasting that they are facing the issue of getting the consumers to chew another piece.
With the use of transforming tropes, social, and ironic appeals, Stride Gum Inc. attracts the audience’s interest and attention. Shaun White and the yeti implement a humorous tone that coincides with the ironic situation that appeals to the youth culture. Also, switching up the tropes sways the viewers to fully believe Stride Gum’s advertisement due to the confidence displayed by Stride in the commercial. By applying multiple appeals into their commercial, Stride Whitemint flavored gum is advertised effectively to sway the younger generation’s interest to consume their product.