A few blogs ago we talked about the short film Plot Device - a great example of a meta-textual text about genre. Plot Device is also part of a growing body of films called 'brand films'. What are these? Brand films are films that are sponsored by a brand name - such as Coke, BMW or Gucci. Plot Device was sponsored by American software company Red Giant. The idea of branded films is that they tell a story about a core product value or idea. The focus of these films is to be entertaining and tell a story, rather than 'in your face' about consuming the product. Essentially, it a response to our increasing disengagement with traditional advertising formats.
Today I want to look at a short, entertaining animated example of a branded film. It's called Back To The Start and is sponsored by American fast food chain Chipotle (It's Mexican fast food). The point of the short film is to focus on the sustainable, organic way the produce Chipotle uses for its food is grown. It's an interesting film to use as the basis for a discussion with your students about the effectiveness of advertising. We can ask our students a series of questions:
*Do you think fast food advertising makes a difference to what fast food you buy?
*Do you think people care about how their fast food has been produced?
*After watching the Chipotle ad what do you think is most likely:
1) People who already eat at Chipotle just feel better about eating there
2) People who may not have eaten at Chipotle are more likely to eat there
Last of all, we can ask our students - are these sorts of short films are good trend or a bad trend? Advertising is more entertaining like this - but it's difficult to tell it's an ad. Is this a bad thing? What is brand names started make feature length brand films. Would this be a good idea?
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