WOWOW is a private satellite broadcasting and pay TV station. Its channels provide movies, TV series and sports. They recently launched a commercial for promoting their online TV service. In the commercial, an eagle was resting on top of the tree. You could see from someone’s window that the TV was playing some intense drama. In the drama, a mother failed to grab the baby stroller and it dashed down the long stairs. The eagle, which was also watching the TV from the tree outside the window, soared and flew to the filming scene. The crew thought the eagle was there to snatch their lunch boxes, however the eagle was aiming for the TV play in the staff’s pocket. After the eagle snatched the play, it flipped through the pages with its claws and as it reached the most climax moment…
”The Eagle Commercial”
A lot of commercials incorporated animals to enhance the plot. For example, diaper and children clothing commercials often use dogs as characters because dogs are common family animal and play the role of children’s company. Female jeans commercials often use snakes to insinuate women’s curves and accentuate female provocative undertone.
The animals adopted in the commercials have been personified. These animals can think, act and have characteristics. Japanese telecommunication company, SoftBank started filming a series of commercials featuring ‘Japanese families’. They created humorous dialogues and daily life events but most interestingly, the ‘father’ in the family is a dog and its personality simulates the traditional Japanese father character.
Choosing animal symbols that mean something and placing them in the commercials to stimulate consumers’ senses are understandable approach. However, in WOWOW’s commercial, why did they choose the eagle?
Eagles are not commonly seen birds in Japan. The most commonly seen ones in Japanese residential areas are crows and stray cats (stray dogs in Taiwan). It would make more sense of they change the eagle to a crow or a stray cat: the crow or the cat couldn’t wait for the ending so it dashes to the filming scene and snatches the play to find out whether someone would catch the baby stroller at the end. But in this particular commercial, they chose the eagle, why exactly?
When discussed about this commercial with friends in the same field, they laughed and said they had no clue either. Maybe it’s just another gimmick or maybe the client thought that the eagles were way cooler than crows and cats. Like the intoxicating drumming gorilla in the award winning milk chocolate commercial four years ago, everyone was asking “why used a gorilla?” but the creative director who won the award simply answered, “Well, you could keep guessing!”
“Gorilla Drummer” Cadbury Ad （Dairy Milk）
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About Author
Bruce
Bruce participated in various domestic and international commercial production, film launch and theater marketing; worked in creative script team of Beijing Branch, Densu Group (Japan); worked as a director for Gamania. He currently served as section manager in product development department in GJP.
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