TV illusion attracts - Reasons why food in commercials looks much better than on the plate

A hair spray, shoe polisher, tampons, sponges, over dimensioned glasses, glue, etc are only some things used to make products more attractive for us in the commercials.

In Serbia, there is probably few people watching TV regularly who did not go to a shop to buy that product after they saw a commercial, especially when it comes to food. Hamburgers and other fast food, ice-cream covered with chocolate, crunchy cookies, bubbles from sparkling drinks which whisper “drink me”, etc. Marketing experts and those who create commercials know well about the tricks with the help of which you simply cannot resist trying a product at least once.

eKapija is pointing out at only some tricks used in the world and in Serbia.

Glue is a favorite helping asset of marketing experts. It is used in commercials for grains and trail mix. Namely, milk, in short period of time, wets flakes and they become less attractive. That is why kids in commercials “eat” corn flakes in white glue or even shampoo.

Glue is used to keep sesame on doughnuts, sandwiches or hamburgers.

In commercials, it is very important that food is hot as if it were out of the oven that second. In order to get that impression, cotton, tampons or sponges soaked in hot water and hidden in food are used.

Meat products mainly are not thermally processed until the end so that they would not dry out or get smaller so that meat products are decorated with let lamps and covered with shoe polisher so that they would look irresistible with brown color and not being smaller in size.

Cardboard is used in commercials for hamburgers so that bakery products would not get soften for meat.

If you watch American TV program, you will notice that it is crowded with commercials for pancakes covered with maple syrup. However, pancakes soak up the syrup fast, in commercials, pancakes (which differ from ours) are often coated with different fluids which are used for fabrics protection. Since maple syrup does not look so attractive at TV, motor oil is often a replacement for it in commercials.

Hair spray and deodorant are used in commercials for fruit. General Manager at Belgrade-based FCB Afirma, Dejan Nedic, says apples are sprayed with car polisher to get more intensive, sparkling colour.

The collocutor of eKapija reveals that glycerin is often used for glasses so that drops would be more attractive as well as pre-dimensioned objects are commonly used.

To make ice-cream more attractive, diverse coats are added. However, since coats leak very quickly pieces of paper towels are often spread over the ice-cream which makes wonders when it comes to keeping coat on ice-cream.

A true hit in commercials is mashed potato because it is easily modeled. It is even used as a replacement for ice-cream, previously colored in different colors.

Tablets against heartburn and soap balloons are also commonly used in commercials. They are mainly used in sparkling drinks commercials since they provide refreshing look.

For all of this, a view on the plate or in a box often is not what we expected. As for the taste, it does not have to do anything with commercial editors because even if it does not look so attractive, our taste is more than satisfied.

J.DJ.