The effort that went into this thirty second commercial goes to demonstrate how focused companies are on being creative. Every ping pong ball needs to be placed in the exact right order, on the right string and then the amount of air must be universal across the whole "shoe" so that it is even throughout. Engineering is becoming a part of advertising for companies. The point of the commercial is to show off the lightweight of the shoe. The show floats in the air. After seeing the commercial, I couldn't help, but look at the shoes on Asics website. I am now considering buying a pair of them. So the commercial was very effective in regard to achieving their goal.
In the YouTube generation, advertising has changed. Instead of companies marketing their goods on standard television and trying to make the commercials funny or featuring a celebrity, they instead put their advertisements on YouTube in the hopes that the videos will become a viral hit. These companies look to market their, in this case, shoes by doing something amazing quirky, something that has never been seen before. We can watch the commercial on something like YouTube and then click a link provided in the description and instantly buy whatever was in the commercial. YouTube is like a new form of eBay connecting the buyers and sellers. It has changed the way companies market, sell, and how they advertise.
Rhetorically, companies focus less on emphasizing how good their product is or why it is better than their competition. Instead, the companies want to just show something new and cool to entice people to thinking that their product is good. Companies have always used celebrities to show that their product is cool. Now, it is about how grand and witty a company can do an advertisement that truly shows how cool their product is.
