Superbowl Commercial Analysis: Fashionista Daddy

Doritos Superbowl Commercial

          

  Every year in early February, people turn on their televisions to watch the most highly anticipated football game of the year. While there are many who watch strictly for the game, there are those who watch the game simply for the commercials that are played. The Superbowl is notorious for having some of the funniest commercials played during game breaks. The competition to have an ad played during the game is so fierce that there are high stakes battles between commercials to see which one will be played. Some of the most famous and funny ads played in recent years have been the Doritos commercials.

            Doritos commercials are so famous that they now have a fan competition called “Crash the Superbowl” in which many different Doritos commercials are played and voted upon to see which one will make it onto the air. The 2013 winner was named “Fashionista Daddy”.

            In the commercial, a man is on his way outside of his house, football in hand to go play with “the guys”. As he passes his little girls room, she beckons to him to come play a princess adventure with her. He apologizes to her and explains his obligations, but she lures him in with the fact that she has Doritos. Several minutes later, the man’s friends come in the house grumbling to themselves and yelling to find out where their friend is. They walk into the little girls room, astonished as they see the man dressed up like a princess, complete with the dress and makeup. He notices them watching him, and he spins around in womanly fashion, eating Doritos in the process. The Doritos symbol then flashes across the screen and a chip crunching sound is made. Even later in the ad, the wife of the man walks past the room. She peeks in and sees all of the men dressed up like princesses, dancing with makeup and eating the chips. She looks angrily at one of them who is wearing her wedding dress, getting the orange powder of the chips all over the it. She rolls her eyes and continues walking past the room.

            In this ad, you can grab a couple points from it. The first and overall point would be the power of Doritos on the common man. At the beckoning of his daughter and the lure of doritos, the man was willing to put aside football time with his friends to eat chips with his daughter! He changed what he was going to do immediately, not even letting his friends know what he was going to do. He was completely drawn in by the little girl and her antics. She knew the right tricks to play to lure him in.

            The astonished look on the mens faces when they see their friend dressing as a woman is priceless. They all crowd around the door with the wide eyes. But the interesting thing is how if they were so surprised that their friend would be doing what he was doing, why would they quickly change their side and start wearing womens clothes?

Something that stands out in the ad is how quickly the mind can be changed, just for a simple food item. What is strange is how most males always want to have their “guy time” and in the ad, playing football is their passion. For most guys, “guy time” can never be interrupted or messed with, because guys need a way to vent and have fun. The fact that the daughter is able to entice all of the men to play princess with her just by offering them Doritos seems too easy. Many guys however cherish two things: sports and food. The men in this ad apparently hold food higher up than they do sports.

            One of the strangest things in the ad however, is when the wife of the man walks into the room. She sees all of the guys dancing around in princess clothes, eating Doritos. She is appalled to see the fattest man of the group with a very large beard wearing her wedding dress. She makes a remark to him but then walks off. Most women would never just let this kind of thing go. The wedding dress is a sacred thing, and to have a fat man wearing it, as well as getting orange Doritos cheese all over it would make anyone cringe. It is surprising to see her have almost no regard for her dress. The fact that they are all dressed up as women speaks volumes to the fact that the guys really had no care whatsoever that what they were doing may be looked at as somewhat transsexual. First of all, dressing up like a woman is something that the common man will not do, even if they do it as a joke. These guys clearly had no concern for how they appeared. They were so completely focused on the Doritos that they were willing to do anything, even if it made them appear to be having transgender tendencies.

            More specifically, we can notice that not all of the men that dressed up in the ad were necessarily going “all out”. Not all of them put on all of the makeup or even had dresses. That being said, they did enough to make them seem like they were leaning towards the opposite gender. Some had pink clothes and womanly scarves. And still others had simple party caps on with a scarf draped around him. They looked like they had to use whatever they could to complete the look of a woman.

But one has to wonder what the little girl thought of all this. While the men were all dancing around and making fools of themselves, you see the little girl simply waving around a little wand. She appears to have been thrown from the spotlight as the “cutest” and “best dressed” one in the room. That title appears to have fallen on the man wearing the woman’s wedding dress. She may have had a plan to trick her dad and friends into dressing up like women just so that the wife would see and get them in trouble.

            From the commercial, at first glance you can make the assumption that it is mainly about the product of doritos, which it may be. But there is a serious problem with the men in it. One has to wonder how they easily “changed sides” so quickly. With such manly men as they are, it seems strange that they would even think about dressing up like women. This could mean that some of them have some problems. They may be considering what it would be like to be a woman. Seeing this as an opportunity, they pounced on the chance with much enthusiasm, and no thought to how it may appear to the outside people. When the wife catches them in the act, they almost pay no attention to her disgust of them. They continue on doing what they were doing. 

            This is probably not the best environment for a young girl. She is the instigator in the scene, but little does she realize what may be associated with cross-dressing. She may grow up thinking that this may be acceptable. Her dad and his friends could have started something within her head that they don’t even realize. The mom sees that she is in there with them, but she doesn’t do anything to remove her from the world of cross-dressing men.

            In a way, it may be surprising to some that this ad would have been the winner of the Doritos “Crash the Superbowl” contest, mainly because of the strange connotations that could be associated with the cross-dressing of the men in it. But the ad is funny to most, and it does exactly what the makers of Doritos want: get people to buy their product.