The “Alexa loses her voice” advertisement ran during this year’s Superbowl and I must tell you, I absolutely loved it. I am usually one of those people who only watch the Superbowl for the commercials, this is because I love how creative brands can get with their advertising and I find that more entertaining than a group of men throwing a ball back and forth.
One of my favourite advertisements this year was the “Alexa loses her voice” commercial. Instead of pulling a “Budweiser” and making the viewers sob, the Amazon brand Alexa decided to use humor to grab the attention of their audience.
Before we begin talking about the advertisement, let’s talk about the Alexa. The Alexa is a device created by Amazon that is basically a Siri for your house. You can ask Alexa questions and she’ll search the web for you to find an answer. She can perform an abundance of tasks such as setting alarms, playing music, changing the light settings and many more. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can start to discuss the advertisement.
The advertisement starts off with Alexa giving a user information on the weather and then suddenly Alexa comes down with a cold. The amazon head office begins to panic and then brings in some replacements. This is where it begins to crack you up. Gordon Ramasy, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson and Anthony Hopkins are shown portraying the new Alexa and do not have a clue what they’re doing. Instead of doing what the user asks, they confuse, embarrass, and scare the user.
I think choosing to do an advertisement like this one was a very smart idea. I wasn’t too educated on this product until I saw this commercial; the brand grabbed my attention through humor. I also found the use of popular celebrities was a smart decision in the advertisement because people feel like they have a connection to their favourite celebrities and they can target different demographics with each celebrity. Cardi B and Rebel Wilson cater to my demographic (15-25) while Gordon Ramasy and Anthony Hopkins cater to older demographics (25-50).
Overall, I really enjoyed this commercial and I would love to see many more like this in the future. An advertisement that allows the viewer to gain an emotional connection with a product is smart advertising, but humorous advertising really forms a bond with a product and a consumer. Let me know what you think!
The Road to a Happy Heart 