Toyota Corolla "Ratings" Commercial

Toyota recently caught my attention with their Corolla “Ratings” commercial.  Though it features two guys eating lunch, the commercial targets both males and females from ages around twenty-one to thirty-five.  The commercial uses a plain folk propaganda technique which makes the car especially appealing to lower to middle class people.  The main draw of the ad is humor, seeing as Evan and Jerry end up eating from a C-class restaurant instead of the A-class they thought they were eating at.  However, the commercial plays upon people’s hidden fears of getting food poisoning from a questionable restaurant as well, which makes the audience more captive.  Additionally, the commercial makes use of foreshadowing, dramatic irony, and emotional transfer through its use of film techniques.  When we first track Evan and Tom from the car to the restaurant, we see the cook looking grimy and coughing.  The audience doesn’t really think much about what was just seen until the audience and Tom can see the cook changing the rating by the Department of Health in the window from an A to a C, as Evan is chomping away at his food.  The solution to this is for Tom to smack the food right out of Evan’s hand.  We can see by a close up on his face that he is shocked until he turns around.  His confusion soon turns to disgust and terror as he processes the news, but once they get in the car a close up reveals that he is now relieved to see that the Corolla has Bing which will direct them to a new place to eat.