Verbal folklore genres such as proverbs, riddles, folk songs, nursery rhymes, legends, and of course fairy tales have long been used as attention‐getting devices in advertising. While proverbs, for example, are particularly suitable to create slogans, fairy tales meet the needs of advertising agents since they create a world of desire, hope, and perfection. Anybody wishing to sell a product would want to describe it in such a way that purchasers or consumers would thank their good fortune if they could obtain it. Fairy tales have as their basis this wish for happiness and bliss, where all wishes come true, and where everybody lives happily ever after. By using traditional fairy‐tale motifs and by adapting them to the modern world of consumerism and the instantaneous gratification syndrome, advertising agencies create the perfect medium with the irresistible message.
When advertising started to gain ground at the beginning of the 20th century, fairy‐tale titles, certain poetic verses, and short allusions to well‐known fairy tales began to be used as manipulative bait. The reader would be reminded of the happy and satisfied fairy‐tale ending, thus deciding subconsciously that the advertised product must be the perfect choice. As time went on, ever more glamorous illustrations were added to the verbal messages, combining the advertisement for a necklace or a piece of clothing, for example, with a beautiful woman standing in front of the mirror asking that eternal question, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ And who would not want to be the most beautiful, especially since, in the modern world of advertising and consumerism, everything is possible. All that it takes is fairy‐tale formulas and allusions together with manipulative texts and glittering illustrations. Naturally sophisticated television advertisements can create a state of enchantment which barely leaves the viewer any choice but to accept the message as the ultimate wish fulfilment.
Since advertisers want to communicate effectively with their readers and television audiences, they will choose motifs only from those fairy tales that are especially well known. Many times an advertisement is simply based on the title of a fairy tale. Thus a beauty shop was named ‘Rapunzel’ and on a flyer used the headline ‘Rapunzel's Creative Hair Styling Salon’. A German champagne producer simply named its product ‘Rotkäppchen’ (‘Little Red Cap’), and every bottle since the early part of this century has had a red cap on the top of the bottle. The name and this symbol bring with them the positive feeling of Little Red Riding Hood going off to her grandmother's house with a good bottle of expensive alcohol. What is right for a fairy tale ought to be very suitable indeed for the realistic world as well. Little wonder that the Martini vermouth producers used the slogan ‘Fairy tales can come true’ to sell their perfect drink.
Cosmetic firms especially make use of such fairy‐tale allusions. Revlon came up with the slogan ‘Cinderella—nails and the Magic Wand’, thereby claiming that its cosmetics will make the difference between homeliness and beauty. Of course, this beautiful person would need a gorgeous automobile, and so the Fisher Body company used the slogan ‘A Coach for Cinderella’ in the 1930s to help advertise such a car for General Motors. But for this the consumer would need money, and as luck would have it the Bank of America, according to an advertisement from the year 1947, is the ‘Godmother to a Million Cinderellas’. There is one wish fulfilment after another, and such slogans with their coercive texts and inviting pictures make all of this look as easy as the waving of a magic wand—until the reality check sets in, of course.
The Dilder carpets company tried as well to create a special mood for its magnificent products. The headline of its advertisement very effectively coupled the perfect world of the fairy tale with monetary reality: ‘A Fairy Tale for Real People with Real People Budgets’. There is no talk of a particular fairy tale here. Rather the words ‘fairy tale’ stand for something perfect and beautiful. A German carpet company had similar ideas, but its slogan read more precisely: ‘A carpet as beautiful as Snow White’. A bit strange perhaps, to compare a carpet with a beauty like Snow White, but the idea is to conjure up the feeling of perfection. Of course, the picture of this advertisement also shows Snow White sitting on the carpet and the seven dwarfs turning somersaults from sheer joy and excitement about this incredible carpet. Perfectly fitting seems to be the slogan which the Royal Doulton Dolls company added to a picture of one of its magnificent creations: ‘Royal Doulton presents the fairest of them all’. A mere allusion to the well‐known verse from the ‘Snow White’ fairy tale, but enough to convey the claim that Doulton dolls are absolutely beautiful products.
The Waterford Crystal company quite frequently employs fairy‐tale references for its marvellous glass creations. Nobody will have any difficulty recognizing the fairy tale behind the slogan ‘One of her glass slippers fell off’. And how appropriately worded was the statement ‘Oh, what lovely ears you have’ next to the picture of a number of pitchers whose handles brought about this variation of Little Red Riding Hood's questions to her grandmother. Such wordplay always presupposes that the reader and consumer will also juxtapose the traditional tale with it, thus creating a world where magic and reality can meet in harmony at least once in a while. One of the most elaborate uses of fairy tales for advertising purposes was AT&T's special issue (spring 1995) of Time entitled ‘Welcome to Cyberspace’. In numerous two‐page spreads AT&T illustrates the fairy‐tale‐like inventions of modern electronic technology. Fairy‐tale motifs of ‘The Frog King’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ appear. The fairy‐tale heroes and heroines are, of course, spruced up to fit the age of cyberspace. The same is true for their modern fairy‐tale‐like messages, as for example: ‘Rumpelstiltskin is my name. Spinning straw into gold was my game. But now I'm a new man and I have new cravings. I spin phone calls into savings.’ But it does not really matter what new products and wishes will come about, the traditional fairy tales as expressions of wish fulfilment will be suitable to advertising in ever new forms and disguises.
Bibliography
- Dégh, Linda, and Vázsonyi, Andrew, ‘Magic for Sale: Märchen and Legend in TV Advertising’,
Fabula , 20 (1979). - Dundes, Alan, ‘Advertising and Folklore’,
New York Folklore Quarterly , 19 (1963). - Herles, Helmut, ‘Sprichwort und Märchenmotiv in der Werbung’,
Zeitschrift für Volkskunde , 62 (1966). - Horn, Katalin, ‘Grimmsche Märchen als Quellen für Metaphern und Vergleiche in der Sprache der Werbung, des Journalismus und der Literatur’,
Muttersprache , 91 (1981). - Mieder, Wolfgang, Tradition and Innovation in Folk Literature (1987).
- Röhrich, Lutz, “‘Folklore and Advertising’”, in Venetia J. Newall (ed.), Folklore Studies in the Twentieth Century (1978).
— Wolfgang Mieder
