Entry #5: Cat: 30 | Allstate Mayhem ad

I wanted to talk a little bit about an ad that I thought was extremely funny. This is one of Allstate's mayhem advertisements (of which there are a bunch) that deals with homeowners who own a cat. They have a perfect blend of humor and seriousness while trying to emphasize their purpose in this ad. 

To start, we see a man acting as a cat throughout the ad, and as a cat would act he starts doing mischievous things. For instance, he smacks a sink and turns it on, he was sitting on a Roomba as it was making its rounds around the room, and he even was seen smacking a lit candle off a countertop. Basically, he is doing classical cat things. 

                                                                  

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After showing all the dangerous things our cats can do, the effects of those these cats are also shown. For instance, the sink that the man acting as a cat turned on is later seen falling through the ceiling and causing a huge amount of damage. I think it was set up in this way to highlight the damage done by such little actions from our cats. Even if the cat did not intend for all this damage to occur, something as small as tapping a sink can cause large amounts of damage. Although cats look innocent and cute like this: 

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they can still cause unforeseen amounts of damage. Thus the commercial emphasizes that even if we can't foresee something like a sink falling through the ceiling coming, we should still protect ourselves, and with Allstate, it is clear that we can thoroughly protect ourselves. The ad also does well with appealing to pathos(which means they appeal to our emotions) as most of the ad is centered around cats, and just like the cat in the above picture, most cats are extremely cute which triggers emotional responses from most people.  

Allstate does a great job with using humor to get their audience to realize that they won't always be able to deal with unforeseen circumstances and that by having Allstate insurance it won't matter if your cat turns your house upside down, because Allstate will have you covered.