Written by Chloe Thornton
Remember when you were sitting on your couch watching TV when suddenly a commercial came on for McDonalds, Taco Bell, or Applebees? The short answer is you probably do, and you might be wondering how the food looks better on the screen than in real life. The truth is that these companies use certain tricks to deceive their viewers and make their food look better so people will visit their companies. But, it is not just restaurants that use these hacks --- soda, ice cream, and even cereal companies use these deceiving techniques as well.
After reading that paragraph, you might be wondering why these companies fake their products on TV. Well, the majority of the reasoning comes from how long it takes to shoot commercials. It takes a lot of time, including multiple takes to get just one commercial right. During this time the ice cream would melt, the cereal would get soggy, and the carbonation would fizz out of the soda. Food production companies want to advertise the best look of their products, so they have to find other ways to keep their products as fresh as possible.
Now, as previously mentioned, ice cream melts pretty quickly. However, mashed potatoes don’t melt and they can look pretty much identical to ice cream with enough food coloring. Yep, you read that right. Some companies use instant mashed potatoes as fake ice cream during shooting to get the right take. In addition, to prevent cereal from sinking into milk during the shoot, glue is occasionally used to keep it afloat and looking fresh. Dawn dish soap is also used as another one of these tools, and it is used to keep soda nice and “carbonated.”
For fast food companies and other restaurants, it is more complicated for them to deceive their viewers. They obviously can’t use fake food during their commercials, but they have to find ways to make their food look as great as possible. They need it to look better than it does in real life so people will go there. McDonald's burgers are known for being pretty flat and having almost no volume. Even though they taste good, they have to look as gourmet as possible during their commercials. So, McDonald's photographers and advertisers put makeup sponges underneath the burger buns to give the burgers more shape and volume. But, these tricks don't just stop with the shape of the burgers. A syringe may also be used to apply ketchup and mustard in the right spots of the burger. Food stylists also use heat wands to melt the cheese perfectly. Even fries are sometimes placed on individual toothpicks so they are even and are raised out of their container.
Now pizza is a much easier food to make commercials about and it doesn’t need to be tampered with, right? Wrong. To give pizza cheese the stringiness and meltiness it has in commercials, companies mix glue in with cheese and then put it on the ends of a slice. When they pull the slice off for the commercial, the glue gives it the gooey effect that they want. Otherwise, the pizza slice would pull right off, not allowing for that perfect pull.
Cereal isn’t the only breakfast food deceiving viewers. Pancake commercials are filled with food hacks to keep them looking as perfect as possible. First, cardboard is placed in between each pancake to make it look better and more even as a stack. They have to use syrup in the commercial to make the pancakes seem tastier, however, syrup quickly absorbs into the spongy texture of the pancakes. For this reason, motor oil is used instead of syrup. This keeps it from sinking into the pancakes and keeps everything looking picture-perfect.
Now, at this point, I’m sure you are wondering why companies do these things to deceive their viewers. The number one reason is just for marketing purposes. Products on display have to look their best because these commercials will be playing all across the world. Also, not all companies do this. This is just a list of hacks that some use to enhance the food they are showing. They aren’t doing it to trick their viewers purposefully, they just simply want to advertise their products in the best possible way. Of course, this can get annoying for the people (like us) who see these commercials and believe them. The advertising world is full of hacks and ineluctable market schemes that are purposefully designed to trick their audiences. So the next time you find yourself watching a food advertisement on your TV, just remind yourself that not everything you see is 100 percent real.
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