As Willy Wonka opens the doors to his Chocolate Room in the original film adaptation of 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory', leading his visitors along the banks of a chocolate river, he sings a song about the power of imagination. “Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure imagination,” he promises. “Take a look, and you’ll see, into your imagination.” If you feel like you’ve heard "Pure Imagination" recently, it’s probably because it’s playing in an AT&T commercial currently in heavy rotation. Previously, versions of the song have also popped up in ads for MasterCard and a Lenovo laptop. I asked myself why this song was so popular among advertisers.
I believe commercials that use the song to inspire a sense of childish wonder in viewers, and follow in Wonka’s footsteps by using that wonder to sell products. MasterCard released an ad in 2005 set to an upbeat, poppy cover of the song, in which a couple wanders around a candy store where cameras, iPods, and vacation options fill the bins instead of pralines and Gummy Bears. Willy Wonka’s fantastical dreams may have had commercial appeal (those golden tickets moved a lot of Wonka bars), but this ad and its soulless cover carry a slightly more sinister message: Your dreams are mere commodities.
Other ads have stayed truer to the song's lyrical mood. In 2007, Lenovo used the original version of the song to promote their “Thinkpad” laptop, in a commercial that demonstrates the computer's durability. Among other things, the laptop is slammed against a wall in an automobile crash test, batted back and forth by astronauts in an anti-gravity room, submerged in water, held up to the sun in a desert, and frozen in liquid nitrogen, all while Gene Wilder’s voice croons dreamily in the background. “What we’ll see, will defy, explanation,” he trills. Modern science does just that, and the ad suggests that a computer is the doorway to countless other marvels. The song helps transform the computer from a necessity into something as enchanting and enduring as an Everlasting Gobstopper.
Now back to AT&T's current ad, “Pure Imagination” plays in the background as the camera pans across a city, where buses and pedestrians share the streets with a rainbow train, a purple creature with three eyes, and other fantastical images, all in a style of child-like drawings. The conceit: Anything is possible with an AT&T phone, just like anything is possible in the world of a 5-year-old’s imagination. Of the three, this commercial is the truest to the Wonka ethos. It suggests that a smartphone, which is supposed to connect us to any person or piece of information at any time, enlarges the world for adults, just as daydreams do for children. It also promises adults an escape from the daily grind, a chance to experience again the sense of wonder we knew as children.
Of course, even the loveliest commercials are intended to make money by selling us things we probably don’t need; in AT&T's case, their service. Wonka was quite the salesman, too: He may have had the creativity of an inventor, but he also had the business-savvy of an entrepreneur, and his whimsical sweets made him a very rich man. Still, the people who use the Wonka legacy to market their products differ from the great man himself. For Willy Wonka, the ideas and inventions were the real thrill. The money was just the icing on the fizzy lifting drink.
I believe commercials that use the song to inspire a sense of childish wonder in viewers, and follow in Wonka’s footsteps by using that wonder to sell products. MasterCard released an ad in 2005 set to an upbeat, poppy cover of the song, in which a couple wanders around a candy store where cameras, iPods, and vacation options fill the bins instead of pralines and Gummy Bears. Willy Wonka’s fantastical dreams may have had commercial appeal (those golden tickets moved a lot of Wonka bars), but this ad and its soulless cover carry a slightly more sinister message: Your dreams are mere commodities.
Other ads have stayed truer to the song's lyrical mood. In 2007, Lenovo used the original version of the song to promote their “Thinkpad” laptop, in a commercial that demonstrates the computer's durability. Among other things, the laptop is slammed against a wall in an automobile crash test, batted back and forth by astronauts in an anti-gravity room, submerged in water, held up to the sun in a desert, and frozen in liquid nitrogen, all while Gene Wilder’s voice croons dreamily in the background. “What we’ll see, will defy, explanation,” he trills. Modern science does just that, and the ad suggests that a computer is the doorway to countless other marvels. The song helps transform the computer from a necessity into something as enchanting and enduring as an Everlasting Gobstopper.
Now back to AT&T's current ad, “Pure Imagination” plays in the background as the camera pans across a city, where buses and pedestrians share the streets with a rainbow train, a purple creature with three eyes, and other fantastical images, all in a style of child-like drawings. The conceit: Anything is possible with an AT&T phone, just like anything is possible in the world of a 5-year-old’s imagination. Of the three, this commercial is the truest to the Wonka ethos. It suggests that a smartphone, which is supposed to connect us to any person or piece of information at any time, enlarges the world for adults, just as daydreams do for children. It also promises adults an escape from the daily grind, a chance to experience again the sense of wonder we knew as children.
Of course, even the loveliest commercials are intended to make money by selling us things we probably don’t need; in AT&T's case, their service. Wonka was quite the salesman, too: He may have had the creativity of an inventor, but he also had the business-savvy of an entrepreneur, and his whimsical sweets made him a very rich man. Still, the people who use the Wonka legacy to market their products differ from the great man himself. For Willy Wonka, the ideas and inventions were the real thrill. The money was just the icing on the fizzy lifting drink.
