| CM |
January 21, 2018
|
| She was a CM writer. If you turn on the TV, you can see some of her commercials. TV-CMs are mainly 15 minutes or 30 minutes, and sometimes 45 minutes or 60 minutes in this country. Her CMs varied from cars to chocolate. Now she was writing for a confectionery company's CM. Actually this was the third CM of the series. The last two CMs were successful although she didn't like them. The first one was like this: The day after the dance party, the prince's team came to Cinderella's house and they tried to fit the glass shoe on the two spoiled, mean sisters but their big feet didn't fit the shoe. Then Cinderella tried to put the shoe on. It fit her foot, and so, the prince proposed to Cinderella. When Cinderella stood up, the shoe broke into lots of pieces and the sisters started ran over to where Cinderella was and started to eat the broken pieces because they were drop candies. When Cinderella and the prince realized that they were candy, they too started to eat them up! This was terrible, she had thought, but on the day of the deadline, she couldn't get any other ideas and sent this idea by email. The company liked it. They produced the CM, and it became a big hit. The second one was more terrible. She took it from a fairy tale from Japan: A greedy raccoon rode on a ship which looked gorgeous but was made of clay. As  he rode, the ship sunk and raccoon drowned to death. In her CM, the ship was made of chocolate and the raccoon was happy. On board, the raccoon started to eat the chocolate ship. As it was so tasty, he ate the whole ship, including the bottom, and soon he drowned.Again she couldn't get another idea before the deadline. She sent this idea thinking that this idea would definitely be rejected. But the sponsor liked it. Once again, they produced the CM, and it became a big hit. She sighed. The sponsor of the CM got excited at these two big hits because their products sold well because of the CMs. This time they asked her a request to use one of the most famous fairy tales in the world for the third CM. It was The Little Match Girl. She couldn't believe it. For her, it was the last fairy tale to use for confectionery. The poor Little Match Girl was forced to sell matches alone on one Christmas night when all others were in their warm houses enjoying delicious food. Snow started to fall, she was cold and starving, but she couldn't go home until she sold all the matches. At last, she lay down and lit a match to warm up. When she lit it, she saw a dream of food ... Only thinking about this scene, she began to cry. If she used this story and turned it into a joke, Andersen wouldn't excuse her, she thought. But, in truth, she couldn't turn down the sponsor's request and started to research about Andersen: Andersen was born in 1805 in a poor but loving family. He had to start working at the age of 15 as his family was too poor. He lived being poor for a long time. All of his family, neighbors, and friends were poor, thus most of his fairy tales were dark. When he died at the age of 70, people from all ages from all over Denmark gathered in a long line at the funeral to pay their respect ... "I hope that I didn't offend his work." The deadline came and she sent her CM story: It was at night in the winter, snow started to fall. The little match girl asked the passersby, "Does anybody need matches? Does anybody need matches?" Nobody bought any and finally she sat down on the corner of the road. She couldn't walk any more. She took a match from the box and tried to strike it but, alas, because of the falling snow and her numb fingers, she couldn't get it lit. She tried again, and again ... Suddenly, she changed her face from being tired to a cheerful one and shouted, "In that case, why don't I eat them!" She took all the matches from the box and started to eat them. There was a crunchy sound and her face reflected that the taste was good. They were 'chocolate-covered biscuit sticks' that was the confectionery company's most popular product. The commercial became a sensation and was a smash hit. She could see girls imitating The Little Match Girl, saying to their parents, "Does anyone want matches?" They would show some of the 'matches' and soon one of the girls' parents would bite into the top of the stick. Every time when she saw this scene being acted out, she wondered whether she should feel happy thinking that this country was peaceful and wealthy or feel sad thinking about this county's future. She indeed felt a sense of guilt for using Andersen's fairy tale. |
| |
*vary :異なる
*confectionery :お菓子
*spoil :甘やかす
*fairy tale :おとぎ話
*raccoon :たぬき
*respect :尊敬
*crunchy :パリパリ
*guilt :罪悪感