Crest and Oral-B Steals Halloween in this Month's Best Ad

A Dental-care's take on Halloween

Some people would think that the best way to tackle poor dental hygiene around halloween-time, would be to cancel it altogether. Halloween is the time for kids to horde their candy loot and eat sugar-filled treats for weeks on end. In other words, Halloween is dental care's worst enemy.

In one of this year's best ads, Crest Toothpaste and Oral-B take advantage of the best advertisers in any business; kids. Companies like Crest, Oral-B, and Verizon have been producing commercials that exploit kids for their "aw" factor. Verizon's commercials similarly show kids testing products and theories to prove a point in a simpler form. In this case, Crest and Oral-B test children's reactions to vegetable-flavored gummies, Nori pops and tofu ghost-mallows instead of the usual halloween treats. 
The kids react with disgust to the healthy candies, making throwing up candies and cringing at the taste, look adorable. Crest and Oral-B want viewers to understand that Halloween is a holiday worth celebrating for kids as long as they properly brush their teeth afterwards.

By exploiting children's naivety, marketers can persuade consumers to do nearly anything. Like verizon says, "It's not complicated"; kids will never give up candy on halloween. Commercials like these act to play with viewers' emotions to get their point across. If a kid gets the point, the viewer must too.