Thursday, June 8, 2023

The Effects a Funny Commercial Can Have on the Brain

    An advertisement that really stood out to me was Drake’s collaboration with Apple Music in 2016. The commercial shows Drake working out with his personal trainer with rap music in the background but when the trainer leaves, he opens his Apple Music and plays “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift and starts to sing with all his heart. By the end of the ad, he’s doing a bench press but falls over because he's distracted by his passionate singing and can’t hold the weight. This ad stood out to me because it was both comical (because it’s Drake who was trying to seem super macho in the beginning of the commercial) and relatable to me as a 17-year-old girl at the time who got about as much pleasure from the Pop song as he was. I also had a crush on Drake when I was younger so of course I loved seeing a combination of him working out and showing his goofy side to a song I liked in my teenage years.

    This advertisement had an impact on my nervous system in a few different ways. Because it was funny and I thoroughly enjoyed it, the ad affected the release of certain neurotransmitters like dopamine (reward), serotonin (mood), and norepinephrine (mood). I would say Dopamine was probably the most apparent after I laughed so hard at his dance moves. It was also nostalgic for me in a way because I had that childhood crush on Drake and it was also funny, so the region of my brain that was involved was the Limbic System, which includes the Hippocampus, Amygdala, and Hypothalamus. Specifically, this commercial had an effect on my Amygdala because memory and emotion were involved as I watched.

I've attached the ad below so please watch it for your own entertainment and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!





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