Little wonder that the city of Hamelin in Germany uses the pied piper to attract tourists and that “The Pied Piper” toy shop in St. Armands Key, Florida, used a pied piper figure with children following him as a sign and as an illustration on its shopping bags.
Fairy tales, however, are especially suitable to create a perfect world of desire and wish fulfillment in the mind of consumers. Any merchant would want to describe a product in such a miraculous fashion that a purchaser would not be able to resist buying it. And since fairy tales appeal to people's wish for a happy and contented life, the tales' motifs become perfect tools in their original or adapted wording to promote consumerism in a society informed by the drive toward instantaneous gratification. Advertising copywriters are only too aware of the fact that traditionally or innovatively employed fairy-tale motifs are ideal for spreading irresistible messages to consumers.
When the phenomenon of advertising took hold at the beginning of the twentieth century,
titles or poetic verses of fairy tales or short allusions to well-known stories began to be used as effective bait. The readers or viewers of an advertisement would immediately be reminded of the happy ending of the underlying fairy tale, leading them more or less subconsciously to the conclusion that the product must be equally wonderful. Color printing and, since the latter half of the twentieth century, television spots added important visual aspects to the verbal message, making such advertisements even more appealing. Again and again, beautiful women such as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty are illustrated in front of a mirror or gently sleeping to advertise a cosmetic product or a piece of fine clothing. After all, who does not want to be beautiful, and who could resist that famous fairy-tale question, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The message is always that perfection and satisfaction are attainable, and fairy-tale formulas and allusions together with explanatory if not manipulative texts and exquisite illustrations create an enchanted world of irresistible consumerism. Like it or not, many consumers have little choice but to accept such advertisements as convincing signs of the wish fulfillment that also underlies the basic idea of traditional fairy tales.
To assure meaningful communication with their readers and viewers, advertisers choose primarily those motifs of fairy tales that are commonly known. Fairy-tale titles such as “Rapunzel” or “Cinderella” have been used to advertise beautiful hair or a piece of clothing that has transformed a woman from rags to riches. A German champagne company called its product “Rotk€appchen” (Little Red Riding Hood) and quite appropriately every bottle has a red cap on top of the cork. The name and the cap conjured up positive memories of Little Red Riding Hood-or Little Red Cap-bringing a special beverage to her beloved grandmother. The message was clearly that a bottle of Rotk€appchen champagne will help to bring some joy and bliss into the everyday world. It is exactly this promise of making wishes come true that makes such advertisements so appealing, with some of them also simply using such slogans as “Fairy tales can come true” or “Three secret wishes.”
Cosmetic firms in particular have found fairy-tale allusions useful to sell their products. Revlon used the slogan “Cinderella-nails and the Magic Wand,” claiming that its cosmetics make all the difference between homeliness and beauty. The U.S. Forest Service asked provocatively, “Where would Hansel and Gretel be without a forest?” The car manufacturer Subaru used the catchphrase “Don't let your coach turn into a pumpkin,” with the illustration making the allusion to the “Cinderella” fairy tale perfectly clear. The Lindt chocolate company used illustrations from the Walt Disney's animated version of “Snow White” on its wrappers to sell its milk chocolate as heavenly sweets. And an antismoking advertisement carried the message “Kiss Me-I Don't Smoke,” with the illustration showing that the frog to be kissed is the nonsmoking prince from “The Frog King” fairy tale. In any case, such advertisements suggest a better world where wishes can become true, and the slogans, texts, and illustrations make this look as easy as fairy-tale magic. Some companies have built entire advertising campaigns on fairy-tale motifs. For example, the Waterford Crystal Company frequently uses fairy-tale allusions for its marvelous glass creations. With cultural literacy being high regarding the most popular fairy tales, people will have no difficulty recognizing the fairy tale behind the slogan “One of her glass slippers fell off.”
The same is true for the slogan “Oh, what lovely ears you have” above the image of several pitchers whose handles brought about this variation of Little Red Riding Hood's questions to her grandmother. Such wordplay presupposes that the reader and consumer will also recall the traditional tale, thus creating a world where magic and reality can meet in harmony. Perhaps the most elaborate use of fairy tales for advertising purposes was AT&T's special issue of Time (spring 1995) entitled “Welcome to Cyberspace.”
