Twenty-six plus one

the representation of rock in the Cup Noodles brand

Abstract

Taking as a basis the reflections that cultures have on our society and how they characterize our behavior—considering their construction in our unconscious from birth, combined with empirical knowledge throughout life—this project aims to analyze and identify the strategies for representing popular beliefs in advertising, in order to understand the influence this strategy can have on the public for brands that adopt this planning. To do so, this work analyzes a campaign by the Cup Noodles brand, celebrating its 27th anniversary in Brazil in 2019. The analyzed material uses a different approach than usual, with the context being Rock in Rio. The brand brought the theme of Rock to its advertising action, using references and elements from the Rock 'n' Roll universe, thus exploring the construction of this counterculture, which, through youth, took shape and expanded over the years. In 2019, the company released two films: the first being the original piece and the second an adaptation of the former, where it adopts the idea of the "curse of 27 years of Rock," based on the notion that many artists of this musical genre died at the age of 27 and became known as the "27 Club." Therefore, in the second piece analyzed, the brand changes the number 27 to 26+1 years. Using the ideas of culture and representation from Stuart Hall (2016) and spreadability from Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green (2014) in this article, it is concluded that using a target audience's established cultures in an advertising campaign generates an efficient connection between the brand and that same target audience, making the desired results more effective.