The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

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Advertising and fairy tales

Advertising and fairy tales.
Verbal folklore genres such as proverbs, riddles, folk songs, nursery rhymes, legends, and of course fairy tales have long been used as attention‐getting devices in advertising. While proverbs, for example, are particularly suitable to create slogans, fairy tales meet the needs of advertising agents since they create a world of desire, hope, and perfection. Anybody wishing to sell a product would want to describe it in such a way that purchasers or consumers would thank their good fortune if they could obtain it. Fairy tales have as their basis this wish for happiness and bliss, where all wishes come true, and where everybody lives happily ever after. By using traditional fairy‐tale motifs and by adapting them to the modern world of consumerism and the instantaneous gratification syndrome, advertising agencies create the perfect medium with the irresistible message.

When advertising started to gain ground at the...

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