I choose to deconstruct the Shopkins commercial.  Shopkins are a collectible toy geared toward girls who are age 5+
Shopkins Commerical

Observations
This commercial is geared toward girls with its colorful pink tones and colorful pink and girly bubble type lettering.  The only gender represented is female.  The girl in the commercial is age appropriate for the product.  Shopkins are listed for ages 5+ on the packaging.  The girl in the commercial is wearing an outfit which is complimentary to the colors which are used throughout the commercial.  Her outfit doesn’t distract from the product but compliments the coloring.  She has a happy expression throughout the commercial as you would imagine a child would be playing with their favorite toy.  The camera pans in and out to show the 148 toys that that can be collected.

Assumptions the ad makes

The commercial and the product are assuming that girls will be interested in collecting shopkins since they are female and since women are the traditional grocery shoppers in the family.  The assumption is that girls will want to emulate their mothers and will be interested in this type of toy.    The commercial for this product continues to maintain many of the stereotypes that are prevalent in girl’s products today. The toys are bright pink and the commercial is in pastel and candy colors.  The logo is in a big bubbly font.  The commercial only features a female and the products are all grocery store items.  The accessories are pink shopping carts and pastel blue shopping bags. 

Possible Consequences

Unfortunately we as parents buy items that we may not always agree with.  As a parent to a little girl I have always been very gender aware when buying toys.  I’m not a fan of buying the pink colored blocks or the pink telescope.  Unfortunately as the years have gone by and many Christmas and birthdays have past my daughter has received many of those items along with a whole arsenal of princess attire.  We have tried to do our best to buy “boys” toys for her on each holiday and to make sure that our home has an equal number of gender neutral items such as trains, trucks, cars, army men.  Reality is that as great as that is she still is drawn to pink and pretty girly things and loves to collect things.  Shopkins for her are fun and something she can relate too because she goes grocery shopping with both of her parents and actually enjoys shopping.  She is at an age where belonging is important and since these toys are the “hot toy” she feels like she is special.  The ad creates unrealistic expectations in that your child is never going to collect 148 items and the commercial shows them as a close up so that when the child sees the commercial they get more excited seeing what they could collect.  At 4.99 each (for a set of 2) that’s an expensive collectable that will probably only last a few months.