When I first saw this Panda Express commercial (Aunties Assemble), I cringed. For some reason, all the aunties rush to feed their niece when they telepathically hear her complain that she’s hungry. The eldest auntie wakes up in bed sensing her niece needs food, gets Panda Express takeout, drives over to her home, and breaks down the front door kung fu style. The other two aunties, one hiding behind the fish tank and the other behind the full length curtain, also show up holding Panda Express. The mother pops into the room and says, “You’re too late. She’s been fed.”
The entire campaign’s tagline is “Have you eaten yet?” Which is a greeting that Chinese people say, similar to “How are you?” in English. It’s not meant to be taken literally. You ever ask someone how they are? They rarely tell you the truth. No one would ever talk to me if I said how I really was. But I digress.
I am an Asian American, Korean American to be specific. But I am also adopted so I don’t know Asian culture that well. I do know that Koreans have a similar greeting of “Have you eaten?” The response is “Yes” or “No.” But don’t expect someone to feed you.
I know everything was supposed to be over the top and exaggerated, but it just makes Asian women overbearing, silly and stereotypical.
So, if I had to do a Panda Express campaign, I would avoid any stereotypical tropes, and still make it entertaining, memorable. Now, I know Panda Express used Pandas acting like humans in one of their commercials but I think it would be fun to have the Panda Express staff as Pandas. Below is a storyboard with images created by A.I. This is called a “donut” commercial since it has a “hole” for any dish they want to promote. The exterior of the restaurant was a simple Google image search. I tried to get AI to do the video, but this storyboard gets the idea across, while still keeping the tagline. Enjoy!
