Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Analysing Advert-Sainsbury's

Christmas Advert




In this 3 minute and 40 seconds video advert for Sainsbury’s we see a shot of a German soldier in a war trench looking at a sweet that his girl back home sent him. This is a realist advert, which means that it follows the rules of reality, in this case history as it is based around World War l. The advert is emotional because the advert it showing something that is based around real life events and shows that even during a war, Christmas is a time for peace. The advert then moves onto a shot of a British soldier in his own trench looking at a bar of chocolate from his girl and sets the scene as the two main characters. The advert then cuts to both sides singing Silent Night in their respective languages. After this there are shots of the two main soldiers deciding to stop fighting and spend Christmas together but entering no mans land. There are then shots of the main soldiers meeting and deciding to play football together, whilst other soldier play cards or talk about the family back home. Towards the end of the advert there are bombs going off reminding them that they are in the middle of a war and must now return to the trenches. After the main soldiers are back in their trenches they realise that they had both decided to swap sweets, therefore giving the other a Christmas present. The narrative of this advert is that Christmas is a time for sharing, be it experiences or presents, and shows to sides of a war sharing a game of football and sweets. Sainsbury’s emphasises this by using the slogan ‘Christmas is for sharing’. The sound used works with the advert as it is slow and emotional which would leave the viewer feeling very touched.

This advert is aimed at families to show that Christmas is about sharing time and gifts with. The advert uses bright lighting and dull colours on the uniforms but bright colours on the important things like the bright blue of the chocolate wrapper. There is no repetitive music it is just tone tune that goes through the advert. The colours used in the advert are carefully selected to fit the year 1914 during a war, so dull browns and green so that when they are fighting they are harder to spot. It is also Christmas so there is snow falling at the beginning of the advert and everyone is wearing thick coats over their uniforms. The beginning of the advert shows the British soldier looking at a picture of his girlfriend or wife. This allows us to understand that he is missing her and tries to inspire the audience to want to be with family. This is where the message comes from, Christmas is for sharing, it means go share Christmas with those you miss and love. The main thing this advert is trying to convey is that no matter where you are or who you’re with, Christmas is a special time where fighting is meant to end and you should enjoy the time you have with those you can. The soldiers do this by putting down the guns and having friendly conversations and having fun, the war could wait until after Christmas.

The unique selling point of this advert is the use of real life letters from WWl to reenact the football game at Christmas. This is saying that if Britain and Germany can get along at Christmas and enjoy themselves during a war then we can enjoy ourselves with family and friends without the stress of war going on around us. This can be used as an advantage over other supermarkets like Tesco since Tesco’s Christmas advert was about turning on Christmas lights, even thought the lightshow on the actual building was really impressive, it doesn’t have an inspirational real life narrative to it. The unique selling proposition for this advert is to get you to understand that Sainsbury’s knows what a Christmas should really be like so that you can only have the best Christmas possible if you go to Sainsbury’s instead of Tesco.

This advert is fulfills most of the ASA regulations because it does advertise sweets and chocolate as the gifts to each other. However, it doesn't make any claims to anything. Sainsbury’s is not trying to encourage excessive consumption of food or drinks, it only suggests that a little something sweet could mean the world to someone you love. No misleading impressions of nutritional benefit of products are seen in the video. All this advert is trying to do is encourage the viewer that the Sainsbury’s could give you a great Christmas.

The advert is clearly aimed at families who are forgetting that you only need time spent with family to have a great day and it’s not all about presents. In terms of the creation advert I think it reigns true to what the history books and letters say about how soldiers spent Christmas. Every man in England was required to join the army so there was no specific class but it left many jobs free at home so the lowest class aimed at would be working class.

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