Advertisment Analysis

John Lewis, Fire kills: Advertisement analysis

Megan Duffield

Structure

The first advertisement is approximately a 2 minute long advert for John Lewis; screened specifically for Christmas in 2014. The advertisement starts with the young boy and what appears to be Pingu, an arctic specific programme for children which was on the television in what appears to be the young boys bedroom; with the young boy sitting on the bed with a very well computer generated animation of Monty the Penguin sitting beside him watching it. Within 10 seconds of this advertisement, there is a straight cut to a scene in which the two are playing hide and seek in the garden showing it is summer/spring time, suggesting a predicted time estimate for this short narrative to show the bond between the boy and the penguin over a yearlong period. From this I can see the two share a special friendship with them bonding more and more as the advertisement progresses; from making Lego to then jumping on a trampoline. By 22 seconds of the advert, what I notice is a hidden message, at this point the young boy and Monty the penguin are both hiding away under a table in what appears to be an old fashioned kitchen as the lyric from the soundtrack states “forgotten dreams”. (Maybe intentional to show why the boy bonds with the penguin, because he feels alone, or because he is an only child and wants a friend; There is also no other child in this family home, as by the end he is alone on what appears to be Christmas morning with a short camera shot of his parents, so this thought is likely.) As of this point in the advertisement, we can already see the special friendship between the young boy and the penguin, we can see at 26 seconds that the two are in public in a park, the penguin is surrounded by different types of birds and ducklings, the use of CGI in this particular sequence is striking, as the penguin reaches out the water and jumps onto the gray pavement, an immediate reaction from the other pigeons are scared away, which I think looks extremely realistic and has been done so very impressively.  From the first minute, you can see that the penguin is starting to become lonely, and you can see this as the young boy looks confused as to what is up with his friend; you can see when “it’s a wonderful life” is introduced on the television in the living room, it shows Monty the penguins reaction as if he wants to find something just like it. Later in the advertisement, the penguin sees a real life human couple, so from this you can see that penguin wants to find love. (You can also see this when the penguin notices and old couple kissing on the park bench, and looks sad because he knows he can’t find it). Near the end of the advertisement, it appears to be Christmas morning, the young boy wakes Monty the Penguin and takes him down stairs; to the penguins surprise he seems happier to know that he has woken up to another penguin, the boy sits with the two as it snap shots to the mothers reaction; from this the camera shoots back to the young boy with the two penguins, although they are now toy penguins with no CGI realistic features. The advertisement shows what imagination can come from just one toy penguin, making this advert a successful one and John Lewis persuades the audience how enjoyable their gifts can be to children like this one.

 Fire Kills

The second advertisement I will be analysing is an advert persuading and addressing to the audience to check smoke alarms regularly. It starts with a child in a lobby of what looks like a burnt down apartment, he appears to be playing with the remains of  his old toys, he plays with a small toy car, and the ashes on the kitchen table. When the young boy starts speaking, he states the statistics of how many children die each year in house fires, he then stands up of the dirty floor and looks at the camera as if he speaking the audience. He persuades the audience in a way that’s different to any advertisement I have seen before; he starts by stating to the parents watching to make a promise to prevent a fire from happening. This type of persuasion is successful in terms of making parents or homeowners to test their smoke alarm, he says this in such an innocent way that it makes the audience feel sorry for the boy as its quite chilling watching the boy speak in such a strong way surrounded by the remains left in the burnt down apartment. When the boy speaks he leaves spaces between his sentences leaving the audience time to respond to him, as if he speaking to them personally. By 1:48, the advertisement is nearly finished, the boy holds what’s left of an old alarm clock as he speaks “you cant turn back time”. By this time, the boys face changes, he seems paler, with a black nose and lip, he walks away so innocently with the alarm clock in his hands fading into the back of the room, as he reaches towards the window the young boy disappears as if he is a ghost making you think he died in that apartment.

Techniques

The John Lewis advert is specifically targeted at the Christmas period and is would be aired in the run up too and the penultimate few days before Christmas day and therefore the techniques used by the director are strongly linked to that time of year. The advert is based on friendship, with the child protagonist forming a close bond with a toy penguin. In the advert the toy penguin is an anthropomorphism, which the boy is emotionally attached too, which viewers of the advert can relate to as the Christmas period is a time of gift giving and therefore the child’s happiness is charming and will make parents relate to their own kids. The advert could be deemed as emotional in a way as you do not realise until the end of the advert that the penguin isn’t actually real and when he receives the female penguin at the end that is when you realise in fact that the advert is one promoting toys and the way that they can bring so much joy to a child, and obviously John Lewis is promoting their Christmas themed products.

In the second advertisement different techniques are used in different ways, for example this advertisement is used to inform the audience about fire alarms where as the advertisement for John Lewis was created to persuade and promote. One obvious technique was the use of the child actor, the child speaks to the audience in an upset tone, as the child is so young it persuades the audience to check their smoke alarms, when parents watch this it induces them to check or to buy a smoke alarm, if they have children it makes them believe that it’s a possibility that it could happen to them so this a successfully well created advert.

Regulation/Characterisitics of the product or services

Neither of the advertisements that I analysed have any explicit content so can be placed at any time of day. Although the John Lewis advert is created specifically for the Christmas period so would only be aired in the weeks following up to it. However both adverts are distinctive, the advertisement for fire kills wouldn’t have been aired on children’s programmes or placed at anytime where children could be watching it. Fire kills would have been aired at either prime time or during the day where it is unlikely a child would be watching it, on the other hand, the John Lewis advert is a family orientated advert, meaning it can be shown at anytime and is suitable for children to watch it.

The use of brand identity isn’t clearly shown in the two advertisements until the end, for example you wouldn’t know that Monty the Penguin would be one of John lewis products until the very end when the logo for John Lewis appears in the last few seconds. However with the fire kills advert, you can see that it isn’t like any ordinary advert, from the second you watch the video you can see that it is fire related, when the young child speaks about how you should check smoke alarms regularly, this is when it is clear what the advert is informing the audience about.

Audience classification

The target audience for this particular advertisement is clearly aimed at young children as identified by the young boys imagination. The use of brand identity isn’t shown till the very end of the programme and from how the child dresses and to the home he appears to live in seems to be a middle class home. The other obvious target audience is parents. Parents of young children will relate to the advert in a way in which all parents love seeing their kids enjoying themselves and therefore by seeing the way the child protagonist so happy they will feel attracted to John Lewis’ products. The audience classification for the “Fire Kills” advertisement is parents; the child informs them to check their smoke alarm and persuades them to by making a promise. The child is surrounded by ashes and the remains of the apartment, he is playing with what’s left of his toys; this shows the audience as well as keeping safe, by making sure your smoke alarm is fitted and working, all your valuable possessions will stay in tact and wont be lost in a fire.

In conclusion I feel both advertisements were successful, both were informing and persuasive but in two completely different ways. I feel that the first advert succeeded due to the fact you are drawn into the advert by the creation of the make believe penguin; you begin too follow the story of the young boys friendship with Monty the Penguin. As a whole the advert is enjoyable to watch, the young boys imagination with a toy penguin shows how much enjoyment you can get from a John Lewis product and how much enjoyable it can be for children, making this advert successful. Furthermore, the second advertisement in my opinion is suitable for what it is advertising, making this enlightening advert shows the viewer how severe a fire can get and why you should check your smoke alarms, by looking at what a fire can do visually on screen makes you aware of what can happen if a smoke alarm isn’t checked, making this informative advertisement a successful one.

Word Count: 1804