Holiday Work:

Write four questions for one advert that you watch over the festive period.

I have watched the ASDA Christmas advert which was released in 2013: ‘Behind every great Christmas, there’s a mum’.

1.     How does the advertisement communicate brand values for ASDA? (media institutions)

2.     How is the role of a mother represented in this advert? (media representations)

3.     In what ways does this advert engage the audience? Think about how the audience can relate to it. (media audiences)

4.     How are different techniques used together to compress the whole festive period into a short amount of time? (media forms)

Answer the questions.

1.     There are many brand values which are communicated throughout this advert. I believe that the main one is family values. The simple mise-en-scene of a happy family home, and the characters used in every scene of this advert help to portray this. The institution have chosen to feature many generations of one family in this advert, such as the children, parents and grandparents. They are all players in a very traditional and stereotypical family Christmas. This shows that the brand are aiming to help their customers in achieving the “perfect” family Christmas. They are a very family orientated institution.  A second brand value which is communicated in this advert is most definitely dependability. ASDA features in the mise-en-scene in this advert numerous times. Firstly when the parents are buying the Christmas tree, secondly when the mother character is shopping for children’s Christmas presents, thirdly when she goes food shopping and so on. This helps to portray the fact that the institution is always there to help in numerous situations. Families can depend on ASDA to give them everything they need throughout the festive period. The colours in the advert are very natural and un-edited, suggesting to us that they don’t need to change. They are already trusted, and are not luring their customers into a false sense of security. The advert also portrays middle class values and dominant ideology. Everything featured in the advert is very stereotypical of a middle class family, but also very stereotypical of what every house hold aspires to be and aims to achieve. Perhaps this could be a criticism of the way the institution is portraying itself- it isn’t adapting as quickly as modern society is, because for many families (single parents families for example), what is portrayed in the advert is not the case.

2.     The role of the mother in the advert is represented to be a very important one. She is featured in every stage of the advert, to show that she is a major player in every part of the planning of Christmas. The institution have chosen to use a pretty woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, which is a very stereotypical idea of a woman. The speech at the end of the advert says “Christmas doesn’t just happen by magic. Behind every Christmas there’s mum.” This suggests that the role of the mum isn’t always as appreciated as much as it should be. The mum is represented to do all the hard work “behind the scenes”, and this work gets taken for granted. This idea is solidified at the end of the advert with the diegetic sound which says: “What’s for tea, love?” As well as showing that the family haven’t fully appreciated how hard the mum has worked, it shows that the role of a mother is never over! Furthermore, ASDA represent the mother to be very powerful and independent. Throughout the advert, the mother character is busy- and lots goes wrong! There are no points in the advert where ASDA have chosen to show her being helped.

3.     I believe that the advert engages different target audiences/audience demographics in different ways. However, it does engage a wide variety of people. For example, it would engage mothers because they can relate to the experiences portrayed. All mothers watching are likely to go through the same problems and tasks in the run up to Christmas. Therefore, a comedic value is added to the advert, because the reality of their experience is being played out by someone else. The music helps to engage perhaps a younger audience as it is very fun and upbeat. The song is recognisable, and children too will be able to recognise the experiences which are portrayed (such as being part of a nativity and opening presents).

4.     Many media forms are used to compress time in this advert. The main factor is the music. They use a very upbeat instrumental piece of music, from a classic Christmas song. This helps to add a child-like feeling to the advert, at the same time as maintaining pace. The audience continues to stay interested. Without the upbeat music, the advert would lose some of it’s ‘fun’, and the advert would seem to last much longer. The music allows lots of shots to be fit into a short space of time. The camera shots in this advert are mainly mid shots, and they change very rapidly. The montage style of editing allows a basic story to be told, but not in a time consuming way. We get to see lots of elements of Christmas time in a fast paced way.