John Lewis Christmas Advertisement
John Lewis famous Christmas adverts
Analysis of Christmas adverts
Introduction:
The two Christmas television advertisements I have chosen to analyses are: Tesco’s ‘No Naughty list’ advertisement and John Lewis’ ‘Give a little love’. I have handpicked both due to their quite clear similarities and there was quite a discussion of the success of Christmas advertisements in the media. There are also numerous reasons for why I have chosen these two in particular: they are advertising large businesses; they are both aimed at Christmas shoppers and balancing consumerism with powerful sentimental messages.
Analysis of John Lewis’ Christmas Advertisement:
The John Lewis television advertisement portrays a consistent message of ‘giving and caring’ despite the ongoing pandemic we still face. This message in the advertisement is delivered through the characters and the story. It shows that John Lewis are trying to show that caring for one another will never stop despite the uncertain times we live in and that human kindness will still live on through us. I think that’s such a strong powerful message for the television audience and will reflect what many people are feeling at this time. This supports the Christian values but non- Christian individuals would also find comfort in this message. The title of the advert, ‘Give a little love’, is also very interesting as it shows that only a little bit of love and human kindness can go a long way in helping people. This further supports the Christian message of caring for others.
Analysis of Tesco’s Christmas Advertisement:’
The Tesco’s ‘No Naughty list’ advertisement has aimed to make people try and forget about the destructive pandemic we are in and makes people feel better, in a sense, by telling the audience that there is nothing to worry about and people need to find opportunities to relax and reward themselves with treats even if they have not been perfect this year. The advertisement reflects that Tesco has recognised how much it’s customers have struggled to do their best throughout this difficult year. The message is more about self-reward and making the most of the Government approved family time that was allowed at the time of the advertisement. Obviously, rewarding yourself and your family would involve purchasing Tesco’s quality products. This advertisement is promoting profit for Tesco’s through self-reward.
Overview of the John Lewis’ Christmas advertisement:
Style of advert: | Real life actors/puppets/cartoons. Animals and humans both represented. Sentimental. |
Length of advert: | 2 mins 3 seconds |
Text used: | ‘Together we can make a difference’ |
Storyline: | Winter scenes with people/characters helping each other. Doesn’t reflect the rules of the current pandemic regarding social distancing. Heart motif throughout. |
Media used: | For television. Film style: |
Intended audience: | Family audience. Charities to support others were advertised at the end. |
Song: | ‘Give a little love’ played throughout. Sang by Celeste. |
Overview of the Tesco’s Christmas advertisement:
Style of advert: | ‘Real life’ people admitting why they are on the ‘naughty list’ for Father Christmas. People are represented from different ages and backgrounds. Humorous. |
Length of advert: | 1 minute |
Text used: | ‘Tesco: Every Little Helps’ ‘Go on Britain, treat yourself to the best Christmas Ever.’ |
Storyline: | There is no ‘naughty list’ this year so enjoy yourself with treats and buy these so you can have a nice time with your family. |
Media used: | For television. |
Intended audience: | Adults but implies adults are all children. |
Song: | ‘Oops I did it again’ by Britney Spears. |
As from what I have seen from both these advertisements, they both share a very powerful message both based around human kindness either towards each other or for yourself and your family. Both John Lewis and Tesco have both thought about their customers and the general public and how they have coped this year. Despite both advertisements centered at selling different products, they are both aimed towards the same audience.
In a very important way these adverts are not just advertisements selling a product, they are about something so much bigger - which is humans looking after other humans as we are all going through a very difficult time and that is the exact reason I chose these two very powerful advertisements. They have both been successful in identifying how people have been feeling around the Christmas period
Log line/Premises
The overall idea of my story is a girl and her mam are alone on Christmas eve. The girl then says the only thing she wants Santa to bring her is her dad and then suddenly out of the blue her father returns from the army thus making her Christmas magical.
Plan
Today me and my group (me, Jack and Hollie) merged our ideas together to come up with our final Christmas idea. After lesson me and Jack decided it would be a good Idea to get our script done then, now originally we were gonna create a draft script but because this one was so good we decided to keep it as our main script and idea.
Pre-production planning
For the pre-production planning we had to create a number of things before we could start filming for example a proposal for starters along with other things such as a shot list.
Proposal
The main idea for our advert is, a teacher is running out of money in the lead up to Christmas and it is becoming a problem in the classroom. Her students decide to come together and help her out, they put all their money together and order an extra special present offline for their teacher to try help lift her spirits.
We will need to film in a classroom and a corridor. For the talent we will need to cast a few students to fill the classroom as we as a teacher. For the equipment we will need a camera, fig rig and a tripod. Costumes for the students including Charlie (the main student ordering the present) will be casual clothes they would wear to college; the teacher will be dressed professionally. We also have one cinematographer and two directors.
Our production will be up to 2 minutes and 30 seconds long, this is the length of the average John Lewis advert.
We intend to aim at all ages, our advert will appeal to everyone because some will relate to the teacher in struggling to afford what they need for Christmas and others will relate to the students in wanting everyone to feel special and participate in the Christmas magic.
Our unique selling point is the fact that the students are the ones that all decide to pitch in all their money and help their teacher, this makes it different to other adverts out their because it is commonly seen that a teacher helps the students not the students helping the teacher.
For our advert we intend to spread Christmas cheer to everyone after not having a good year, we intend to brighten up someone's Christmas with our advert and get them to remember what it's like to relax and celebrate.
To add to our advert, we will add a song as well as Christmas sound effects such as sleigh bells, this will bring together the advert and help it flow freely.
For our contingency plan, we have created an alternative advert that can be completed at home by one of the members in our crew, while the other two will complete the necessary paperwork so that we are all doing the same amount of work.
So far, we have completed a script and attached a casting notice to the board to get a cast and have completed a proposal.
Shooting Schedule
Prop list
Risk assessment
Checklist and everyone's job roles
Casting Notice
Script
Christmas Advert Proposal
The main idea for our advert is, a teacher is running out of money in the lead up to Christmas and it is becoming a problem in the classroom. Her students decide to come together and help her out, they put all their money together and order an extra special present offline for their teacher to try help lift her spirits.
We will need to film in a classroom and a corridor. For the talent we will need to cast a few students to fill the classroom as we as a teacher. For the equipment we will need a camera, fig rig and a tripod. Costumes for the students including Charlie (the main student ordering the present) will be casual clothes they would wear to college; the teacher will be dressed professionally. We also have one cinematographer and two directors.
Our production will be up to 2 minutes and 30 seconds long, this is the length of the average John Lewis advert.
We intend to aim at all ages, our advert will appeal to everyone because some will relate to the teacher in struggling to afford what they need for Christmas and others will relate to the students in wanting everyone to feel special and participate in the Christmas magic.
Our unique selling point is the fact that the students are the ones that all decide to pitch in all their money and help their teacher, this makes it different to other adverts out their because it is commonly seen that a teacher helps the students not the students helping the teacher.
For our advert we intend to spread Christmas cheer to everyone after not having a good year, we intend to brighten up someone's Christmas with our advert and get them to remember what it's like to relax and celebrate.
To add to our advert, we will add a song as well as Christmas sound effects such as sleigh bells, this will bring together the advert and help it flow freely.
For our contingency plan, we have created an alternative advert that can be completed at home by one of the members in our crew, while the other two will complete the necessary paperwork so that we are all doing the same amount of work.
So far, we have completed a script and attached a casting notice to the board to get a cast and have completed a proposal.
Film
Director: Hollie Whelan
Cinematographer: Jack Fowler
Lighting and sound: Bailey Blyth
Cast: Daniel Cooper, Henry Walton, Brooke Robinson, Tamara Mills, Bradley Thompson, Justin Cormack
Music: A little love by Celeste
Here is the advert:
On Set
Regretfully I was not in on the day of filming the John Lewis Christmas Advertisement, this is due to my mother catching coronavirus meaning I had to self isolate. Now because I was not on set I sadly don't have any photos of my group filming the actors meaning I have nothing to show for the filming side of things however I do of photographic evidence of it being edited.
Audience research
For audience research our group created a questionnaire to fill out so that we could see peoples views and opinions on our advert.
Here is an example of the our questionnaire
What I have learnt?
What I have learnt from filming our John Lewis Christmas advert is that not everything goes to plan and that you should always have a contingency in place just in case. This is because in the last week of the production we realised our original idea (Festive Frank) was undoable for many various reasons with the main ones being the time or resources to do it. Luckily we had thought up a second Christmas advert idea as a contingency, so we ended up using that idea instead which we were able to pull off without a hitch.
What organisational teamwork skills did you use?
Most of the organisational teamwork skills we used during filming our production were communicational skills such as talking to the actors and directing them along with making sure they knew all their lines and stage directions. Camera skills was another one of the many important skills we used whilst filming our John Lewis Christmas advert production, I know I for one learnt how to hold the camera better and how to make sure it was level on the tripod. I also got to test my directing skills by talking to the actors and going through the lines with them. But these are just a small hand full of the many skills we ended up using in the filming of the production.
Why did you do what you did?
For character representation we started off by making the teacher look like she was very un-happy and sick of her job and that’s why we made the college students look really happy and bright because it helped move the story along. This helps move the story along by the happy college kids noticed that their teacher was depressed and decided to get her a gift to cheer her up and that why we represented the characters the way we did so that it would help convey the story. For choice of costume we just told the actors to wear their normal everyday college clothes and for the teacher, we told her to wear a stereotypical teachers outfit e.g. cardigan. The reason we chose these costumes was to show that it was set in a college. For our choice of location we decided to film in one of the classrooms in the college, we did this because the story in set in a college. For our choice of shots, angles and movements we made sure to get both the teachers and students view of the situation by filming from the students POV to the students POV.
How would you change the production/ process if you could?
The only thing that I would change about the production would be to add in a main character/ mascot. This is because in every John Lewis Christmas advertisement they have always had a mascot/ main character for example Buster the Boxer dog that was in their 2016 Christmas advert. I also think that because the John Lewis adverts always have a mascot/main character it just makes their adverts that bit more magical. As for the process the only thing I would change is to film a lot earlier because I believe the problem when we filmed the John Lewis Christmas adverts was the fact we didn’t have enough time. But apart from these few minor changes I would do I believe this production went really well.
What was good or bad about the product/ production?
What I think well about our production was the fact that despite the very little time we had to film it turned out fairly well without looking too rushed or fake. The story in my opinion was really good because it really gets you emotional and pulls on your heart strings just like most John Lewis adverts do so in that respect I think we aced it.
What I think didn’t go so well about our production was the actors looking constantly at the camera which sort of got rid of the authentic John Lewis look and in a way made it look more like a student movie rather than a professional John Lewis Christmas Advert. However apart from this flaw it went well.
