Christmas Advertising Theory Essay

Advertising is when a company persuades a potential customer into using, purchasing, or viewing a product or service that they provide. Advertising can be accomplished in a multitude of ways by using a variety of media techniques and contexts such as Roland Barthes's Levels of Signification, Saussure's Concept of the sign, Audience Theory ,The Hypodermic Syringe Model and Karl Marx’s Theory of Marxism. Which will be highlighted in this essay within the context of Christmas advertisements. These advertisements typically tug on the audience's emotions, whether this is positive or negative, which manipulates them into feeling a certain way about the product or brand that is being advertised. This can be achieved in a genuine way for a noble cause such as seen in advertisements for charities (Shelter ‘Good as Gold’-2023) or in comparison can be used in a disingenuous manner by big corporations for their own monetary gain (McDonalds ‘The List’- 2022). However, there is also a middle ground in this where companies may use these techniques for both their gain and by keeping true to the nature of their advertisements (John Lewis ‘The Beginner’- 2022).  

 

Firstly, charities over the Christmas season are known for releasing more heavy hitting advertisements that tackle very heavy subjects such as money issues, homelessness, mental health, and other serious matters. This is because these topics are what the foundation of charities are built on and these corporations do not gain any profit for themselves but instead help the people in need that feature in their promotional videos. An advertisement that exhibits this the “Good as Gold” 2023 advertisement from the charity ‘Shelter’ which is a non-profit charity that advocates for housing rights for people in Great Britain. This charity not only has donated 48.2 million Great British pounds in 2020/2021 but also carries out research on how to take down the UK’s housing problems while also additionally working with the media to make sure the voices of the people affected are heard and taken into account. In this chosen advertisement it denotes a young girl in a post office overhearing a lady at the post office telling another girl to be as “good as gold” so she will get what she wishes for Christmas. Hearing this the young girl is displayed through the advertisement being on her best behavior by helping as many people as possible and even making some sacrifices (which typically younger children would not like to do) to go the extra mile. Nearing the end of the advertisement she is shown to be excited to go to bed on Christmas Eve to finally get her wishes. During these scenes, the producers use upbeat music to make the audience of the advert expect a positive feel-good outcome. However, the music and vibrancy fades to a more somber tone when the girl wakes up on Christmas and is revealed to be living in small low-quality housing while having to share one bed with her family. The girl finally says “but I was so good” revealing her Christmas wish was not for expensive toys which most children would wish for but in fact was to have a normal living space. Stewart halls reception theory is used by the producers of this advertisement because they would like the audience to have a preferred reading of shock and empathy towards the people in the video, this reaction would hopefully lead to the audience donating to the charity Shelter to help prevent what happens in the advertisement as they feature a call to action at the end of the video. However, some people might have an oppositional reading of the text which would most likely be because they would be too shocked, and this would lead to them clicking off the video. Similarly, another oppositional reading might be that the audience might not feel the empathy that the advertisement is aiming to receive. For the majority of people in the audience they would have a negotiated position on the advertisement as they would feel shocked at first but then come to the realization that the advertisement would have to have a negative ending as it influences us to donate to the charity. Additionally, this commercial diverts from the common myth (Roland Barthes levels of signification) that Christmas is always a great for everyone and that the Christmas season is filled with joy. The reasoning behind this decision was to show the reality of the situation that has happened to many people over this period because this is not commonly portrayed by companies at this time. 

 

Similarly, Corporations use the emotions of the audience in a way to receive higher profits from their Christmas advertisements too. However, in comparison with charities these companies are deceiving with their techniques as they take on a false deceptive appearance to make themselves seem kinder than they are in reality. To back up this claim an advertisement that demonstrates this is “The list” released in 2022 from the multi-billion-pound company McDonalds was released. In this advertisement it denotes a young boy from a stereotypical family writing a long Christmas list for Santa Claus. Throughout the advertisement the list is shown to be very long while more and more things are added, which to some may have the connotations of the boy being greedy. Nearing to the end of the advertisement the boy is shown to take the list to be posted. However, the list gets taken away by a gust of wind leaving the boy feeling sad. However, the advertisement depicts the company McDonalds as a “Savior” by bringing the family together despite the child feeling sad. This promotional video uses the advertising technique pathos to make their audience feel sympathy for the young child as he put a lot of effort into the list only for it to get lost in the wind. They do this using a variety of different methods, for example they use a very stereotypical British family as the focal point of the advertisement so they can target the largest demographic. Additionally, using Saussure's concept of the sign the text uses music that connotates with sad emotions such as despair but then at the end resolves with a happy tone. To further my point, the advertisement's creators use persuasion and association to link the feel-good family togetherness seen in the advertisement and embeds that feeling in the idea of the brand McDonalds. Despite the associations of the brand that this advertisement showcases the harsh reality of the corporation is that at face value they act that they care about bringing family together, but this is actually just a false pretense. During the Christmas period McDonalds do not offer any extra holiday to allow people to see their families, forcing them to stay at work instead, this is a direct contrast to what the brand tries to portray in their advertisements. Once again Roland Barthes levels of signification is used in this advertisement with the same myth that Christmas makes everything better by bringing people together, which is not the reality. This shows the contrast between the corporation of McDonald’s being disingenuous and the Charity of Shelter being honest. As McDonalds contributes to the myth while Shelter breaks away from it by showing how things are in reality. Karl Marx described this as “False consciousness” which is where we cannot see the reality of the situations we are in as we are “Blinded to the truth of capitalism” and we are manipulated by this. The Theory of the Hypodermic syringe model founded by Harold Lasswell fits in with this because us as a passive audience are injected with the ideologies of capitalism and consumerism which promotes Christmas as a universally positive experience to gain more profits. 

 

Lastly, there are companies that use the techniques highlighted above for both their own monetary gain whilst simultaneously also having a positive impact by working with charities. These corporations do not put on a false pretense by showing their kindness in comparison with McDonalds. John Lewis demonstrates this in their 2022 advertisement campaign “the beginner” in which was a campaign focused on helping children in the care system. John Lewis is partnered with 3 charities which are: “Action for children”, “Home Start” and “’Who cares?’ Scotland’ in which they donated £1.1M to these selected charities from their own profits and £120,000 in fundraising products. This work with these charities alongside promoting their own brand mirrors a positive way to advertise a brand's products and services using association to kindness without being deceptive. Furthermore, the video advertisement that was released with this campaign reflects this. In the advertisement it denotes a middle-aged man attempting to learn how to ride a skateboard with great struggle (this type of behavior would not typically be seen in people his age) with motivational music playing in the background. In this advertisement it is connotated that the man is having a ‘mid-life crisis’ however nearing the end of the advertisement the man is denoted to be making Christmas dinner when the doorbell rings and he opens it up to see a child-care worker and a shy child that is implied to be in the care system. This child then notices that the man has a skateboard, and it is revealed to the audience that the reason why the man was trying to learn how to skate was because he wanted to take interest in the girl's interest as unfortunately many children in the care system do not get put into good homes. Again, Stewart halls reception theory is used in this advertisement similarly to the Shelter Ad. The producers prefered reading of this text is a light-hearted take on the serious topic of children in care, they would like people to see the positive imagery of the way the man cares about the girl and want to donate to the charities displayed at the end to help other young children to get the help like seen in the video. However, on the contrary some may have the oppositional reading that the advertisement displays the issue of children in care in a too lighthearted way and feel uncomfortable with this which may lead them to not want to purchase any items from the store itself. Most people will have a negotiated reading, that is that they understand how the advertisement will need to be lighthearted as if they did not do this it may come across as too shocking. Additionally, we see a combination of both sides of the myth that Christmas is a universally positive experience. On the one hand this advertisement contributes to this myth as it has positive imagery throughout and doesn’t stray far from this. Additionally, we see that the girl is most likely adopted by the man during the Christmas period which gives us a feel-good factor. However, on the contrary it opposes this myth as if everything was perfect the girl would not be in the care system at all. The company John Lewis uses the media theory of association too for their own personal gain in this advertisement as this act of charity and kindness would make the audience associate those feelings with the brand which would lead to them wanting to shop at John Lewis stores as modern-day people are more conscious about whether where they spend their money is going to a good cause. 

 

In conclusion we can see the opposing sides of Christmas advertisements as we see that companies with good intentions often show the reality behind Christmas and they keep true to what they stand for by not doing these things just to gain more profits. However, many companies do not have these intentions and simply do these things just to seem like they are better than they are.