Whether you like it or not, Christmas TV adverts in our modern society definitely signify the beginning of the festive period. From M&S to John Lewis and the ever popular Coca-Cola companies spend millions of pounds each year to sell themselves in a 120 second advert during the final months of the year.
Increasingly, as apposed to these brands creating fun, light and festive adverts they have been creating ones with a heartfelt message, adverts that have a 'purpose'. It is not uncommon for companies, such as John Lewis, to work with a charity on their adverts and donate a percentage of merchandise profits to support them. One that sticks out in my mind is the 2015 John Lewis advert, "Man on the Moon." This happens to be my favourite John Lewis and Partners advert as I can't help but love the simple yet heartfelt message, along with the creating plot and incredible cinematography. The advert was in partnership with Age UK and was helping to raise awareness of elderly loneliness at Christmas, and throughout the year.
The ideologies behind these adverts are mostly the same. Most of them want to pull at the heartstrings of the viewers and make them feel the need to do a good deed at Christmas time and some want to paint the image of a magical Christmas and make the viewer believe that their product will provide that. The classic "Holidays are Coming" advert is a prime example of this. Coca-Cola as a brand is extremely successful all year round, however thanks to its successful Christmas marketing and of course its signature introduction of the classic red Santa Claus.
Now, apart from the John Lewis "Man on the Moon" advert, one of my other favourite Christmas advertisements has got to be the 2016 M&S advert, "Christmas with love from Mrs Claus". The full advert is three minutes long in total and follows Mrs Claus helping a young boy, Jake (ironic I know), to give his sister some new shoes for Christmas. This advert really tucks at the heart strings however doesn't follow the conventions of making people feel sad, instead it spreads the message of family and love during the
festive period. The advert was released in a
year where the feminist movement was rife and so the contemporary, powerful female lead went down very well. I think its safe to say this ad was a contender for one of, if the the best Christmas advert of 2016. Watch the advert below.
I think it is worth giving a mention to this years Iceland advertisement which takes a more 'politically charged' approach. The advert is a short story animation which features a young girl battling with a lively orangutang in her bedroom. When she asks why he is there and jumping all over her things, she learns of the devastating impacts of palm oil use in everyday products and how the orangutang's home in the rainforest has been destroyed in the process of making there goods.
However, Clearcast, the company that clears and approves advertisements for television has decided not to allow the ad to be shown on television. This is because the advert is in fact a Greenpeace campaign which has been adopted by Iceland and made in to their television ad in correspondence with their decision to remove palm oil from their products. Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organisation which fights to help the environment and the people and animals in it. The reason for its disapproval, in the words of the managing director of Clearcast is, "the fact that this ad comes from a company [Greenpeace, not Iceland] "whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature."
There has been a a huge amount of controversy based around this decision resulting in Clearcast closing their switchboard and removing their staff members images from their website after they were posted on social media by protesters fighting to get the advert cleared for television use. Watch the advert here.
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