How ariel pure clean and iceland adverts use persuasive strategies to target audiences

How Ariel Pure Clean and Iceland adverts use persuasive strategies to target audiences

The Ariel Pure Clean advert targets a C1 to A target audience on the S.O.C scale which is apparent by the fact the advert is set in a seeming affluent household due to the size of the house and the fact the house has a massive garden which suggests this is a house people from the C1 to A target audience will own. This advert is set in an idealised world so people from the C1 to A target audience can identify with it. The advert is aimed at females predominantly mothers as this advert is advertising a brand of detergent so it uses stereotypical gender roles to identify their target audience. For example this advert portrays a very idealistic scene of an mother doing the laundry for her family which is portrayed in this advert as in society mothers have been given the gender role of staying at home to house keep which included completing laundry for their family. This adverts target age range is from early 20s to early 50s due to fact this advert is definitely aimed at mothers and between this two times is the accepted time by society for people to have children and they wouldn’t target an audience of mothers younger than 20 or older than early 50s as this is an unconventional age to raising children which will not fit in with the idealised society they are trying to set the world of the advert in. This advert might accidentally be aiming itself at a white presumably British audience. What made me think this was the dominance of the colour white in the iconography featuring in the advert such as the white sheets and white clothing and the use of an entirely white cast. The colour white suggests clean which is the selling point of a detergent however it also suggests purity which corresponds with the name of the product ‘Ariel Pure Clean’ which may be conveying the subconscious message that white is pure and the right way to be. However the dominate theme of white in the advert may also just be sending the subconscious message this detergent will make your sheets white. This advert is aimed at an audience of aspirers and succeeders because this advert paints the perfect world of a happy family with two kinds who smile and get on well with their stay at home mother and live in a big house which has a garden they can play in, so aspirers can look up to having that world and therefore think this product will get them one step closer to that world as it’s a product that features in that aspirational world and succeeders will belive they are in that world and need to buy this product in order to truly stay in that world.

However the Iceland advert is aimed at an entirely different audience. The Iceland advert’s target audience is made up of E to C2 people from the SOC scale because this advert is advertising a chain of supermarket famous for it’s cheaply prices items. It therefore uses cheap pricing as a selling point and people from the E to C2 class are more likely to be concerned about cheap pricing as their incomes will be lower than people from the C1 to A class who will most likely be more concerned about quality rather than price in their food products they buy.

The Iceland advert like the Ariel advert is aimed at a female audience who are predominantly mothers. This can be seen by the fact that the advert’s main cast consists of two celebrity mothers trying to entertain Jason Donovan in a house full of kids playing. This advert likes the Ariel pure clean adverts portrays an aspirational world which the audience of mothers can look up too as you see children happily playing at Christmas time in a family setting however I feel this advert is rather targeting the single mum as you can see the mothers although at a party with their kids are still having their own life and trying to attract a man. The casting of the male lead role also suggests this as they use sex appeal by casting Jason Donovan to play the lead role who was a sex icon during the 80s which is the time when the target audience were young. This suggest that this adverts target age range is women in their late 20s to their 40s. This is also suggested by the age of the two female leads Kerry Katona (aged 27 at time of advert ) and Coleen Nolan (aged 43 at time of advert) as they are mothers of the age the target audience can identify with. I don’t think this advert is limiting its self to any particular race or ethnicity as the

selection of food is quiet culturally diverse as they advertise Gateaux and Kebabs, the song is American, the male lead is a famous Australian and the female leads are famous British celebrities. However the fact that the advert is in English and so is the onscreen text, Iceland is an English shop and the prices in the onscreen graphics are show in British currency means that this advert will most likely be aimed at an English audience. I think this advert is aimed at aspirers and mainstreamers as this world portrayed here is presented as something to aspire to as it depicts a happy family at Christmas time with kids playing with snow outside and all the actors smiling in a musical like setting with an upbeat Christmas standard being sung. What makes me think it also attempts to attract mainstreamers is the fact that mainstreams would be the people who would decide where to buy their food shopping from the TV rather than look online or go to shops and find out first hand like a reformer would probably do. Although both of these adverts are aimed at different audiences they use some of the same persuasive strategies to attract their target audience.

Both adverts use maternal love as a persuasive strategy to attract an audience as both products primary audience is mothers because they are most probably the adverts primary consumer.

You can tell that the Ariel Pure Clean advert uses this persuasive strategy by the fact that the advert features a mother as the first cast member to be seen on screen is the mother 3 seconds into the advert who is looking up at the camera in a bird’s eye view shot then the next person to feature in the advert is the character of the daughter who appears 6 seconds into the advert in an extreme close up with her face filling up most of the frame. This opening six seconds clearly uses identification as a means for the audience of mothers to relate to the advert and this intellectual montage editing also allows the audience to connect the image of the woman in probably her late 20s or earlier 30s and the image young girl and allows them to assume there is a mother daughter relationship based on the fact the daughter resembles the mother as they both have the same hair colour, skin colour and the same complexion. The following shot is a long shot of an elderly lady presumably the child’s grandmother making dinner and then a close up of her squeezing a lemon for juice then the next shot is of the mother again. This same montage editing makes the audience assume there is a mother daughter relationship between the mother and daughter between the elderly lady and the woman in her late 20s or early 30s.

This advert uses maternal love in order to suggest to the audience that mothers have a duty to look after their children and a way of doing that is to keep their cloths clean and so therefore by this product. You can further tell this by the fact that in that Ariel shot of the mother 3 minutes into the advert she is pictured carrying a typical plastic clothes basket used for carrying laundry and then in at the end of the advert she is filmed hanging the washing with out on the line outside in the garden while playing with her children. The makers of the advert are hoping audience members watching this advert that are mothers will connect the idea of a caring mother and a mother doing her laundry and therefore connect the two ideas and believe that part of carrying about your child is doing their laundry so will therefore be inclined to buy this product. The Iceland advert also uses maternal love although the narrative of the Iceland advert is about two presumably single mums pursuing a man rather than the narrative employed in the Ariel advert which is centred on a mother caring for her children. Never the less the Iceland advert heavily employs the persuasive strategy of maternal love as it opens with a shot of children playing with snow outside which zooms in through the window of the house the advert is set to further reveal two other children sitting by the window eating Iceland food on plates.

The advert straight away tugs on the maternal heart strings of their audience as they try to use the sight of happy children to sell their product as the reason the children are happy. This is perhaps not better shown than in the close up shot of Jason Donovan's hand as he picks up a king prawn for which right hand side of the frame is dominated by a young photogenic child

picking up a king prawn while smiling 23 seconds into the advert. This imagery clearly suggests the food is what is making her in a happy mood. This advert also clearly uses the maternal love persuasive strategy to attract an audience of mothers through their onscreen text at the bottom of the screen which shows the tagline of the advert ‘that’s why mums go to Iceland’ which stays on the bottom of the screen for the entirety of the last five seconds of the advert. This clearly targeting mothers through not only the relatively long duration of its appearance on screen compared to how long the other onscreen text remains on screen for but also through the language. ‘Mums’ clearly states the target audience of the advert. and the preceding ‘That’s why’ suggests that this product is essential for mothers to buy rather than saying ‘go to’ or ‘buy it now’ it assumes the sale has already been made because this product is essential for mothers.

This could be use of the persuasive strategy of fear as it makes the audience of mothers fear that they must shop at Iceland. I think the Ariel advert uses persuasive strategy of maternal love better than the Iceland advert as it creates a closer relationship between the mother and child as the mother is playing with her children rather than the Iceland advert which simply pictures a mother in a room amongst her children.

Both adverts use envy as they present the worlds the adverts are set in to be appealing worlds that the audience should be envious of and therefore buy their products in order to be part of the world being portrayed. The Iceland advert does this by presenting their advert as a musical in which everyone is happy and the main cast are singing. The advert frequently cuts to long shots of the room to keep reminding the audience that the family at the party with their product is happy. The colour scheme chosen for the advert suggests luxury as the purple of the table cloth is a colour associated with luxury as is the gold of the stars in the onscreen graphics at the bottom of the screen displaying the price of the advertised items and the gold glitter appearing around the text of those items. The adverts iconography such as the lavish Christmas decorations, the nice costumes that the people at the party are wearing as well as the size of the house this advert is set in also make this world a world the audience can be envious of. The Ariel Pure Clean uses this persuasive strategy of envy the same way as this advert portrays a world in which a family get on well with each other which can seen in the closing shots of the children playing with their mother in the garden while she’s putting out sheets on the washing line to dry. This advert like the Iceland advert also uses the setting to make the audience envious as the establishing extreme long shot which opens the advert shows the beauty of the area in which the family live and most other shots in the advert such as the long shot of the grandmother making dinner also show the beauty of the surroundings namely the house. The white colour scheme used also presents this world as one to be envious of as white features heavily in the colours of the houses exterior and interior walls and the sheets and clothes of the actors as the white is meant to suggest this world is a ‘pure’, perfect, innocent and most importantly ‘clean’ world. This is most evident in the low angle shot of the sky seen through a square of housing painted white featured 4 seconds into the advert which corresponds with the voice over saying ‘Pure Clean it’s something you see’. This perfect ‘pure’ world is linked to the product visually by way of a kind of action match as the sight of this low angle shot of the sky being shown through the square of housing is reminiscent of the sight of looking at a washing machine. The lighting also compliments the use of a white colour scheme in creating a ‘pure’ world the audience can envy as can be seen in the use of backlighting in close up of the mother eleven seconds into the advert. The backlighting, the white monochrome and light monotone that is given to shots like this give this advert a look of beauty and purity. Both of these adverts use the persuasive strategy of envy to target the aspires in their target audience as they want the aspirers to be envious of the worlds created in the advert so they are motivated to buy the product being advertised to attempt to get closer to that world.

Both adverts could also be seen to use nostalgia as the Ariel Pure Clean advert uses the nostalgia in the narrative by way of comparing the cycle of being a grandmother to being a mother to being a child. As I mentioned earlier a high angle shot of the mother looking up at the sky is followed after the low angle shot reverse shot of the sky seen through the square of houses by a close up shot of the daughter spinning a lemon which is followed by a long shot of the grandmother preparing dinner. These shots put the nostalgia created by looking back on stages of your life such as childhood and parenthood into the audiences mind. Maybe the makers of this advert are trying to attract an even older secondary audience who are grandmothers by showing a grandmother on screen for them to identify with. Furthermore they could be playing off the fact that Ariel is a brand that has been around since 1967 so an older audience are likely to feel some nostalgia towards it. Even though they don’t reference how old the brand is by featuring three generations of this family in the advert they might be trying to subconsciously imply to the audience that as the grandmother cared for the mother she used this brand and if the mother wants to care for her child the way she was cared for she should also use this same brand. Although that may just be my interpretation. The Iceland advert uses nostalgia in the diegetic soundtrack by using the song ‘Baby it’s cold outside’ which is a famous Christmas song which was written in the 40s and has been covered by a huge list of well known singers that were popular when the target audience of 20 to 40 year olds were young such as to Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews. Therefore this song might by association to times when they were younger bring back nice memories to make them feel nostalgic. Furthermore the cast of this advert are famous singers that were popular when this target age range were young which are Kerry Katona, Jason Donavan and Coleen Nolan. This may also make the audience feel nostalgic for the same reasons of associating the singers with a happy time in their life. I feel Iceland advert does a better job of achieving nostalgia than the Ariel advert as it more overtly uses nostalgia in my opinion by utilizing figures from pop culture. Which also uses another persuasive strategy which is celebrity endorsement.

The adverts differ on the fact that unlike the Ariel advert the Iceland advert uses the persuasive strategy of gluttony. The Iceland advert clearly uses gluttony by the fact that the advert frequently features shots where food is the focus of the shop and dominates the frame. For example in the high angle panning shot of the table 20 minutes into the advert as the camera pans the table in a circular motion all that can be seen on screen is the mass of food on the table such as a whole roast turkey and a plate of spring rolls and the high angle shot that zooms into a plate of 12 chicken skewers in a close up shot 25 seconds into the advert. These shots were designed to make the audience think of nothing but food as that is all they can see on screen at that moment so they will therefore be more likely to think about it. Also the table cloth which the food is on is purple which is a colour associated with luxury. So when the audience see this purple which the food is based on they will be more likely to look at it as a luxury product.

Furthermore the advert utilizes the display of the product and props to allow the food to be presented in a way that looks aesthetically pleasing for example when a close up of a plate 10 beef and pepperoni kebabs being held by Kerry Katona is featured 38 seconds into the advert the kebabs are organised neatly in a circle around the edge of the perfectly clean plate with the same even space between them with two small bits of leek in a cross in the middle of the plate.

This is going to make the kebabs much more appearing than if there three of them half chewed on a dirty with a tissue on them. These shots are followed by shots of the three main characters enjoying the food to act as a kind of verification that the food tastes food. This shot is followed by an over the shoulder shot from behind Kerry Katona of Jason Donovan eating one these kebabs and saying ‘ah pepperoni I like that a lot’ while pulling an astonished face like he’s been

waiting all his life for this one particular food. The makers of this advert are hopping when the audience sees how much the characters like the food they are likely to think this food must taste nice. Gluttony is also used in the way the names of the products which are displayed in the on screen text at the bottom of the screen such as ‘triple chocolate indulgence gateau’. The word ‘indulgence’ is encouraging the audience to eat lots of this gateau which is a very gluttonous intention. Also the word ‘triple’ instead of words used to sell products aimed at people on diets such as ‘light’ also suggests this. The reason that this advert uses gluttony and the Ariel advert doesn’t is due to the nature of the product the adverts are advertising. Party food is a luxury product whereas detergent is a domestic product associated with a necessary task rather than a treat.

The Iceland advert unlike the Ariel advert uses avarice as a persuasive strategy. You can see this by the fact that in the Iceland advert the price tags of the food being advertised is displayed as an onscreen graphic next to the text. For example 28 seconds into the advert the price tag of ‘£2’ is shown on screen next to where ’12 jumbo tempura prawns’ is written. The price tag is drawn attention to by the fact it’s in a bold font that is of a noticeably bigger size than the onscreen text next to it and it places on a golden square with golden sparkles around it which is a very eye catching colour. The fact the advert is making the price overtly noticeable shows the advertisers want the audience to see how cheap the prices and think that this food that is being presented as tasty by the characters and aesthetic display is a good value for money. The reason the Iceland advert uses avarice and the Ariel advert doesn’t is because Iceland are aiming their advert at a C2 to E audience which are more likely to have the price as their main concern when buying a product as opposed to the C1 to A audience of the Ariel advert who are more likely to hold the quality of a product as their main concern when buying a product.

In conclusion both the Ariel and Iceland adverts use the persuasive strategies of maternal love and nostalgia because their target audience consists of females between aged from their 20s to their 40s. They also both use envy as a persuasive strategy as both adverts target audience consists of aspirers. Both adverts probably don’t target a specific race or ethnicity however they probably attract a predominantly British audience due to the fact they are both British brands and the adverts feature voiceovers in English. The Iceland advert may target a British audience more slightly than the Ariel advert as their cast are celebrities who are famous mostly to the English speaking world.

However the adverts differ in their use of persuasive strategies as the Iceland advert uses gluttony to attract their target audience as they are advertising a luxury product whereas Ariel are advertising a domestic product bought for the purpose of practicality rather than taste. The Iceland advert unlike the Ariel advert also uses the persuasive strategy of avarice as their target of people in the C2 to E class on the S.O.C scale are more likely to be persuaded to buy a product by price rather than the wealthier A to C1 target audience of the Ariel advert. I think both adverts used persuasive strategies effectively to target their audiences.