Advert analysis - unit 30: Advertisement production for television

This advert was aired in 2010 by John Lewis to celebrate the stores long time success. The message of the advert is that John Lewis has always been there for you to provide good quality products during its time.


The structure that is presented during this advert is a linear narrative for the time line of someone's life. The format is linear because it follows a chronological order over the course of many years, it shows this by aging the characters but with them still having similarities to what they were before. The advert is a stand alone advert that doesn't reference or follow on to any other adverts that the company have produced in the past and it contains a dramatic style with multiple moments of conflict in the story line. This helps to keep the audience engaged with what is happening o screen. The advert gives the illusion that the entire thing is one shot and very cleverly blends into using camera movement, shots, editing, lighting and special effects. This gives the whole advert a very smooth feeling with the transitions being very subtle and pleasing to watch.
A of different emotions and situations are shown during the advert by doing this, John Lewis are creating a link with all of these situations and emotions that the audience can associate with the brand. If these situations ever occur in real life then the audience may turn to John Lewis. For example the advert contains a wedding so they may remember if the situation happens in real life and go to them to buy a wedding present. John Lewis use the technique of association to try and gain customers and to make there store memorable.
John Lewis maintain the fact that they are distributors of very good quality goods and with this advert they also try to put this across to the viewer. The advert says that the brand is "never knowingly undersold on quality, price and service" which conveys to the audience that they always try to do there best with what they do. The tag line for the advert is "Our lifelong commitment to you" which gives the audience the opinion that John Lewis totally care about their customers and are completely committed in doing their job as professionally as possible.
The advert gives us the picture of a perfect family giving a very traditional feeling to the advert and want we can see on screen. The family that can be seen on screen are quite wealthy and appear to have nice things. The advert gives a very perfect view on life as a whole and suggests to the audience that shopping at John Lewis can help you achieve this.
The unique selling point that John Lewis try to sell their products on is quality and the smoothness and quality of the advert puts this across.
During the production of the adverts John Lewis had to make sure that the advert met all of the requirements set out by the ASA (Advertisement Standards Authority). Before the ad can be aired on TV it must be first checked and approved by ASA. They check for things such as copyright violations and anything that could be viewed as offensive or not suitable for TV during the time that it will be aired. They regularly conduct surveys of adverts published by sectors to make sure they are viewed as suitable. However even after the advert is aired the ASA still have the power to act on complaints that they may receive from the public to ensure that no codes have been breached by the advert. 
The target audience for John Lewis is typically wealthy adults that prefer to by quality products and don't really care about the cost as much as other people would. This advert is relevant to the target audience as the family who appear in the advert can very easily fit into this category. This will help the target audience to be able to imagine themselves shopping at the a lot easier because their demographic is visible within the advert.
Before creating there advert, John Lewis will have carried out a lot of research to makes sure that they were creating an advert that would attract their target audience to shop at their stores. They would have conducted things such as focus groups and made people answer questionnaires in order to create the advert that would be the most successful. They would have also used statistics from BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board) to see which adverts, that they and other companies have created, have been most successful and for what reasons they generated interest.