Advert Analysis: John West Salmon

The advert I analysed was for John West Salmon, overall I feel it is quite a successful and effective advert which uses live action footage, humour and a slogan that matches and enhances the concept.

There are many methods/persuasive techniques used in this advert that make it memorable and enhance the image of the brand in turn make the consumer more aware and interested in to buying the product. The advert is in a humorous style, the central concept being our main protagonist (fisherman) on behalf of John West Salmon customers, fighting a costumed bear to get the premium fish the bear would otherwise eat, this is absurd yet funny to watch.

This transference technique is effective for gaining the attention of the audience as they associate the humorous positive qualities of laughter and well being, coupled with the surreal aspect of the costumed bears, onto the product/brand which is otherwise fairly boring and mundane. In addition the level of humour and sheer absurdity of the idea helps it to stand out from other adverts. The persuasive technique of transference can also be attributed to the way in which the protagonist is a showing heroic actions at the expense of his own safety in his efforts, on behalf of the consumer to protect and get the fish – the audience are made to feel it’s on their behalf, they are respected and worth the albeit comical efforts the fisherman is making.

This advert has little to no colour correction, which is unusual but intentional for the style of advert as they wanted it to look like a documentary and realistic, and all of the lighting in this advert is natural to aid this style. The viewer is not meant to believe the advert is real but to recognise it is a mimicking the look at feel of for example ‘real’ documentaries about the wild or fisherman out at sea.

Alongside the look of the advert does not sure a conventional soundtrack or score to help it stand out, or make it sound expensive and slick, but rather it uses the fake documentary style with a narrator – whose voice is a parody of someone like David Attenborough, which also plays on the idea that it is like a nature documentary. This makes it seem like the events in the advert are real, despite the fact that is looks fake and would never occur in real life, once again adding to the humour. However the advert does use some realistic sounds from the environment i.e. the water flowing and wind, which could be either diagetic or non-diagetic sounds depending on the methods use to make the ad, however either way, they help to add to the reality of the ad and the back drop of the scene believable even if the events within it are not. The natural, realistic and actually quite pretty back drop is also suggests that even though the action is absurd the setting where the real John West Salmon is caught might be like this as opposed to an image of industrial salmon farm of some sort that would just look less appealing to the consumer.

The actors in this advert are the men in bear costumes and the protagonist (fisherman). The man who plays the protagonist is well suited for this advert as he is appropriately dressed in a fisherman outfit and quite burley looking which is the stereotypical fisherman, but cleverly the advert combines this with anti-stereotypical elements when for example, he starts to fight the bear using martial arts. This is comic and a parody on yet another genre of martial arts films which is popular and well known with most audiences. Later in the advert we hear the protagonist has a British accent, which is a subtle but key element playing on Patriotic tendencies of the audience, the news if often dominated by information and opinions on the loss of traditional British trades to technology or immigrants or just to other countries, and here the advertisers may be trying to emphasise this is a British product - if the man had a different accent like a Russian accent for example, the audience would potentially feel differently towards the product and our protagonist.

In the last part of the advert the protagonist kicks the bear in the groin, this is really taking the humour to its furthest point crossing into a place that is willing to be a bit cheeky and more explicit in the hope that the audience maybe relate to a real life dangerous situation and the outcome of a tough unrelenting fight. The slogan for this advert is ‘John West endures the worst to bring you the best’, underlines the main concept of the advert, conveying the idea that this Fisherman and John West Salmon will risk their lives/go to extremes to get our fish.

The target audience for this advert is fairly broad, but can probably be narrowed down to a key demographic of low-income individuals, people in the C1 to D social grade and the struggler psychographic. Tinned fish tends to be a cheaper food option generally and C1/D grade are more likely to purchase cheaper products like John West Salmon. But it is still broad, as there are no specific no gender or ages that the product itself is aimed at, it might appeal to male consumers as a tough no nonsense product but equally to women as a good quality no positive brand, age wise the advert is simply funny which would both appeal to a young and older audience.