Advertising Campaign

Advertising Campaign - Rhys Wallett

An advertising campaign would be argued by many corporations, an effective way of portraying an ideal, dream or product. While the majority of advertising campaigns are used to portray a message, such as Dove's 2006 Real Beauty campaign, some companies such as Marmite have used an advertising campaign to respond to social criticism and ideas towards the company, while still cleverly selling their product. Below I will explain how this is achieved.

Firstly, let's start with some essential context. Marmite is a very unique brand as their product is one that stereotypically people either 'love' or 'hate'; there's no grey area. As a result, it is often that people will argue about the taste of Marmite, and could lead to either an increase in sales as people will be keen to try out the hype or hinder their sales as people will get deterred by the negative criticism of the product. Which is why Marmite's 2017 "Lover or Hater" campaign was in my opinion, very clever thinking on Marmite's part and it calls out these stereotypes and uses them to sell their product.

Let's start with the TV advertisement called "Test Results". in the ad, we see 5 different family situations which the mise en scene shows each holding a yellow and black envelope giving results on whether they are marmite lovers or haters. However, they prove to blow this way out of proportion in all scenarios, in both comic and serious ways. An example of the comic ideal is in the elderly couple scenario at the dining table, in which the wife becomes furious when the husband says "I prefer jam" as if his hater result is no worse than murder. On a side note, Marmite has used very intriguing iconography in this advertisement as their "results" are portrayed as candour and trustworthy, not one family distrusts them, which could suggest how Marmite is pushing how they are honest as a company and are attempting to prove the genuinity of their product subconsciously. Yet as we continue with he elderly scenario, phrases such as  "Have you ever done it...here?" and "In this house?" with "on this table?!" give a definite sense that a normal audience would talk this away about adultery as this expression of speech and choice of words would be used by a wife if the husband was confessing about being unfaithful. This shows that Marmite is attempting to use the cliche and alarming situation of the truth being revealed of a mistress and attempting to transfer the intensity of the scene to their product, their product has a terrific impact on the relationship, and how the husband has been 'unfaithful' to Marmite per se, the wife now has similar anger as jam was another woman.

And that is just one example. We also have a father and son scenario, where the son confesses he's a marmite lover and the dad hugs him and says "We just want you to be happy." This with the way these expressions are said is an obvious link to the coming out cliche, the son is coming out to his dad per se but instead of being the expected about him being a homosexual, he is a fan of marmite. This is a more serious cliche for Marmite to use as it is definitely increasing in occurrences more recently as more teenagers feel more comfortable to confide in their parents as homophobia decreases, yet it is still effective as not only will it apply to a reformer audience who would be happy this is highlighting how this reaction is essential in the real thing, it adds an aura of comedy around it, while proving they support the LGBTQAI+ community, which will generally improve the brand image of Marmite.

And if we are to know look at the still image advert, which could be found on print texts anywhere, we also get a "Lover or Hater" theme, which is obvious from the masthead which says "WHO ARE YOU?" in bold sans serif font. In addition, a similar graphic feature has been used for both texts that say "I'm a LOVER" or "I'm a HATER" which the mise en scene shows are two love hearts, one with angel wings and one with flames. This is interesting as Marmite is using Christian belief and ideology to push their product, the "Lovers" are represented with a halo and wings, similar to that of an angel in the Bible, meanwhile, the "Haters" are represented with flames and abyss, likewise to the fire and chaos of Hell. This shows that marmite prefers those who love their product and as they obviously would to the haters, however, the ad is saying to go purchase their product and taste it to see which category they belong too, and as the haters are portrayed so negatively but subtly, Marmite are using human pride and arrogance to push their product, customers will be curious to see which one they are, and could be potentially offended with being a potential hater, which means a higher profit for Marmite.