This essay is going to discuss the ‘Fairy Aromatics’ washing up liquid advert. The advert is to promote the new fragrances and bottle shape that Fairy has recently introduced. This advert does not have a narrative. Instead it just uses a series of bright, eye-catching images in modern colours to make you remember the advert, and hopefully the product too. The advert is in three main parts, one to advertise each of the three new fragrances. The first part shows a woman with short hair in her early thirties falling back on to the petals of a giant pink flower, the same colour as the new ‘spring fresh’ liquid.
She breathes in the scent of the product with a relaxed and happy expression on her face, and then demonstrates the product by washing a plate, which comes out of the water sparkling and clean.
The screen then cuts to the second character, a young man, who slides down a giant spiral apple.
He also appears relaxed and happy, and is obviously having fun. There is then a special effect, as there is a cube rotation to link the end of this shot with the next. The last character is a young woman, this time with longer hair but approximately the same age, who is bathing under a giant lemon half. She massages her hair and appears relaxed and refreshed as she stands under the shower.
At the end of the advert the screen is divided into thirds, each showing an object to represent on of the fragrances.
Each third then goes through an open door rotation to reveal a bottle of the product in each of the fragrances corresponding with the object in the shot before. The shot at near the beginning of the advert where the first woman is washing up is quite realistic, although everything is very clean in comparison to how you would usually expect it to be. However, the rest of advert is quite surreal as it features people interacting with giant fruits and flowers.
There are three characters used in this advert, two women and one man, each one specifically endorsing one of the new fragrances on offer. We can see from the choice of characters that Fairy is trying to appeal to a larger target audience than before. Traditionally on the Fairy adverts we see a woman with a young child, who is probably slightly older than the characters used here. Now they have chosen to include a ‘token’ man in the advert as well, showing that they are attempting to include men in their new target audience. They still however show a woman actually doing the washing up rather than a man, which is quite stereotypical. The fact that they show more women in the advert rather than men shows that they still want the product to appeal more to women, as usually it is still the woman that actually goes out shopping to buy household things like washing up liquid.
The chosen characters in this advert are all being used as role models for the audience. The first woman in particular seems to be the perfect housewife. Her kitchen is spotlessly clean, and her hair and make-up is done beautifully, even though she has only been cooking the dinner. When she washes the plate, it requires no effort for them to become brilliantly clean and sparkling. She has the kind of stereotypical television lifestyle that many people would love to have.
As people want to be like her, they will also want the things she has, like the washing up liquid. When she washes the plate, the light focuses on this rather than her, as it shows the wonderful result the product has achieved, and draws your attention to it. Throughout the shots she appears in, her facial expression always shows confidence and relaxation. When she falls back on to the flower she closes her eyes and her body language is open as her arms are held out away from her body. This shows her confidence, and also shows she is relaxed in this situation. Her expression also shows hints of luxury as she falls on to the petals. In this shot the light is focused on her face so these feelings are conveyed to the audience. The next shot, the close up on her face, helps to reinforce these messages.
The next character, the man, also shows an expression of confidence and happiness. Again, his body language is open as he holds his arms up and out to the sides as he slides down the apple with the camera tracking him. As the shot changes from the first woman to him, the music also changes slightly, but not dramatically. A guitar is added into the instruments already used, which gives it a slightly more masculine sound to the melody. It also adds a more fresh sound to the music as the focus changes from the floral fragrance to the apple one. It is subtle but helps the scenes flow smoothly from one to another.
To make the next transition smooth, a cube rotation is used to link to the next scene of the woman bathing under the lemon half. The camera starts focused on the lemon, but then tilts down to a medium shot of the woman’s face. She appears relaxed and refreshed as she massages her hair under the shower, and the light focuses on her face. The camera then cuts to a shot looking up at her from below. This makes her seem like a role model, as she appears higher up than the audience and you are looking up to her example and how relaxed and happy she looks from buying this product. All three of the characters appear happy to be associated with the washing up liquid. The bright, modern colours used in the advert, with the young characters make the advert appealing to the younger audience. The advert attempts to make washing up seem ‘cool’ at a time when there is so much competition with dishwashers.
Fairy Liquid Advert. (2019, Dec 05). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-6390-washing-liquid-advert/