Today’s session was really great. Herewith below you can watch the commercials chosen by Stefano, Sara and Sabrina respectively. We all notices that they share lots of interesting features. First of all the use of poetic language, of strong metaphors, of powerful images. Then there is once again the use of intertexuality both referred to music and literature. Along with the use of literary references, there is the shared aim of stirring the viewers’ emotions quite deeply. Stefano’s commercial wants to highlight how technology can be respectful of the environment. Sara’s and Sabrina’s emphasise the power of "reaction" to injustices or prejudices. If you fight back racial attitudes or attitudes of intollerance (towards homosexuals, handicapped people just to mention the ones present in the commercials) you free your soul and you refuse to become an accomplice. Arrogance, lack of sensitivity, physical or verbal abuse, envy, blind ambition do not certainly help you "soar" in life. That is why when we finished watching Sabrina’s chosen commercial we were all left speechless.
I want to post Walt Whitman’s poem, since I think you should all read it. It is a beautiful poem, really lovely to read and listen to. I am posting it along with its analysis. Enjoy it.
LEVI’S COMMERCIAL
This is a campaign named Go Forth. The ad has almost no soundtrack, but its musicality is given by a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, “Pioneers, O Pioneers!”, published in 1855. This poem was linked to the Westward expansion and the exploration of the far west. That is easily relatable to the longstanding brand, as it is the first famous brand of jeans.
The narrator reads the first three and part of the fifth stanza of the poem.
Almost every image of the composition has its correspondence during the commercial: first we see the image and then we hear the words related to it. The ad starts with a boy handing a torch and shouting. We actually do not hear his voice but we hear the reader starting with the poem.
He says: come, my tan-faced children, follow well in order. So the guy is calling all the people to follow him, in fact there is a sequence of images of boys and girls that seem to stop, listen, running to him, to his voice.
The stanza ends with “get your weapons ready, have you your pistols? Have you your sharp edged axes?”. Now we see the boy banging a stick on a pole, a girl standing up and for the first time in the ad we can see the product, guys wearing the Levi’s jeans as they were a weapon, as the jeans gave them the strength to fight and keep on.
After: “ for we cannot tarry (stay) here, we must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger”. The ad shows a boy cycling with quite a curious expression and people running through a field of yellow flowers, which gives us a sense of freedom.
The poem follows: “we, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend!”. I think this is the most easy understanding part of the commercial because we all recognize the Nazi-fascist greet that the girl in front of the statue does, we see a boy running alone holding a flag and also an homosexual couple.
Now the ad is going to the end and so we start to hear the narrator talking about youths, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship”. On the screen it appears a waterfall, people running together, happy, free, amazed by the wonderful atmosphere surrounding them. It is a very good way to communicate freedom and friendship. That’s what Levi’s does: it gives freedom to movement and it unifies people.
The final part of the poem is: “We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, fresh and strong the world we seize. Pioneers! O Pioneers!”. So as the readers says, the ad shows the previous boy handing the torch that now is running; people with different colour of skin are happy and they are going to enjoy a bonfire on the sand, a boy is taking off his t-shirt (again we see a pair of jeans),and few guys are lightening the fire. In the end we see that a lot of people joined the bonfire and the other boy holding the flag, who is still running, now is followed by other people.
The final part of the commercial shows two girls going on the sand holding a big sheet with “go Forth” written on it and finally the logo of Levi’s with the opening torch in the background.
The fire is probably the symbol of union, of life, as the brand advertised is; in fact we can see images of the fire in between the images linked to the poem of pioneers.
As in many Levi’s commercials, we have to wait till the end of the ad to see what it is really advertising. There are several shots of the jeans, but we cannot associate them with the brand sold until the logo appears on the screen, during the last few seconds of the commercial.
Sara T.
Extraordinary Pantene commercial
The first question that everybody puts is: is this a commercial or a movie?
In about 4 minutes develops a touching story about a deaf girl.
She’s judged, mocked, insulted, beaten because of her handicap.
The other envious girl yells her “Why don’t you learn something else? You’re wasting everyone’s time”, because she’s deaf but she plays violin as well.
How she can hear the music? How she can play? “It’s like a duck tries to fly”, it’s a crazy, incredible thing.
Simply she sees the music. This is the romantic side of the commercial.
She meets a man, a street entertain, deaf himself and with his wisdom he makes her believe in herself, he cheers her up. They play together on the street, in the open and she’s calm and serene.
Unlike the other aggressive girl that studies at home and doesn’t accepts advice. When she plays piano she’s arger and ambitious; she puts rage into it.
Like a moral movie we have the fight between Good and Evil, we have the metaphor of butterfly and the idea of freedom by open, wild field, and the message: Pantene_You can shine.
This is a bit shocking because we are so involved in the story that that we don’t remember that this is a commercial. But if we pay more attention we can see that the deaf girl, the heroin has beautiful, long, smooth and bright hair always loose, whereas the other girl’s hair is tied.
And in the last scene, when she plays on contest her hair waves, sways, is stirring by the wind or by an inner energy.
An other way we can read this commercial is through the sound.
The ad deals with a deaf girl and in all probability it is addressed to deaf customers too. For this reason there are subtitles. They are in English because it is broadcast in south-eastern Asia even if it is the Indonesia Pantene Company.
The song of the soundtrack is Pachelbel’s Canon in D major and it is curious to know that Pachelbel, this German organist and composer, wrote especially for harpsichord and organ, in short for keyboard.
Is it an accident that the two competitors play piano and violin?
If we listen carefully we can notice a competition between the two instruments.
For almost all the commercial we listen violin sound that becomes a crescendo when the deaf girl and the man talk together.
But when the two girls are preparing themselves for the contest there is just the furious tune of piano that takes to the last scene.
Here, it starts with a violin assolo and then add other strings instruments increasing intensity and power.
I think that in this commercial there is also a contradiction.
I think that it’s impossible to play a violin mended any old how but advertising is all this and more.
Sabrina
BMW Commercial (2007)
It’s part of Bmw advertising campaign of 2007, for a UK TV. It is not meant to advertise a single model, but the brand in general.
The commercial begins by showing us a dark city, full of black cars, they are all the same, they have almost the same shape. They are all together, confused in the traffic; behind them there is a big white light that cast their profile, which is totally anonymous.
The Ad has both a soundtrack and the voiceover. As long as the soundtrack is regarded, you have to know that it’s a famous piece, which belongs to the first film of a trilogy, called Koyaanisqatsi, which literally means “life out of balance”. The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology. It is a very gloomy soundtrack, that fits the dark colours of the ad in general.
I found it interesting because it establishes a sort of connection between poetry and advertisement.
The voice is almost reciting a poem. In fact it has all the very features of a poem and it is closely related to the scenes. It starts with a sequence of short shots, where the single pieces, which are symbolic elements, are presented. The poem as well is made up of short and impressive words like “nuts” “bolts” “cogs”, none of the which can be left apart in order to make a car. Than come materials, very simple and pure materials like steel, wood, leather and glass. The voice goes on with the many electronic devices, and many features of the car. Everything sounds mechanical, but there are some verbs and adjectives that are linked to man, for instance, “intelligent”, “sensors” and “smiles”, it has also an “eye”. It seems that the car can do everything itself. It can think, feel, smile and see!
The poem follows the rhythm of the scenes and a the soundtrak. It has some alliterations, like “sensors and sound”; there are some rhymes, like smiles and miles and, of course, many repetitions.
In the poem they repeat several times “It’s only a car”. First of all, they show the difference between the flow of black cars that appear at the beginning of the ad and The Car at the end. It implies that you already know that brand, you are already familiar with it, that is, that you have already been convinced of the quality and the fame of Bmw. If it weren’t so, you would just say: “Well, it’s only a car, and than? ”. That’s because I think the ad is probably addressed to the customers of Bmw, in order to keep alive the fame of the brand, and I think it is also addressed to anyone has ever seen the film from which the soundtrack is taken. In fact they would never launch a new car or a new product in this way, because I think they would need at least much brighter colours, a different music and of course a totally different slogan, or final message.