The Pepsi advert is very different. The players are represented as comic figures. In both adverts the teams are playing for something; in one it is Pepsi drinks, in the other they are playing for their freedom!
The Nike commercial would have probably cost millions to film. When the voice over says “first goal wins,” it immediately goes into an action sequence. Everything inside and outside the cage is industrial so is the football with which they are playing. The football looks metallic it blends in with everything for it appears silver in colour.
As the players kick the ball, it looks like it is going to hurt someone. The players show off their abilities in the advert by doing tricks with the ball on their heads. That’s when the action sequence starts; there are lots of different shots shown which only last less then a second. There is a series of rapid cuts, edits, from different angles containing close ups of the ball.
The ball is a product placement. Nike is optimistic that people will recognize their adverts in the same way that anyone would recognize a Guiness advert instantly. So the target audience is football fans. It’s for girls and boys. It persuades people to buy their products.
In the Pepsi advert people may not recognize what it is trying to sell so they show a close up of some Pepsi cans. Nike don’t need that in their adverts. They focus on the players trying to bring out the feeling to the target audience that what they are advertising is Nike sport.
The music in both adverts is very different. The Pepsi advert is set in Japan so they use traditional Japanese music. The Nike commercial uses an Elvis track which is a remix and has gone into the charts! Not only are they promoting Nike football and the players but they have chosen a big music hit and also persuades people to buy the song.
The music builds up an atmosphere and pushes the action on. The music is important to the feel of the advert. The footballers moves are choreographed to the music. In the Pepsi commercial the editing is in time to the music. The music is orchestral like a film score.
Both adverts have the feel of being a big film. As the music goes to the end it stops when they score; both adverts do this. In the Nike advert it shows direct action of the footballers legs. It brings out their ability and how good they are. The audience is captivated by the silky skills of the players then is left wondering how do they manage to do that with a football?
The audience will have all heard of Nike. It clarifies to us that the football players play with the greatest brand name in the world. We must remember that the Nike commercial is trying to sell Pepsi drinks and the Nike advert promotes a sports product. They are both using the world cup as a theme to sell their product which is a great way to make it known to a much wider audience, the more people that know about it the more money the product is making.
The first sound we hear in the Pepsi advert is a drum. It creates an effect of a war drum that heralds a battle going to take place. We see some writing right at the beginning giving us information where we are and what it is about. The letters are big and bold and are displayed at the bottom of the commercial. They are in the style of the beautiful Japanese writing, the letters read “Japanese football training camp.” Right away the audience understand that the commercial is about football for we observe, in the background, footballs being kicked high in the air.
The ensuing shot we see is that we get our first glance of the Japanese sumos coming from behind the fence and lifting part of it up with ease. When the audience see it may cause different reactions, some may find the sumos highly amusing by their large size and their appearance by only being completely naked but for wearing loin cloths. Some may quickly use their brains by thinking “ah this must be a world cup advert because a second ago it showed some footballs and now its showing some Japanese sumos.” What I think the commercial is doing here is making a big puzzle and it’s wanting the audience to solve it by using the clues (the sumos and the football) they have given them to resolve it, or it must be giving you clues to what the advert is about before giving the biggest clue away.
We then have two teams squaring up together which emphasizes the difference in height and stature. A medium shot stresses this. The sumos all look the same. As the sumos march towards the players the drums symbolize their heavy feet thundering on the ground.
After that we see David Beckham and a sumo confront each other. The sumo must be nearer the camera because the shot is from the sumo looking down at David Beckham. The camera shows a low angle shot to make Beckham look smaller.
The sumo is shown a third higher; probably some tricks will be shown showing looking even bigger. It next shows David Beckham and the sumo speaking, Beckham says, “what are we playing for?” The sumo replies, “Pespsi,” in an uneasy sort of way. This affects the audience by making them feeling insecure by how the sumo says it.
The speech between them gives dialogue to the commercial as in the Nike advert nobody speaks accept the voice over. After the conflict between the two players it shows the name of the product and get a close up of the Pepsi drink. We see a cool refreshing box of Pepsi drinks with the product logo to emphasize the vivid, beaming colours of the box, this is a close up shot of the product showing a cool blue.
This causes the audience to stare at the product and think, “that makes me feel thirsty, I should get a Pepsi from the fridge.” It quenches their thirst. At the beginning of the advert there is a whistle sound to signify the game has begun.
The audience then witnesses a series of fast edit cuts from medium shots of players on the ball to close ups of the players faces. The rapid cuts create the impression of movement and speed. When they are playing with the ball it looks reasonable when the players are kicking it around, but compare the ball against the sumos and it looks like an ant!
The Japanese music starts to convey an effect of an action packed game building to crescendo and the final goal. We finish with a comedy shot of the sumos and the players swapping shirts. The players’ shirts do no fit the sumos. The sumos have just beaten the world’s greatest players. It shows a low angle shot from the “rear”exhibiting the sumos’ bums.
This will amuse the audience and will make them feel like laughing and talking about it. When they have watched something like this it will leave them in a happy mood and by association they will feel good about Pepsi.
World cup advertising
France and Senegal played the first world cup game. Three games are shown each day and BB1 and ITV share the coverage. The adverts are on every single day, the reason for that is to target football fans to buy their products. As well there are other popular commercials that show football on them, John Smiths, Carlsberg, Carling and the Clio car.
Alcohol is associated with football as they are both a mixture with the British culture. The sales of alcohol will have rocketed showing adverts like this, which is good for the product. It is also good for the pub oners as they will be selling an quite alot of beer.
Commercials like this are mainly targeted at men as women don’t really drink beer. Some women may find adverts like this rather sexist. The companies pay a hefty amount of money to have their commercials shown on TV. The characters they use in their adverts are stereotypical, e.g., people from rough families. In the adverts they use submissive females being told what to do by the laddish lazy men.
The advertising revenue is enormous; millions of people worldwide are watching these commercials but they do not feature a lot of dialogue. Therefore they can be sold to different countries throughout the world.
