caenanalysis

The Body Shop: Jingle Bells (2015)

I'm a Christmassy person anyway (I've been begging my boyfriend to let me put decorations up for weeks now) but I especially love this advert, and I really hope Barrington doesn't notice that I chose this one to analyse last year too. (It's a different analysis, I promise!)

This advert was released last year as part of The Body Shop's advertising campaign promoting their new Christmas range. The stereotypical Christmas advert focuses on the themes of giving gifts and spending time with the family, with supermarkets advertising lavish multi-generational Christmas meals and department stores (à la John Lewis) promote expensive gifts and decorations, giving the impression that their products will make a family's holiday celebration complete. However, this advert subverts all of the usual tropes in lieu of something a little bit different, a little bit comedic and most definitely memorable.

Nice feet. Not sure about the rug though.

The introduction to this video could very easily have been transmitted sexually, using provocative gestures to grab the audience's attention. Instead, we are presented with the perfect innocent view of several people's underwear around their ankles, and even though it is initially unclear why they are undressing, short clips of baths and showers being switched on quickly enlightens the audience. From snapshots of feet and underwear alone, we are introduced to a variety of faceless characters with visibly different skin colours and presumably different genders. (Who knows, some men might like lacy pants?)

*sings* product plaaaaaacement!

If we weren't sure whose advert we were watching (even with the not-so-subtle grey logo hiding in the bottom right corner) there's no doubting it now. Aside from providing a novel backdrop for the title of the video, using traditional red and green to connote the festivities of Christmas, this shot also showcases some of the new products the company have brought out in time for the season, with bright colours and neat packaging to make the products look as appealing as possible to persuade the public to buy them.

You missed a bit on your shoulder, love.

The advert uses a non-diegetic soundtrack, an instrumental version of the traditional song Jingle Bells, and overlays diegetic merry singing along from many different people in the bath or shower, including this hairy bloke who's very concerned with not getting his hair wet for one reason or another. The diversity of actors in the advert covers a wide range of ethnicities, genders, ages and body types, appealing to a wider market (including men, who aren't the usual demographic for cosmetics adverts).

Bath products are expensive, man, nobody needs that much soap.

HOW are you two not FREEZING?

The symmetry here appeals to my OCD - yay!

The added incentive of aiding charity by buying Christmas gifts - 'for every gift set sold, we'll give one day of safe water to a family in Ethiopia' - is a clever promotion trick; although the company are genuinely supporting WaterAid in their campaign, their profits will also increase as a result as the advert appeals to the audience's charitable side - both wanting to give to someone in need, and feeling good about themselves as a result.

Have I mentioned at all that I love this advert?

And finally, another product placement shot, this time including a woman dressed only in a towel (or nothing at all, for all we know) that could so easily have become sexually alluring with a smirk or tossing of the hair, but instead the woman is smiling and applying perfume as though she is happy. making herself feel good - and of course, appreciating the Body Shop.