Analysis of Tesco Christmas Advert 2014 - Lights on Essay

Analysis of Tesco Christmas Advert 2014 - Lights on - Essay Example The ad ends with a tagline â€Å"Every Little Helps Make Christmas†. Tesco seems to be shifting from its messaging, which has been price-based in the past, to focusing on customers and how the supermarket can help customers over the Christmas period (Butler & Sweney, 2014: p1). The ad seeks to celebrate Christmas and the excitement that the Christmas season brings to customer, as well as Tesco’s focus on aiding the country’s citizens in useful and fun ways. Tesco’s advertising and marketing throughout the 2014 season has been based on price, especially in promoting their money-saving schemes and lower prices. However, it has been noted that this barely helped to improve Tesco’s sales, as the supermarket has been one of the worst performers in the sector with sales dropping by 3.6% in the third quarter of 2014. As a result, their new ad has sought to focus on the customer (Butler & Sweney, 2014: p1). The Tesco advertisement can be analyzed using Cialdini’s weapons of influence, in this case using the weapons of reciprocity, social proof, and liking. Cialdini (2001; p132) identifies reciprocity as one of the weapons of influence, contending that if a request is preceded by a gift that the individual did not expect, then the marketer has a better chance of convincing potential clients. In this case, the customer will feel the importance of returning the marketer’s favour. Tesco uses scenes of their staff aiding customers visiting their supermarket to choose their Christmas decorations, which they hope customers will view as a favour and will reciprocate by buying Christmas decorations from Tesco. Social norms compel people to reciprocate a favour with another (Rodgers & Thorson, 2013: p29). As such, the narrator in the Tesco ad claims that Tesco is there to help customers every step of the way during the Christmas season, making it more likely that