CADBURY'S CREAM EGG CRITIQUE
The Cadburys Cream Egg’s ‘How Do You Eat Yours?’ advertising first began in 1985 and continued until 1999. It was then revived for a shorter period between 2004 and 2007. However the first televised used of the slogan was between 1990 and 1993, featuring stop motion animated characters representing different signs of the Zodiac declaring how each different star sign ate their Cadbury’s Cream Egg. The soundtrack for the advert was a song in the style of Barry White.
Even though I was very young when the advert aired, I still remember this advert which shows that the advert had lasting power (and the fact that it aired for 4 years on television).
In 1994, the advert was replaced by another advert keeping the theme of ‘How Do You Eat Yours’ but this time featuring characters from the hit BAFTA award winning ITV satirical comedy show Spitting Image. I think this was a great marketing ploy on behalf of the makers as Spitting Image was a very popular show and the advert captured the attention of a huge audience. Spitting Image was a largely political show but the advert avoided using characters like Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan and opted for more mainstream celebrity stars, like pop stars or sports stars, as not to alienate the younger viewers who are not interested in politics, people like myself who at the age of 10 would never had heard of Ronald Reagan.
However, I do believe that this advert could possibly have had a reverse effect as the characters from Spitting Image were quite disgusting to look at and could have appeared scary to younger viewers. I remember when my parents would watch Spitting Image and me being quite freaked out by the caricatures. This advert ran until 1996.
1997 was when a new advert started airing. This advert changed from the previous two, in that it changed it’s slogan ever so slightly from ‘How DO You Eat Yours?’ to ‘How WILL You Eat Yours?’.
It is also the first time the advertising campaign used real life characters as opposed to the caricature like characters from the first two adverts. This new advert starred Matt Lucas, in his George Dawes alias, as a Circus ringleader type character. In the advert, George Dawes would lure you in and spin an egg on a spinner, and depending on which number it landed on (between 1 to 5) would tell you how to eat your egg.
As with the Spitting Image advert, Matt Lucas was hugely popular due to the success of the television show ‘Shooting Stars’. Out of all the Cadburys Cream Egg adverts, this is the one that sticks out in my mind the most. I was a big fan of Shooting Stars at the time and so were a lot of my friends. We would have been between the ages of 13 – 15 at the time and I can recall the other kids in school imitating George Dawes from this advert which again shows that it stuck with people afterwards. Therefore I believe that this advert was very successful in reaching out to its target audience, although it could be said that as Shooting Stars was a slightly more adult show, it was trying to reach a very broad audience.
HOW DO ADVERTS GET THEIR MESSAGE ACROSS?
Adverts are everywhere. They take up a huge amount of broadcast time on television channels and on radio stations. They are on billboards across every major city across the planet. Almost every website you come across is covered in them. There are adverts ranging from the latest movie blockbuster to the most pointless must have collectors item. It is an essential part of business.
Companies use adverts to get their products and messages across to a mainstream audience. But in order to do this successfully, the adverts have to be memorable. There are many ways to do this, using humour, popular music and emotion.
First of all, the adverts need to capture the attention of the audience. One technique they might use is audio compression. When you’re watching a TV show and it cuts to the adverts, the advert can often be considerably louder than the program you are watching. This is due to audio compression. By compressing the audio track, it renders the track at a constant and maximum volume level. Also, when reshaping the audio track such as with audio compression it will increase the frequencies that alert you ears, therefore making the advert stand out a lot more.
Short catchy jingles and catchphrases are another way of capturing the attention of the audience. Jingles like the ‘We Buy Any Car.com’ are repetitive and easy to remember and you will find yourself accidently singing it to yourself in your head at the most random of times. This obviously works.
The ‘Compare the Market’ adverts that are currently on television are another perfect example. The advert features an animated talking Russian Meerkat who uses the catchphrase “simples”. The Meerkat became a star and they set up a spoof website ‘Compare the Meerkat’. People would visit this spoof website where you can actually ‘compare meerkats’. Now you can buy toy meerkats based on the character. It is the comedy value of this campaign that has helped make it such a success.
Probably the best way to get adverts noticed is probably the use of celebrities. These will range from cricketer Shane Warne advertising Advanced Hair Studio, Iggy Pop promoting ‘Swiftcover’ car insurance alongside a puppet version of himself, ‘that bloke from EastEnders’ advertising Accident Advice Helpline or David Beckham appearing in Gillette adverts.
The general public love celebrities. They see a celebrity promote something in an advert and they want that product too. The celebrity helps bring a certain amount of credibility to the product, like the Advanced Hair Studio for example. Having a huge role model like Shane Warne saying that Advanced Hair Studio really works makes the viewer truly believe that what he is saying is true as opposed to having an ordinary man who you don’t know coming on the television screen insisting that this company is legitimate.
I personally find that my favourite adverts tend to be the ones which heavily infuse humour. The Tango adverts, the Cadbury’s cream egg adverts etc. But I would say that these aren’t always the best way to get the message across as I can think of many other funny adverts from the last 20 years but I could not tell you what it was they were advertising. It tends to be the more irritating ones like the aforementioned ‘We Buy Any Car.com’ adverts which get stuck in your head. That is an advert that does not appeal to me at all as I do not drive, yet I bet I will be able to remember the advert for a quite a few years from now.
