Vodafone Commercial Analysis and Evaluation free essay sample

The net earnings also increased by 1. 0 percent to almost 19 billion Euros in 2011. TV operators gained 3981 million Euros and are the top sector (ZAW 2012). This shows that advertisement is still increasing in importance in our daily life. We face advertisement every day. Watching TV comes along with watching advertisement. Approximately 15 minutes per hour are filled with commercials about cars, beauty products, toys, groceries and many more. Furthermore TV commercials featuring phone companies are also very usual. Vodafone is one of these phone companies. How good is Vodafone’s advertisement campaign shown in TV in 2010? In this paper we focus on one of Vodafone’s TV commercials in Germany and examine it by describing, analyzing and evaluating it. The data used in this paper is from literature research and from reliable sources from the Internet. 2. Vodafone Vodafone (Germany) is one of the biggest telecommunication providers in Europe. The company employs 12. 000 people and its turnover is almost nine billion Euros. We will write a custom essay sample on Vodafone Commercial Analysis and Evaluation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Vodafone offers fixed line and mobile telephony as well as Internet services to a total of 37 million business and private customers in Germany. The company is part of the Vodafone Group with 404 million customers worldwide therefore it is also part of one of the biggest providers in the world (Vodafone Deutschland 2012). 3. TV Commercial â€Å"Where are you? † Description The Vodafone Commercial that will be examined in this paper is called â€Å"Where are you? † and has been introduced to the German market in 2010. The commercial is 47 seconds long and shows a man who wallows in memories looking at old Polaroid photos picturing his early love. He picks out one Polaroid and writes â€Å"Where are you? under one of her photos. Then he takes his mobile phone to take a picture of it. Next he sends this digital picture to a friend. The friend is sitting in a lecture and he shows the picture to all his friends in university and they send it to their friends and so on. Soon you can see how this picture is spread across the globe. A taxi driver in a big city knows the picture as well as a man in a tent in the snow i n the middle of nowhere. They take notice of it through their mobile phones. A woman is designing a T-shirt with the Polaroid print on it on her laptop. Next you can see how this T-shirt is produced and short after you can see how different people in different areas are wearing T-Shirts or jumper with the picture’s print with the message on it. Lewis Hamilton (a formula 1 driver) wears a T-Shirt on an interview, a singer of a rock band wears it during a concert, it hangs on a laundry line in an eastern country and an Indian person tries to sell it on the street. Different clothes with the print on it are shown. Next you can see a boy who is skateboarding on a board with the print on it. Then you can also see graffiti of her face on walls in big towns. A girl looks at the picture on her tablet while she is lying in her bed. Then you can see people standing in front of a big print of the photo in an art museum. And last but not least there is a huge illuminated display of the woman’s picture on Time Square in New York City. Shortly after you can see that the man who is looking for her is also on Time Square. Then he receives a message of his old love saying â€Å"Im here† with a new picture of her. Then you can see her walking through a crowd of people, smiling at him while in the background a big illuminated display of er new picture with the message â€Å"Im here† appears. After that scene the commercial ends with the slogan of Vodafone â€Å"Power to you†. The scenes change quickly and each one is just seen for a short time. The commercial is supported by the background music, a song called â€Å"We are the people† by â€Å"Empire of the sun†. 4. TV Commercial â€Å"Where are you? † Analysis The Vodafone commercial was published in 2010. This was the time when the mobile Internet became more and more attractive for different kind of people. Not only the younger generation was interested in being informed about anything at any time but also the older generation and especially business leaders put their focus on being available at all times. That is why Vodafone produced a commercial with the statement of an information process that is able to connect people in a way it has never been possible before. The transfer of information has become easier with the use of mobile internet and Vodafone caught the attention of many people by showing that it is possible to find a person within a few days or weeks by just uploading one picture. The commercial starts with a man looking at picture of a young woman. Due to him having similar pictures of her you already know that he has been in love with that girl some day. He picks out one specific picture and writes â€Å"Where are you? † under it. At that moment it is clarified for the viewer that he tries to find that girl. He takes a picture of that Polaroid with his mobile phone. At this point Vodafone used a hidden sign because the choice that they decided to let him take that picture with his smart phone was smart as well. Due to Vodafone being a mobile phone provider they told the customer in this first happening to get a smart phone in order to do the first transaction. There is no extra camera or scanner needed to get the picture as a digital media file. As the young man sends this picture to his friend in university, the first line of the song is introduced in the background. This line says: â€Å"we share in each other†. This sharing process is started when the man sends this picture to his friend who shows it around in university. The persons who sees this picture keeps on sending or uploading it in order to spread the picture all over the world. They show a guy in university who looks at that picture, turns around and shows it to someone else. Then you can see his mobile phone display with the picture of her in the background and the word â€Å"send† in the foreground. This tells the viewer the picture gets widely spread. Directly after that scene one can see a man that drives around in a big town and opens the photo on his mobile phone. The bright lights in the background indicate that it must be a big town. In contrast to that they show a man in a tent surrounded by snow receiving the same picture with his mobile phone shortly after. Vodafone used this strong contrast in order to make people aware of the possibilities they have by being independent of external environmental forces. Furthermore it shows that it does not matter what kind of person you are. There is no difference if you are a business person or an adventurist because you can use your mobile phone and your mobile internet everywhere to be informed about all types of news. Furthermore the spot shows a woman inventing the idea of creating a T-Shirt with the mentioned picture and the question while another one produces it at the same time. The quick motion is used to let the viewer believe there is nearly no time left between one action and another. This is a sales strategy because they want to reveal the rapidity of their data transfer to their customers. In the next moment Lewis Hamilton (a famous formula-1 driver) wears this T-Shirt in an interview which underlines the popularity of an action started over the internet with a mobile phone within a short time. For those who might not know Lewis Hamilton you can see him on a TV with two man in front of it watching this interview where he wears the T-Shirt with her picture right after. The short extract tells the customer how fast mobile internet connects and how fast a message can be spread by using the mobile network. And again a contrast is added to the advertisement when a person tries to sell this shirt on a market. The fact that this person wants to sell this T-Shirt is clarified by a lot of T-Shirts hanging behind his back. Within this short section the intercultural relations of Vodafone are shown as well as the possibilities for every person in every country to purchase their products. And again the search for the young woman goes on. In the next scene a rock inger wears a T-Shirt with her face on it and directly after you can see it hanging on a laundry line in an old town, probably in the Middle East. This comparison between the two completely different types of lifestyle is lightly to show that there is a possibility for every person to be connected with the whole world and to show civil courage. It also tells you that someone who has influence on peopl e can help as well as people who do not have such a big influence. And especially for Vodafone it shows that even in areas where the internet is not that spread people are able to get in connection with another. During the next section they show how this action developed. Therefore a rapid run-through of different styles of that one particular picture are inserted. At first the Polaroid, a pencil drawing, a watercolor, a jumper with her picture, a T-Shirt with her picture as a comic, her picture as pop art, a jumper with her picture on the back, in black and white, a T-Shirt in stylish colors, her picture on a skateboard, someone sprays a graffiti of her, kids playing basketball in front of another graffiti of her, a girl looking at her picture on a tablet, a canvas in an exhibition and a huge illuminated display in a big city. This accumulation of her picture is supposed to show the variation and creativity of the people all over the world. These two factors indicate in what direction you can develop when using a smart phone because all those different type of pictures have been created with a smart phone or computer and in order to spread it all over the world the Internet was needed. Not just these two characteristics but also adaptability is displayed during this part of the spot. In order to motivate especially the older generation Vodafone needs to convince them to let themselves in for a new phone or tariff. So this section points on the diversity of everybody and that there are many ways (many different contracts of Vodafone) to get connected. You do not need to be famous but one will still recognize a T-Shirt like this hanging on a laundry line. While different kind of pictures and drawings of her face are shown the audience can hear â€Å"we are the people that rule the world†. This underlines the statement of Vodafone that there are many kinds of smart phones and tariffs for different people and they are free to decide what fits for them. Also they have the possibility to compile a special tariff for their pecific needs. The next line â€Å"a force running in every boy and girl† can be heard when the basketball players play in front of her graffiti. This is a metaphor that is supposed to tell there is a force in every person to do something. In this section the players have the force to run after the ball. They need to be mobile in a physical way. A girl under a blanket looks at her tablet. She might have the force to be mobile in a materialistic way such as being online even at nighttime. This metaphor is well chosen due to the message being hidden and still reaching the viewers sub consciousness. At that moment where the man can see her picture on his phone with the message: â€Å"Im here. † the background is filled with the line â€Å"take me now† and the line â€Å"we can try† can be heard at the moment her picture shows up on the big illuminated display. This compositing of music and movie is likely to present information that persons need to give a try for something new. In the case of Vodafone it could be a new tariff or mobile phone. The song ends with the line â€Å"we are the people that rule the world† and parallel to this one can see people all over the place and the girl he was looking for stands right in the middle and smiles at him. The search for her has been successful as well as the search for the perfect tariff that suits you should be. The slogan â€Å"the power to you† is shown with the Vodafone logo at the end in order to make the viewer aware of the weight their decisions have. â€Å"The power to you† is perfect to describe the whole spot in one sentence because it is all about the individuality of people in every nation no matter how much money they have or to what religion they belong to. The success in the end matches with the slogan because we are the ones who can decide what happens in our lives and we can change or reach something if we want to. And that is exactly what the man in the commercial did. He decided to search for his old girlfriend and found a modern way to spread the news. The way he chose was the internet. It can be helpful at times but still there is a lot of abuse of information on the internet. Due to different types of insecure networks people can easily be tapped. Every mobile phone has an IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) at command. While the mobile phone is turned off some programs like the clock or alarm are still turned on. Basically on you can say the mobile phone is more or less in a standby phase then. Special agencies such as the police or the intelligence service will be able to detect the phone. When the mobile phone is turned on it will be easier to detect the phone. Even an ordinary person can be able to track it at this stage. The WAP (wireless application protocol) is included in every mobile phone nowadays. A lot of people use WLAN (wireless local area network) or WAP to find the next possibility to park their car or a restaurant. In order to use this service they need to reveal their current location. For many people this became an everyday life routine over the last few years. The problems occur when the information is not just used by governmental constitutions such as police or intelligence to track criminals but when it is misused by private persons who want to harm their fellow human beings. The intervention in the privacy of others is supported by using those applications on a mobile phone where one can tap another person. The UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) is an even more complex network that allows locating people more accurately. So for those who do not have the technology to locate their subject via satellite they now have the possibility to track them via UMTS. The signal of UMTS and â€Å"GSM (global system for mobile communications) is just encoded until it reaches the first radio mast. Behind it the conversations are held via a usual unciphered network. † (Reischl 2001). That is why conversations can be easily trapped. Being available at all times is as one can see a big risk. Vodafone supports this availability because they want to fulfill the customer’s needs and provide new marketing strategies that tempt the customer to sell their product. This strategies are shown here as a commercial that displays a situation that could have happened in real today. People want to see something new what they have not seen before and that is what Vodafone tries to reach with this advertisement. A young man who is driven to find a girl he admires using the latest methods to spread her picture. This action expands as much as he would not have imagined. People get connected due to a mobile network and a mobile phone. They are ambitious and take part in this action because they feel as a member of a social project. For many people it is important to feel needed but they often do not have the courage to start such a project or enter it because they fear they do not have time to carry n their part of the work they have to do. The project shown in the commercial is slightly different and differs from others due to the fact that there are no obligations. There are no rules, there is no contract and everyone is free to decide if they want to participate in the action or not. That is a very important fact for many persons because there are already too many restrictions so that people get bored of it and prefer not to participate in an action when they have to stick to certain rules. In this case everyone was free to decide whether to join this project or rather to leave it. People have the freedom to be creative and they used this opportunity to create T-Shirts, different styles of paintings and graffiti. That is exactly what catches the viewer’s attention. One wants to be part of this action because everyone else seems to be. One can see there is the opportunity to be creative and to spread the message in their own personal way. This tempts people to take action and to join the project. Enviousness is a big issue in our society. This envy is aroused through this commercial because when people who did not participate in the spot watch it, they might want to take action themselves and that is the strategy of Vodafone. They want to reach this pressure to buy in order to sell their products. The spectators of the advertisement can watch the chain of people interacting grow and that wakes a kind of peer pressure in them. No one wants to be left behind and that is where Vodafone starts. They give the spectator the opportunity to join by buying a mobile phone and by signing a contract. So when such an action starts again they will be informed because they can be online everywhere at every time. To have a feeling of security helps people to think that they are part of a big society and that they can help others if it is needed. Exactly this is what a lot of people want – to be needed. You can see that appreciation a huge issue in our society is because not just younger people often want to help others by actively participating in foreign aid but also the older generation is inclined to be up-to-date and they want to feel needed. It is not for nothing that retirees go back into their profession. They do not just do it for money reasons but especially because they want to â€Å"find recognition in what they do and new social contacts† (Sigel 2012). That is what Vodafone offers them. When one uses mobile internet one will always be connected with their friends and family no matter where he or she is. This is shown in the scene with a man in a tent surrounded by snow somewhere in the countryside. Even though he might not have any social contact around him he still has his mobile phone and mobile internet which connect him to everyone else. He does not need to fear the loneliness because he can be in contact with anyone at any time. The question that turns up is if this availability does harm us or not. On one side as I mentioned before there is the danger of being spied by others and on the other side there is the opportunity to be connected with the whole world, to get information whenever they are needed and one will never forget a birthday again thanks of social networks. But is it really necessary to be online at all times? For some it might be important because their job does not allow to be offline at all but for a usual person who has the possibility to check ones mails at home, does one really need to be online everywhere? Vodafone encourages us to but the risks we take when we allow Google to face our location and surfing habits are extremely high because the chance for third parties to read that information is given. When using the mobile internet we should always take into account that our decipherment is not as high as we would expect it to be. 5. TV Commercial â€Å"Where are you? † Cons and Pros The Vodafone commercial â€Å"Where are you? † is well known in Germany. In the following we will evaluate this commercial by focusing on the negative as well as on the positive aspects of this commercial. First of all the commercial does not deal with data privacy protection. The picture of the woman is taken and published without her permission. What if she does not want her picture to be published all over the world? Or maybe she does not want the man to look for her. Nowadays data privacy protection is very important because using someone else’s picture can not only be for good purposes. The misusage of private data can become a big problem for everyone. A lot of people upload and share photos on social networks like Facebook or Twitter without thinking about possible consequences. Other people can easily copy your photo and use it for external websites or other purposes. Even if you delete your pictures from social networks, someone else might have already copied and used it without your knowing. In the commercial the man uses among others social networks to spread the picture of his old love. But using social networks can not only be helpful to find a person and stay in contact with your friends, it can also become dangerous. In 2012, for example a 15 years old girl was murdered out of revenge because she supposedly spread rumors on Facebook (Focus Online 2012). Another case shows that the misusage of personal data in social media can also lead to suicide. A 20 year old Dutch boy committed suicide due to cyber bullying. People spread rumors about him in the Internet telling that he is homosexual and a looser. After enduring this bullying for some years the boy could no longer live with it and committed suicide in 2012 (Lorenz 2012). Furthermore the Vodafone commercial does not really offer any particular product or special plan that is required to make use of the fast network that is shown in the television spot. It only shows what you are able to do due to the fast network Vodafone is offering. But if you want to get more information on how you can use it you need to contact Vodafone or visit the website that is shown in the end of the commercial by yourself. Besides it is necessary to have a smart phone that is able to connect to the mobile Internet to use the fast network of Vodafone and its advantages like sending photos fast to your friends. But not everyone is able to effort such a smart phone. Not only the phones itself are still very expensive but also the operating costs. The basic plan Vodafone is offering to use the fast network with a mobile Internet speed of 14. mbit/s starts at 24. 99â‚ ¬ per month (Vodafone Tarife 2012). Therefore this commercial is only addressed to people who are able to buy such a phone and plan. Another negative aspect is that the commercial â€Å"Where are you? † looks like a new and unique television commercial but this is not the case. The story that is told within the commercial is almost identical to a T-Mobile commercial pu blished in 2003. The basic story is the same, in the T-Mobile commercial Steffi Graf, a famous German tennis player, is looking for her husband Andre Agassi who is also a popular tennis player. Therefore Steffi Graf uses her mobile phone to send a photo of her husband all over the world to find him (Kolbruck 2010). In the Vodafone commercial a man that is not known to the public is looking for his old love sending a picture of her to all his friends and they send it to all their friends and so on until the photo is known worldwide. The Vodafone commercial also hosts popular people like Lewis Hamilton (a famous formula-1 driver) who is wearing a t-shirt with the Polaroid print on it while giving an interview. Not only the commercial idea is not new to market but also the use of the song â€Å"We are the people† by Empire of the sun because in September 2009 the same song was used in an American advertising campaign for Vizio televisions (Vizio TV Commercial 2009). In the end of the commercial there is one more negative detail to notice. The photo of the woman that the man is looking for is seen all the time during the commercial but however in the end it is hard to identify the woman standing in the crowd and on the new picture saying â€Å"I’m here! † as the woman the man is looking for. You need a second look to realize that this is the woman because her face and hair looks different from the Polaroid picture the man used to find her. Maybe the man should have taken another Polaroid picture of the woman in a different posture of the head and with her actual hair color. This would have made it easier for the audience to identify the woman as the searched one. Otherwise the commercial is telling a short love story with a happy end. The audience is engrossed in this short love story hoping that the man will find the woman. This makes the commercial emotional and more attractive for the audience. In the end everyone is happy to see the woman standing in the crowd with her picture on the big display in the background saying â€Å"I’m here! † Due to this emotional fact it is not only another advertisement trying to sell products by offering special prices and rates. It is a special commercial trying to show what is possible nowadays by using the mobile network. This is how the television spot engages the audience’s sympathy for Vodafone. Furthermore people buy products on an emotional basis. Without emotions it is not possible to make a buying decision. The brain analyzes the emotional value of a product. The stronger and better the emotion is the higher is the value of the featured product and the person will be more willing to buy it (Hausel 2004). Because of this emotional and effective fact this advertisement is easy to remember and people will talk about it. This brings Vodafone into a good image. But you can not only talk about this commercial you can also become a part of it because Vodafone is selling the t-shirts and sweatshirts that are shown in the commercial with the Polaroid picture of the woman on it. You can buy those t-shirts and sweatshirts in any size online in the Vodafone shop (Vodafone Collection 2010). By wearing this t-shirt you can underline the message given in the commercial â€Å"Power to you†, together we can achieve anything we want to and almost nothing is impossible. Vodafone also gets more people to talk about this commercial by selling those t-shirts. Another positive aspect about this commercial is that it is music based. There are no dialogues that need to be understood to get the message of the clip. So everyone is able to understand this message regardless of the language the person speaks who is watching this television spot. The two phrases that are used are â€Å"Where are you? † and â€Å"I’m here! † those two phrases are in English. Since English is a world language and the first learned second language in the German education system, most of the audience will understand those two phrases and what they mean. And even if you do not know what they mean, you are still able to understand the story by just watching. The song that is used in the commercial is called â€Å"We are the people† and played by the Australian electronic music duo Empire of the sun. The lyrics of the song support the message of this commercial â€Å"Power to you†. The chorus of the song that is also heard in the advertisement is saying â€Å"We are the people that rule the world. A force running in every boy and girl, all rejoicing in the world, take me now’ we can try† (Empire of the sun – we are the people 2008). This chorus says that â€Å"we are the people that rule the world†, not only people but the people. This also emphasizes the message. We all can achieve everything if we work together. You should enjoy your life and be happy about it, everything is possible and you should always remember the past and how good it was. If you are listening to the whole song you can interpret the song as a song about a couple that is about to split up. But the one partner tries to remind the other one on the time they spent ogether when they were young in the 1970’s. Then it says in the last phrase of the chorus that you should always try again, never give up. This links to the commercial. The man is looking for his old love. When he is looking at the old Polaroid pictures he might think about the time they spent together and he decid es that he wants to get her back and try again. By help of all his friends and later the whole world his dream comes true and he finds the woman. This makes this song a perfect fit for this story in this commercial. Due to this advertisement the song became number one in the German single charts in 2010 (Vodafone 2010). This commercial shows that even in modern times where a lot of people communicate by using the Internet and social networks personal relationships still matter. The man not only wanted to find the woman on a social network but in real life. He wanted to see her face to face. Even if the commercial is about sending photos via Internet and social networks it is not only addressed to teenagers and young adults. Nowadays social networks represent all ages. This age range goes from teenagers to retired persons. In Germany the average age of a Twitter user is 32 years and 37% of the German Facebook users are older than 35 years. This proves that it is not only the adolescence that is active in social media. Therefore it is no wonder that the most growing target group of social media users is the group of 50 years and older (Bernecker amp; Beilharz 2012) Furthermore the television spot shows people from different countries and classes of population. An Indian person trying to sell the shirt with the woman’s picture on it is shown in this commercial as well as people in an art museum looking at a big print of the picture. Everyone is part of the social network regardless of the origin or wealth. The commercial â€Å"Where are you? shows that whole world can help you to find a missing person. People are willing to help each other. This shows that you are not alone nowadays and you have much more opportunities to be successful in finding your old love by using the help of hundreds of people. But hundreds of people can not only help you finding your old love they can also help finding lost people. A mothe r found her two missing children by using Facebook. The children’s father took off with them in 1995 when they were two and three years old. The mother searched for her daughter’s name on Facebook hoping to find her. And she did. The mother found her daughter’s Facebook profile and called the police that found the two children and the father in Florida (Huffingtonpost 2010). This shows that being connected to the whole world can help you finding lost people but it also can help to encourage you. In Texas a group of firefighters tried to make the family of a four year old boy who was diagnosed with cancer feel better by taking a photo of their fire truck with his name on it. The parents uploaded this photo on Facebook where other firefighters saw this photo and decided to take one on their own. This was the start of a big photo campaign. Firefighters from all over Texas took photos with the boy’s name on it using firefighter equipment and their trucks. Even a television show reported about those photos and what they stand for. Other families, sport clubs and soldiers joined this campaign and took photos as well. More and more photos were sent to the family trying to make them feel better. And even if the boy’s cancer was not curable the parents said those pictures made them smile in this sad time and that they will always appreciate them(Merchant 2012). Last but not least the idea behind this TV commercial is very creative. Telling a love story just by showing how a man is looking for his old love by using modern technologies. Each scene is just shown for a second to underline how fast the network is. The more often this commercial is watched the more details will be noticed. The song is very memorable so that the audience will link it to this advertisement campaign and to Vodafone. The audience is engrossed by the emotion and the happy end. 6. Outlook Vodafone is not stopping to expand their network and product range. In the future the mobile network will influence our daily life and our way to spend time because a lot of people will spend more time with their mobile phone than with friends. This leads to a loss of communication between two individuals. For some people it is easier to tell their feelings by using a social network than by direct conversations. The use of smart phones increased in the last two years after the â€Å"Where are you? † advertisement. While 8. 43 million people used a smart phone in 2010, the number increased to 27. 30 million people in 2012 (Statista 2012). Due to this change in the society Vodafone’s products will sell well. Furthermore a lot of people were impressed by the advertisement Vodafone used in the past, if Vodafone keeps on producing such successful advertisement, the company will sell even more products. 7. Conclusion Vodafone is one of the most successful telecommunication providers in Europe. Not only is the image and product range responsible for this success but also advertisement. The commercial â€Å"Where are you? † is one of the best known advertisements in Germany. Even though the same plot already existed and the song was previously used in an American TV commercial, Vodafone made a completely new version out of it.