Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cantina Bar

The countdown to the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens has started to almost be in single figures and there are lots more merchandise of the franchise appearing in shops around us.

Next month in Manchester there will be a convention held called “For the love of the Force” between 4^th-6^th December and part of the convention to promote the new film being released and attract attendees to the convention they are opening The Cantina bar!

The bar is a replica of the bar The Cantina that we see in the Star Wars films and you are able to order the drinks (cocktails) that are drunk in the film. This form of experiential marketing is great in my opinion! The fan base for this film is huge and is something a lot of people will want to get involved with, hopefully attracting new market as well, by attendees bringing their friends along to this bar to experience this, in hope that it inspire them to watch the new film and attend this convention.

This form of experiential sensory marketing will be connecting with our senses by creating an environment that we have seen in the film (sight and touch), creating drinks that are in the film for us to try ourselves (sight, smell and taste), providing music that is heard in the film in the bar (hearing).

So why not go and take a look at this bar and try for yourself some Bantha Milk; famously drunk by Luke Skywalker himself, or even some Wookie Juice, a Princess Punch or a Jam Jar Binks and have a look around this convention.

Below is the link to the Cantina scene from Star Wars so if you have never seen it before you can get a feel for what it would look like. 

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2015

#ManOnTheMoon

It’s here… The advert that thousands of people have been waiting in anticipation for, creating smiles and tears and totally over run social media websites. It’s the John Lewis Christmas advert.

Last year’s advert was a huge success and touched the hearts of many people, and in my opinion this year would be a very hard to beat. The story of a little boy and a cute penguin called Monty delivered the message of “Give someone the Christmas they have been dreaming of” by creating a story that everyone emotionally connected with as it brought love, family and friends altogether. See below the advert link

On Friday the 6th November at 8am the 2015 John Lewis advert was released. Two weeks later it has had 17,511,431 views on YouTube, the new advert has created a lot of debate between people. Some absolutely loving it and other opinions of dissatisfaction with it. See link below to watch the video.

Every year around Christmas time John Lewis creates an advert as a way of promoting their brand and the products they sell, but instead they do it in a way that we are not fully aware until the end of the advert where we see what we are actually being exposed to.

This year saw Man on the Moon, the story of a small girl living on earth who looks in to her telescope every day to look at an elderly man who is on the moon, and she does something for him this Christmas, buying him a telescope so he can look at the world and see this little girl as well. Creating the message of “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas” and ending the advert with “continue the story”.

Instead of being given advert or catalogue that just shows standalone pictures of the products John Lewis sell, they create a story for us to connect with and give an emotional response, and at the same time creating product placement, by show us their products subliminally.  There are over 100 products in the 2 minute advert; that range from the telescope the young girl uses to the wrapping paper, all products can be found on the John Lewis website under a section called Man on the Moon.

It looks at the idea of old and new, family, love & togetherness at this time of year, and I really felt like it made me think about my family and especially lost ones, and did bring me goosebumps, making me want to do something special for the people I am lucky to have in my life still.

Although, the subject of this advert is actually quite saddening as the old man is seen as being very lonely on the moon by himself, once he receives the present from the small girl everything changes as he is finally connected. Looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory you can see the first three stages have been successfully met by John Lewis in the advert; physiological, safety and belongingness. These three stages are what marketers aim to meet in marketing campaigns as the last two (ego needs and self-actualization) are actually harder to achieve in this form. You see the first three stages being met by:

Physiological: both characters have water, food and a place to sleep.

Safety: both characters have shelter and protection. The old man may be on the moon but you see that he has a little home and the little girl has a home too and her family around her to keep her safe. If the old man had no home, it would have created a very different story and feelings towards it.

Belongingness: we see the idea of love and friendship between the two characters bringing the idea of belongingness to the advert, knowing that there is someone there and thinking of him even though they are millions of miles away from each other.

The advert creates the Affective decision making process for consumers and motivates them to go buy their products because it created this emotional trigger for people to buy from this retailer instantaneously. Also by creating the tag line of “continue the story” motivates the consumer to do just that. Go out and create their own follow on from this story. This could be buying their children the telescope from the advert for them to look out at stars and the moon, or even just buying a gift for a loved one from their retail stores this Christmas. It could also be prompting consumers who are more of habitual decision makers, as they only really shop at John Lewis annually around this time of year.

In my views, I think this advert is successful and does what John Lewis set out to do and that is create a message through a story that we can all emotionally connect too. Everything in the video, from the beautiful acoustic cover of Oasis’s Half the World Away which relates to the story, to the tear that is shed by the old man and the happiness of the little girl getting to see the old man happy is all beautiful and creates the consumer involvement for the viewer. Creating involvement in many ways, for example by letting you position yourself in that story, making you think about loved ones, motivating you to do something for someone you love this Christmas to also sharing your feelings about the advert by using the hashtag #manonthemoon on social media.

What are your views on this advert?