Adidas Break Free Advert

Meaning:

This ad is to promote Adidas showing you that anyone can wear any of their products, showing that if you do you will be able to do what you didn’t think you could. You’ll overcome what you were initially scared of, which in this instance is whenever the old man puts on his Adidas trainers, he feels as if he will be able to achieve his goal of escaping his retirement home and running once more. Adidas are promoting themselves as a brand as they’re not promoting any specific product in this ad. The specific Adidas products which are shown are the old looking trainers, which have clearly been worn many times by the main character, emphasising the love for the brand, and the Adidas jacket which is worn by an extra character. This is just to simply catch the audiences eye and promote the brand. The Adidas original brand in the advert once again shows the original look, which is probably the most popular out of the two logos and has come back into the fashion scene once more in the last few years.

This ad is to promote Adidas showing you that anyone can wear any of their products, showing that if you do you will be able to do what you didn’t think you could. You’ll overcome what you were initially scared of, which in this instance is whenever the old man puts on his Adidas trainers, he feels as if he will be able to achieve his goal of escaping his retirement home and running once more. Adidas are promoting themselves as a brand as they’re not promoting any specific product in this ad. The specific Adidas products which are shown are the old looking trainers, which have clearly been worn many times by the main character, emphasising the love for the brand, and the Adidas jacket which is worn by an extra character. This is just to simply catch the audiences eye and promote the brand. The Adidas original brand in the advert once again shows the original look, which is probably the most popular out of the two logos and has come back into the fashion scene once more in the last few years. The advert shows a distressed older gentleman sitting by himself looking rather forlorn on his bed. It shows his daily routine of his tedious life as he does the same thing making him miserable. He stares out of the window reminiscing of his past as an Olympic runner. This advert then shows his old worn out Adidas trainers, which then suddenly cuts to the next shot of him trying to run out of the retirement home wanting to break free. Immediately you see the change in his facial expression and all round attitude, as he feels inspired and most comfortable when running and most importantly in his Adidas trainers. As the advert goes on you see the constant struggle of the repeated pattern as he tries to escape but nothing changes. Eventually, the rest of the retired characters help him achieve his goal as he runs out of the home as he puts his arms into the air with pride and the Adidas tagline appears ‘break free’ along with the Adidas original logo. This advert shows the inspiration and influence of Adidas and its products as the advert hit homes at the fact something just as standard as a pair of Adidas trainers can change your outlook on life and help to inspire you to achieve greatness.

What is the Advert for?

Target Audience

Target Audience/Aired?

Adidas’ generalised target audience is the 12-40 demographic. Adidas is a huge company who sell their products to a wide age range. You could buy a jumper or a pair of trainers for your teenage son or for your grandad. The advert isn’t really to promote anything for a certain target audience, however it is more for inspiring any audience member. The advert is indirect advertising and is Adidas inspiring the elder gentlemen to reach his goals, even if that is leaving the retirement home. And in the case some Adidas products are advertised subtly during the advert. This was the old school Adidas original jackets and the old school Adidas trainers which are the main focus of the advert.

Form

Style and Form

The adverts form is a standalone advert. This means that it isn’t involved in an advert series or animated or any other form. There are many forms which include documentary ads. In this case for this advert, as it’s a standalone advert it does not link in to any other ads which involve Adidas. If it was a miniseries for example, we would see another advert of the main character running even further than he did, then more action would be involved. This would of course also have many Adidas features involved as it is an Adidas ad. It’s good to have standalone adverts, as many people remember them and it sticks in their heads when thinking about the brand. For example John Lewis adverts. John Lewis have a reputation top uphold now as every year they make standalone adverts for Christmas which make many people emotional. An example of a miniseries would be knitted by nanas, the Shreddies advert. This had a series of adverts of the old ladies talking about Shreddies and the way they knit them to tastiness.

AIDA

Most adverts usually tend to follow a certain criteria considering what they’re advertising. AIDA is the common one in which they follow meaning: Attract, Interest, Desire and Action. If they follow these steps, they’re usually looking at a good well-advertised ad which will get attraction. However, my advert which I’m analysing doesn’t actually use some of the AIDA methods. It doesn’t really grab anyone’s attention in anyway by throwing Adidas products in your face. There’s limited Adidas products in this ad, as the one’s you can only see are trainers, and two zipped jackets. The next one is Interest. This is by gaining the customers confidence luring you in with things such as ‘NEW!’ and ‘Even I wear it!’ This could be said by a celebrity to endorse the product to make the audience surprised, which would then make them go out and by it just because their celebrity idol does. The next one is Desire. This would be to convince your customers that they truly want to grab your product straight away. Again this doesn’t apply to my advert as there’s no real sign of convincing the audience to buy any Adidas products. The only thing you could say is the pair of Adidas trainers which actually help the character. The audience will see these and aspire to have these trainers, as they have so clearly helped this old man and made his life better. Audiences will want this and will feel that their life will get better once they own a pair of these trainers. The last one is Action. Action involves using language such as ‘ACT NOW!’ and ‘hurry!’ etc. It tries to convince to customer to purchase the product by demanding and telling them to get it. Sometimes this works as it genuinely persuades the audience and target market to but the products.

AIDA

Characteristics of product

The advert is trying to show the benefits of having an Adidas product in your lives. They try to emphasise this by making the trainers the solution to the old man’s problems. Which they inevitably are in the end, as they quite literally take him out of the door to his goals. The clear advantage of owning these pair of trainers other than any other similar pair such as Nike or Puma, is that the Adidas product will take you further and make you do better things than these other brands. This advert is inspiring and up lifting for the audience who watch, therefore they know that having a pair of these trainers will make you better and make you look better as you were inspired by an amazing story, due to these trainers. The USP has already been talked about in the previous slide, but this reiterates why people want this product. The lifestyle appeal is also a major selling point for Adidas. Nowadays, there is a stereotypical image of people called ‘chavs’ and ‘roadmen’ wear all of the named brands such as Adidas and Nike and things like that. There are many trouble makers who think they look better and more dangerous by wearing brand gear, this also includes North Face. However, these aren’t the only people who wear Adidas, not by a long stretch. There are many different people who wear this brand, the age range is so vast from teenagers to elder gentlemen. People wear this brand to look good and stand out, which in fact actually does make you look good, as Adidas is a very smart and ‘cool’ brand. You look smooth and trendy. People just feel better when they wear Adidas products, as they believe they look in fashion and up to everyone’s high standard nowadays.

Characteristics of product/ Who is responsible for regulating the advert?

Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions

The advert has been constructed very well, using many codes and conventions to make it into a very successful one. First of all the mise-en-scene. They have made the advert look rather tattered and old looking due to the nature of the old people's home and characters in the advert. They have done this by editing the colours and making some look darker and the contrast heightened. With the lighting, they have increased it but kept the focus during the end as the man runs out of the home. They have done this to represent the victory of him escaping making the ending very happy. The soundtrack has a saddened tone at the beginning of the advert, as we see him sad and depressed on his bed looking at old photos of him running. As the ad continues the music picks up in pace and changed tone because of his victory over the people at the home. As the advert and the music ends, the mans hands are thrown in the air as the slogan appears above him making the advert look very effective.