Modern companies must appeal to their target audiences by understanding customer needs and advertising how they meet those needs. Supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, and Morrisons frequently compare their products and offers in advertisements to attract customers and discourage shopping at competitors. These ads use subtle messages and in-store deals like Sainsbury's price matching to persuade audiences. Asda recently used snowmen representing the supermarkets in a clever ad that portrayed the others' snowmen as unhappy to promote their brand. Sainsbury's split-screen ad similarly portrayed shoppers as happier in their section to position themselves positively against Tesco and Asda. Product comparison ads demonstrate quality and value by showing results of brands like Ariel

1. Case Study: Marketing
Modern day companies have an increasing market focus and if they are to attract their
target audience they need to appeal to them by identifying the customers needs and then
behaving in such a way that they recognise their customers needs. They then need to
advertise and market themselves showing that they have their target audiences’ needs.
Most companies like to compare their products with others to show the target audience
that their products are more worth buying, a prime example of this is the recent
supermarket adverts in which Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Morrison’s compare their offers
and products to each others.
These adverts are filled with subliminal and subtle messages to attract the audience to the
supermarket and throw them off shopping at the other three supermarkets, the companies
also include deals in-store o compete with the other companies such as Sainsbury’s brand
match in which they compare their prices with Tesco and ASDA and give the customer the
difference , this appeals in a big way because it ensures the audience that they can shop at
Sainsbury’s and still save instead of having to shop around. Another example is the Tesco
price promise that is money off branded products, which would need to be the same price
in the other supermarkets, do to the company brand rules.
A selection of these adverts show that each company is not allowed to use the other
supermarket logos and this is why they have filled their adverts with subtle and subliminal
messages to get it across to the audience without going over the copyright boundaries. One
of the newest ASDA adverts is based around Christmas so they have used snowmen to
represent the different supermarkets, they
have done this in a very clever way by making
the three other company snowmen look
unhappy and as if they have been made with
dirty snow whilst the ASDA snowman is made
with bright white snow and it looks happier,
to ensure that the audience know which
supermarkets they are against they have
used coloured hats and scarves based on the supermarket colours.
Another clever advert is a Sainsbury’s one which is split into 3 panels on the screen, the first
panel represents Tesco, the second Sainsbury’s and the last represents ASDA, whilst the
advert is running a woman keeps walking though each panel as if she is shopping although
each panel has a different woman in it they all merge together, I noticed that every time the
shopper passed the middle panel she was wearing brighter clothes and she was happier,

2. they have also made the other two panels a little darker, I think this is clever because it
makes it look like the other two companies are dull an boring.
Another form of comparison advertising which s also popular is when companies use their
products with another product and show the results which allow customers to see the
results before buying.
A popular brand that do this are cleaning products such as Ariel and Cillit Bang which
commonly compare their products to others to show the difference between products, this
also shows the audience the quality and the value. One of the most famous types of adverts
based around comparison in America is an infomercial in which they hire non famous actors
to be in the advert, they act as if they are using a rival product which is usually filmed in
black and white and the actor acts as if the product is worthless and doesn’t work, on the
second scene which is filmed in colour the actor will be seen using the company product and
they will act as if it is good value and that it works perfectly.
Aldi have also followed the comparison crowd and made adverts which are also very clever,
the adverts include members of the public which I think makes the adverts more personal
and relates to the audience, I also think that it makes the adverts more trusting as if the
people on the advert are advising the audience as friends about the products.
The advert also has a humour aspect to it as the people in the advert sometimes make little
jokes, the advert all together consists of a person or people talking about a product in which
they say “I like this one” the price and
the supermarket is then shown above
the product, the person then turns to
the Aldi product saying “and I like this
one” again the price and the
supermarket is shown, the Aldi product
is always cheaper than the banded
product but the words the person says
suggests that both products are good,
the person then makes a small joke to
appeal to the audience.
Nestle have also taken part in comparing products but they compared their cereal products
to common breakfast choices such as muffins and toast, they compared them by giving the
audience statistics on how much energy and nutrition were in each of the breakfast choices,
this let the target audience know that they will gain more for their money if they buy the
Nestle products rather than sticking with the common breakfast options.