HOW TO WRITE A COMPARATIVE ANAYLYSIS

This is your prep, due in on Monday 10th October. Here is some guidance:

Start by setting out the title, type and date of the commercial in bold with italics for the product name:

The Aviators British Airways (dir. Frederic Planchon, television, 2011)
Add an image of the advertisement beside of below this (as we saw in the exemplar assignment).

Next comes your introductory sentence explaining what you are doing:

In this essay, I am comparing the representation of people in the current BA commercial with representations in other brands.

Next comes the most important general overview of the whole concept:

I think that there are three really significant factors that make this campaign what it is. First, in the video for making of the commercial, I learnt that the main concept driving the representations was the focus on the dedication, quality and service of the staff who embody the brand's values 'To fly. To serve'. This is unlike the approach of brands such as Virgin Airways whoes current commercial constructs a representation of staff as carefree 'trolley dollies'. Second, its focus is on representations of staff rather than the target consumer, which is distinctive as most adverts show the target consumer enjoying the product rather than the employees of the institution who make it. Thirdly, the commercial uses a timeline of representations taking the viewer back through the eras of BA's service in order to emphasise the sense of unbroken tradition. This timeline includes powerful icons such as early courageous aviators and modern cutting-edge technology such as Concorde. Many brands that are proud of their tradition and heritage do the same.

Now you can take each of these three points in turn in a paragraph (or more) of its own, going into detail. Every paragraph must start with a topic sentence (one that introduces the topic of the paragraph). Every point must be illustrated (with words) and key scenes can be illustrated with a screenshot (images).

As you go you can draw comparisons with other airline adverts that do things differently.

If you have special knowledge, because you have watched 'the making of' videos where the creatives from the advertising team expalin their approach, as we watched in the Duffy campaign, you should draw on this.

Your analysis is likely to comment in detail about images, words and music / sound / words that people say. This is how representations are constructed. You will need to identify the period in which the advert was made as social context affects representations. We discussed this in relation to early 20th century adverts, 1950s ads, 1960s ads, feminism, laddism and so on in relation to product advertising of fragrances, drinks and cars.