Sapporo Beer Commercial
Mar 24th, 2011 by amandaliu
Two classes ago, we were learning about promotion- getting the right message to the right audience through the right media. The professor provided a detail lecture about the communication process that takes place between the company and consumers. When I was browsing and reading through my peers’ blog, I saw Iris Chen’s blog. She related current Sapporo Beer commercial and analyzed its communication process. The Sapporo Beer commercial that Iris posted on her blog is in fact the most unique beer commercial I’ve ever seen so far. I agree to what Iris said about how they did a great job in portraying Japanese culture, using traditional music, samurai, sumo wrestlers, geishas, etc. If you look closely, you will realize that advertisers have imprinted the logo of the product, the bright yellow star, on the background of almost every scene. Whether the logo shown in the commercial is obscured or explicit, it is very intelligent of them for doing so because it reminds the audiences of Sapporo throughout the whole commercial and enable them to think about Sapporo beer in real life when they encounter any of the aspects presented in the commercial. For example, consumers can now acknowledge that having at least a Sapporo Beer while watching wrestling tournaments, or attending any Japanese cultural festivals, etc. will make their life more exciting, joyful, and entertaining than without it.
According to Iris’s analysis of Sapporo’s communication process, I somewhat agree to some of the analysis for some aspects of the communication process, yet have different thoughts towards others.
Sapporo’s Communication Process
SOURCE- I agree to Iris that the source or the sender is the Sapporo Brewery Company.
ENCODE- Sapporo is an authentic Japanese beer, as mentioned by Iris, but it is also, I believe, a company that is trying to send a message of originality; where it is not like any other beer in the market. It is unique because the beer is actually handmade throughout the whole process and it’s not common to find handmade beer in today’s market. As you can see in the beginning of the commercial, men had to manually get fresh water from the river and deliver it to the manufacturing plant, while women were grinding the grains. Japanese profession direct the dragon for the fire instead of using heating appliance to boil the alcohol, men manually move beer barrels into either the storage room or transfer it to the next manufacturing process and etc. Since every part of the beer is handmade, it would taste better relative to those made from machines.
CHANNEL OF MESSAGE- I agree with Iris that the channels that are being employed are Youtube and TV advertisements.
DECODE- Iris has significantly mentioned the key point for the decoding aspect of the communication process for this commercial, where consumers perceive that Sapporo is a high quality beer that is brewed and created with a lot of care and effort. I believe that consumers are able to pick up the message that Sapporo beer is a brand that hand make their beer even though it is implicitly shown in the commercial.
RECEIVER- Iris is correct about how the receiver for this commercial could be “beer consumers”. Iris also talked about how the receivers could also be anyone who watches TV. However, I disagree with Iris because it is very inappropriate for kids who watch TV as the receivers for this commercial. According to laws and regulations, kids have not yet reached the legal age of drinking any alcohol should not be targeted and shouldn’t have any alcohol absorption or contact with alcohol ads. In fact, it is useless and not beneficial to have the kids as the receivers because even if they are able to decode the message of the commercial, they aren’t even able to purchase or drink their beer products. I believe the receivers are more likely to be adults, whether male or female, who enjoys drinking beer or simply alcohol.
NOISE- I personally disagree with Iris how the noise level is low. I believe the noise for the commercial is high for two reasons. First of all, the beer industry has a lot of competitors. The beer advertisements in the market, that are trying to compete for consumers, catch their attention and persuade them to purchase their beer. Although the graphics had made the commercial nice and outstanding, which could makes the ad more memorable and therefore people will mention it and spread the words about Sapporo. For example, people will bring it up in a conversation or people who are have not yet try beer would choose Sapporo because its what stands in their mind after watching the commercial. However, I believe this could be some kind of noise because the commercial is so unique and has such an amazing graphics that could possibly lead consumers to pay more of their attention to the graphics than the message the commercial is delivering. As a result, consumers are distracted from great graphics and in fact ignore or forget about the core message.
RESPONSE- Other than increasing sales, consumers are more likely to be more aware of the brand and its quality after watching the commercial and those who haven’t tried Sapporo before might give it a try.