Commercials

Canadian Ad:

This commercial shows perfectly what Philadelphia is about in Canada: Cooking.

We can see a woman standing in the kitchen, not knowing what to cook (with all that chicken, chicken, chicken). “There are thousands of ways to prepare it. You know only two of them.”

You can already see the target group: Women, probably wives and mothers. But not the ones that have never done anything else than being a proper housewife. It’s made for modern women. The ones that go to work every morning instead of shopping for groceries. The ones that don’t know how to cook perfectly.

But with Philly Cooking Creme their food can still be delicious, “creamier, dreamier”. The woman serves this new meal to her husband and children who instantly dig in and smile happily. Here you can see a kind of value-mix between being an individual modern mum and the traditional loving and caring housewife. On the one hand the woman does not need to be good at cooking (since there is Philly). On the other hand she is nevertheless cooking for her family and family usually equals tradition. Furthermore, it is said: “Look at you, all chef-like”, meaning it is still a good thing to cook a perfect meal. Thus she can “spread the love around”. So it is a combination of modern and traditional values, it shows a way of how you can integrate tradition into your new modern life. In an easy way. Making Philly Cooking Creme a life solution. 
A major part in this commercial is the off-voice. It talks about the scene, its background and the solution. It explains the problem (what to do with all that chicken), expecting the viewer to relate to this situation. Even though this is not entirely about emotions, it still triggers a certain kind of sympathy. The voice also describes the products features, which makes is a hard sell approach.
 

German Ad:

In this commercial we can see an angel-woman on a cloud in heaven with an herb garden beside her. Heaven is a calm and peaceful background set that stands for easiness and lightness, because life is over and you are in heaven, so you can perfectly enjoy yourself. The first thing she says is that a herb garden is a “hell of work” and how you always have to water it and make the sun shine on it. She snips her fingers and that work is done. Since she is in heaven, a hell of work is something she does not want, even though she can make it happen easily. Heaven and hell do not get along. In this sequence the herbs are shown more closely, there colour is an intensive green, standing for freshness and healthiness. The water drops from the herbs, making it even fresher. Then Philadelphia cream cheese (with herbs) falls from heaven into the angel’s hand. An off-voice says that “Philadelphia with Herbs is a heavenly combination of fine herbs and cream.” The message behind this is that you can replace work by using Philadelphia, which is given by heaven, meaning it is a perfect product. It makes life easier and because the scene is in heaven, life is supposed to be easy. Also you could say that by eating Philadelphia you can get into a heavenly state of life, even though you are still alive, on earth and in reality. Saying how the cheese is heavenly is a hard sell approach, because the off-voice is directly saying the message. But the part about making-life-easier is a hidden message, which makes it a soft sell approach. While the Philadelphia jingle is playing the angel bites into a bread with the cream cheese on it and makes a satisfied and enjoying “Mmmmh”, so she is completely delighted it. Here you can see the way Philadelphia cream cheese is used in Europe, as a spreading. A male good-looking angel-gardener appears on the scene, wearing nothing but an apron, spicing up the commercial. Now the off-voice says: “Only Philadelphia with Herbs is so heavenly spicy”. This is a message about Philadelphia’s uniqueness and what differs it from similar products. Then the angel leans against the gardener, saying she thinks she is in heaven. So the angel's life is heavenly now that she eats Philadelphia cream cheese.

So I think these two commercials emphasise very well what the difference in advertising is (I will compare them later a little more). But because this german ad is from just one european country it is not enough to analyze it as a european advertisement stratagey yet. Therefore I chose a couple more commercials, which I will not analyze, but which shows the similarity in european Philadelphia commercials.

Spain:

You see two angels observing another one trough a telescope. She eats Philadelphia cream cheese on bread and the two observing angels are jealous and adore the cream cheese because it is “delicioso y cremoso”. An off-voice talks about Philadelphia and a good-looking male angel comes into the observed apartment and kisses the cream-cheese-eating angel.

Poland:

Portugal: 

As you can see the commercials in Europe are very similar. The set is always heaven and there are female angels that love Philadelphia cream cheese. The product is usually called "heavenly" and the hidden message is that Philadelphia makes life easier and makes you feel like in heaven. Another interesting feature is the role of a man. In most of the commercials a good-looking man shows up at the end, having no active part in the commercial. He just seems to be a little treat for the angels and the viewers. Something to spice it up.

Comparison Canada – Europe

These commercials have some basic characteristics in common but all in all they differ a lot.

Similarities are the verbal communication, the hard selling approach and the focus on women. In both commercials there is an off-voice talking to the viewer. In the german Ad the off-voice only talks about the product and its features while the leading character illustrates the situation and the main problem (that herb gardens are a lot of work). Whereas in the canadian one the off-voice also talks about the whole situation and the characters do not talk. Still, the commercials have the hard selling approach in common. They also see women as the main target group. This is obvious in the Canadian commercial, because the woman is cooking and this is still very often a female task. In the European commercials the main characters are women, even though spreading is a product everyone uses. I think this is because Philadelphia tries to be a healthy product, considering its many light variations, making women the target group. Another interesting point in the European commercials is the role of men. You can see a clear pattern: The men show up at the end of the commercial, they usually do not talk and their only characteristic is being handsome. So you can say that men are objectified and this leads to the conclusion that women are definitely the target group. Although this is a similarity, the women’s features are still different. The Canadian woman is a modern mother dealing with everyday’s problems and her own role in the society. The European woman enjoys life, men and herself. This leads us to the next difference: the environment. The Canadian commercial shows a regular household, a kitchen and a dining table. The reality. But in the European one we are in a fantasy world, in heaven. This requires a certain amount of humor and makes the commercial more casual. Furthermore, the biggest difference is the use of the product. In Canada it is most famous as a cooking creme. This leads to the assumption that warm meals are better liked, wanted and accepted there. While in Europe there is mainly Philadelphia cream cheese. This correlates with the role of bread and breakfast in Europe. While in North America it is very common to eat a warm breakfast, this is very uncommon in Europe (except for the UK). For breakfast most Europeans like all kinds of bread with either meat, cheese, jam, honey or anything else.

So this explains the focus on cream cheese in Philadelphia’s European advertisement. I think this kind of commercial would also work in Canada but not as good as the focus on cooking.