Valentine’s Day is one of the most ideal occasions for businesses to advertise luxurious gifts like a romantic necessity and sell them to consumers. However, since many decades ago, chocolate is a very inexpensive commodity that people have also chosen to buy on this day. This treat is always stocked in vending machines, supermarkets, gas stations, and convenience stores yet, it somehow maintains a substantial role in this holiday’s tradition. In this essay, I will begin by discussing some of the historical aspects of this holiday and how chocolate became one of the main components involved in this celebration. My next section will include a semiotic analysis of Cadbury’s original Valentine’s Day ad campaign. Afterward, I will argue that companies in the candy industry have used this style of advertising to manipulate this product into an over-consumed and falsely needed symbol for Valentine’s Day shoppers.
History The exact point in time when Valentine’s Day became a tradition is uncertain, but historical records suggest that a Roman pagan fertility festival first inspired it. Later, around A.D 496, Christian Romans adopted this celebration into a day of feasts to honor a martyred saint named Valentine (Koehler, 2017). The meaning of this holiday thematically changed once again in the 1300s, when a new interpretation of its characteristics spread to European communities through the medium of poetry. It started with Geoffrey Chaucer, a famous poet who incorporated Valentine’s Day in a poem about lovebirds finding their mate (Koehler, 2017). His works grew popular, which influenced other artists to produce their versions of romantic songs and poems about this festival.
By the 19th century, Valentine’s Day evolved into the current tradition of exchanging gifts and cards with one another to express feelings of affection. Get Help With Your Essay If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Chocolate was initially served in a liquid beverage form and was rumored to work best as a type of aphrodisiac. Koehler states, around the early 1800s it became more prominently used, especially during Valentine’s Day. This was mainly because it became a more affordable product for the middle class. (Koehler, 2017). Shortly after this, the solid form of chocolate shaped like a bar was invented by a British franchise called ‘J.S Fry & Sons’ in 1847.
Other chocolatiers implemented this idea and created all sorts of flavourful recipes that appealed to an even larger targeted audience. Although, it was ‘Cadbury’ that took the marketability of solid Valentine’s chocolates to the next level. Cadbury Case Study During the late 1800s Richard and George Cadbury became the inheritors of their father’s company (which is now owned by Mondelez International since 2010) and succeeded in marketing chocolate as a “sensual indulgence” to consumers (Rosenwald, 2018). Their business strategy involved packaging their products into a connotative symbol of love.
They created heart-shaped boxes with decorative patterns that were visually appealing, and this design continues to be a Valentine’s Day trend in modern society. Some of Cadbury’s more recent Valentine's ad campaign tie-ins include paring their chocolates with a bottle of champagne and transitioning to advertising online on their company website (Rosenwald, 2018). The mediums and strategies behind advertisements continue to fluctuate, but exaggerating messages to consumers such as the importance of buying chocolate for Valentine’s Day is still a consistent practice. False Needs & Over Consumption Within the context of advertising, false needs can be described as, goods and services that people do not require and driving a lifestyle characterized by an escalating frenzy of believing that the concept of exchanging chocolates on Valentine’s is interesting.
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