Media Factsheet - Score hair cream
Read the factsheet and answer the following questions:1) How did advertising techniques change in the 1960s and how does the Score advert reflect this change?
2) What representations of women were found in post-war British advertising campaigns?
3) Conduct your own semiotic analysis of the Score hair cream advert: What are the connotations of the mise-en-scene in the image? You may wish to link this to relevant contexts too.
The setting for the advert resembles that of a jungle due to the multiple plants in the background. This could highlight Britain's colonial background. Also the male character is covered up and only his forearms are on show, whereas the female characters are scantily clad and dressed inappropriately for the situation. Perhaps this links to the idea that males are hunter-gathers which reinforces their strength and dominance, creating an impression of hyper masculinity. The female characters all fit the Western beauty standards, are in revealing clothing and have their hair and make up done, implying that women are viewed from the eyes of a hetero sexual man, and are represented as passive objects of male desire (Mulvey's male gaze theory).
4) What does the factsheet suggest in terms of a narrative analysis of the Score hair cream advert?
5) How might an audience have responded to the advert in 1967? What about in the 2020s?
6) How does the Score hair cream advert use persuasive techniques (e.g. anchorage text, slogan, product information) to sell the product to an audience?
7) How might you apply feminist theory to the Score hair cream advert - such as van Zoonen, bell hooks or Judith Butler?
8) How could David Gauntlett's theory regarding gender identity be applied to the Score hair cream advert?
9) What representation of sexuality can be found in the advert and why might this link to the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality (historical and cultural context)?
10) How does the advert reflect Britain's colonial past - another important historical and cultural context?
Furthermore, the man's prop gun and costume is reminiscent to Britain's colonial past which is significant as the advert was published 20 years after the 1947 Partition of India.
Wider reading
The Drum: This Boy Can article
1) Why does the writer suggest that we may face a "growing 'boy crisis'"?
2) How has the Axe/Lynx brand changed its marketing to present a different representation of masculinity?
As Lynx/Axe found when it undertook a large-scale research project into modern male identity, men are craving a more diverse definition of what it means to be a ‘successful’ man in 2016 and to relieve the unrelenting pressure on them to conform to suffocating old paradigms. This insight led to the step-change ‘Find Your Magic’ campaign from the former bad-boy brand.
3) How does campaigner David Brockway, quoted in the article, suggest advertisers "totally reinvent gender constructs"?
“We’re seeing a huge rise in eating and body image disorders among young men. We can’t isolate the cause. Advertising plays its part. A 13-year-old boy of average build in one class recently told me seeing an ad made him feel fat. He didn’t mean a bit out of shape. He meant everything that goes with that feeling such as seeing himself as lazy, unaccomplished and incapable.”
4) How have changes in family and society altered how brands are targeting their products?
5) Why does Fernando Desouches, Axe/Lynx global brand development director, say you've got to "set the platform" before you explode the myth of masculinity?
“This is just the beginning. The slap in the face to say ‘this is masculinity’. All these guys [in the ad] are attractive. Now we have our platform and our point of view, we can break the man-bullshit and show it doesn’t matter who you want to be, just express yourself and we will support that. “What being a man means, and what ‘success’ means, is changing and this change is for the good. The message hasn’t exploded yet but we will make it explode. We will democratise it.”
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