SCORE ADVERT AND WIDER READING!

SCORE ADVERT AND WIDER READING:

Media Factsheet - Score hair cream

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #188: Close Study Product - Advertising - Score. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. If you need to access this from home you can download it here if you use your Greenford login details to access Google Drive.

Read the factsheet and answer the following questions:

How did advertising techniques change in the 1960s and how does the Score advert reflect this change?

Advertising agencies in the 1960s relied less on the market research and leaned more towards creative instinct in planning their campaigns. The new advertising of the 1960s took its cue from the visual medium of TV and the popular posters of the day, which featured large visuals, print ads took on a realistic look relying more on photography than illustration. The score advert reflects this change by making the whole focus of the advert on the characters on the poster, the writing and tagline seems to be randomly placed on the poster with no proper plan.  

What representations of women were found in post-war British advertising campaigns?

In post-war British advertising campaigns, the idea that a women's place was in the home doing housework while the man was the breadwinner, which then changed during the second world war when propaganda posters were convincing women that their place was farms and factories and nursing, so the campaigns started to make women feel more useful in the domestic arena.

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 central image: 
• the man is positioned at the top of the mise-en-scène, connoting his higher status, and the fact he is being carried on a litter could even suggest a god-like superiority.
• the man is literally and metaphorically superior to women
• male dominance and power also shown by gun 
• phallic symbol 
• women are presented as "spectacle" (van Zoonen)
• the male gaze (Laura Mulvey)
• advertisement appeals to the male gaze by objectifying the women. Their skirts are short and their matching shirts are tied across their chests, revealing as much skin as the regulators in the 1960s might permit. Their tanned bodies, alluring black eyeliner and luscious hair also connote glamour.
• the revealing costumes (women seem to be seen as sex objects)
• women's placement and expressions show male dominance 
• Anchorage texts
• reasserts masculine and heterosexuality 
• reassure male anxiety (using products that usually promoted for women)
• 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality 
• advert is aggressively heterosexual 
• element of hyper masculinity 
• sex sells/ inuendo reference to women 
• asserts strong sense of heterosexuality 
• reinforces traditional masculine stereotypes
• one model facing directly to the audience (eye contact)
• three of the women are staring at the man in absolute awe of his presence. In fact, the blonde-haired woman at the back of the litter is reaching up, desperately trying to touch her idol. However, the dark-haired woman at the front stares directly at the viewer, suggesting that you too could have this power if you buy the right hair cream.
• The mise- en- scene 
• costume and background creates connotations of Britain's colonial past- Empire
• the man is positioned at the top of the mise-en-scène, connoting his higher status, and the fact he is being carried on a litter could even suggest a god-like superiority.
• short-sleeved shirt reveals his muscular arms. This is a man who is ready to fight.

What does the factsheet suggest in terms of a narrative analysis of the Score hair cream advert?

The advert identifies the man as Propp is the "hero", The picture suggests that he is "exulted" to be the hunter-guardian of his "tribe". His reward for such masculine efforts is the females' adoration and availability.

How might an audience have responded to the advert in 1967? What about in the 2020s?

The 1967 male audience might read the narrative as ironic and humorous but unlikely that they would challenge the underlying ideology implicit within the advert. Females might read the gender representations in an oppositional way but at the same time accept its representations of a patriarchal society. In the 2020 the audience will read the advert from a feminist perspective, and point out the mistakes in the advert and the fact that it is showing a patriarchal and male dominating advert.

How does the Score hair cream advert use persuasive techniques (e.g. anchorage text, slogan, product information) to sell the product to an audience?

Placed in magazines and on posters, “The Jungle” is an example of direct advertising. Marketing agencies continue to pay a considerable amount of money for these slots because they offer a good return on their investment. Direct advertisements also fight for our attention, for example, during the breaks on television and the pre-roll ads on YouTube.

The brand is promoting its ability and competence: “the great grooming action”.

How might you apply feminist theory to the Score hair cream advert - such as van Zoonen, bell hooks or Judith Butler?

Van Zoonen: argues that gender is constructed through discourse and that the meaning varies . The score advert constructs shows that the women in this era were largely represented as either domestic servants and sex objects, she also argues that in mainstream media texts the visual and narrative codes are used to objectify the female body. (the outfits of the females showing them as spectacles)

Bell Hooks: who has explored the intersexuality of race, social class and gender issues. In the advert we can argue that there is no representations of any other race in the advert other than white models, so the experience of black women is ignored by media.

Judith Butler: asserts that gender is not biologically determined but rather socially determined; learned through society. She believes that gender is a performance. Both the male and the female in the Score advert are performing the roles of the (masculine) man and the (feminine) woman in accordance with their biological sex. The advert also serves to reinforce the binary opposite gender roles ascribed by society.

How could David Gauntlet's theory regarding gender identity be applied to the Score hair cream advert?

The score hair cream advert, published in 1967, reinforces the traditional, narrow-minded attitudes of the people of that time. A patriarchal society was still thriving- with men being dominant and women being objects. Surrounded by such representations, 1960s men would inevitably use these to shape their own identities and their sense of what it means to be a man in the mid-twentieth century. Similarly, women would have a clear sense about their place in the world, despite many of the social changes that were leading to greater equality both socially and sexually (for instance, through access to the contraceptive pill).

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)?

The decriminalisation of homosexuality led to men being labelled as 'queer' which was seen as a huge insult to their manhood. As a result, adverts on men's grooming employed images of 'real men' like football players to sell their products.

 How does the advert reflect Britain's colonial past - another important historical and cultural context?

The jungle, setting, the gun, the throne all infer that the white western male has been successful in fighting off primitives or dangerous animals to save his own tribe, this refers to the colonialist values of British Empire

Wider reading

The Drum: This Boy Can article

Read this article from The Drum magazine on gender and the new masculinity. If the Drum website is blocked, you can find the text of the article here. Think about how the issues raised in this article link to our Score hair cream advert CSP and then answer the following questions:

Why does the writer suggest that we may face a "growing 'boy crisis'"?

The writer suggests that we may face a 'growing boy crisis' because of the fact that men are hardly ever empowered in advertising compared to women. Society is aware of how to deal and talk about issues that effect women but the same can't be said for men.

How has the Axe/Lynx brand changed its marketing to present a different representation of masculinity?

After conducting a thorough exploration, Lynx/Axe discovered that men yearn for a more varied and trendy definition of what it means to be a man. As a result, Lynx/Axe launched the "Find Your Magic" campaign, which featured men in an entirely different context than what they were previously known for.

 How does campaigner David Brockway, quoted in the article, suggest advertisers "totally reinvent gender constructs"?

David Brockway suggests advertisers should 'totally reinvent gender constructs' because he fears that the body image of men is following the same negative path that females have gone through. He suggests that advertisers should create a world were stereotypes don't exist- for example, boys like pink and don't like going outside and playing football in the mud.

How have changes in family and society altered how brands are targeting their products?

Due to changes in family life and society, men now do the same amount of grocery shopping as women do. According to statistics, men perform 40% of the shopping in some nations. In order to avoid losing out on potential customers, brands must adapt their advertising to be targeted at both men and women and to reflect this new society.

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?

According to Fernando Desouches, "setting the platform" helps give society what they are used to to—an advertisement featuring extremely attractive, well-built men. The audience becomes more interested as a result. By demonstrating to men that they can be whoever or whatever they want to be and still receive support, you can "explode the myth" once the attention has been attracted.