Advertising assessment: Learner response

1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

WWW: Rubana strong responses for Q2 and Q3. Some really good evidence of theory and subject terminology knowledge. 

EBI: Work on unseen advert textual analysis! 

Grade B 

2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify at least one potential point that you missed out on for each question in the assessment.

Question 1:

• Facial expressions – female models’ open mouths suggest lust, desire. Male model makes eye-contact with audience.
•  Brand logo – serif font, links to monochrome colour scheme, style, sophistication, tradition. Understated, placed in bottom-left. Product not specified – about brand ‘feel’, aspiration rather than actual product.
• Armani ‘Diamonds’ advert constructs a traditional, hypermasculine message – fiercely heterosexual. Suit, white shirt, tie – classic masculine mise-en-scene.
• Monochrome (black and white) – stylish, sophisticated, reinforces traditional heterosexual meanings; consistent with aspirational branding. Low-key lighting, ‘chiaroscuro’, backlighting visible in shot – suggests stage lights/spotlights, fashion show?

Question 2:

Emporio Armani ‘Diamonds’ advert

• Hypermasculine, heterosexual image does not seem to reflect the significant social and cultural changes of last 50 years in terms of gender roles. Reinforces hegemonic masculinity.
• Advert does not support Gauntlett’s suggestion there has been a “decline of tradition” – this is a very traditional representation of masculinity.
•  Armani advert arguably reflects the ‘crisis of masculinity’ some refer to – assertively heterosexual, perhaps reflecting the struggle men face to find their place/role in the 21st century. Armani captures the way men wish to see the world.

Score hair cream advert

• Aggressively heterosexual representation perhaps shows male insecurity in light of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.
• Hypermasculine representation reflects traditional view of gender roles in 1950s and 1960s
• Emphasis on traditional hegemonic masculinity perhaps a reaction against the gains made by women during the 1960s culminating in the Equal Pay Act in 1970.

Question 3:

Postcolonial ideas

• Cultural conviviality: This refers to the real-world multiculturalism and racial harmony that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. It is in stark contrast to the racial disharmony and binary view often presented by the media.
• Social and ethnic hierarchies: the belief that certain groups or races are superior to others.

Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty advert

• The advert very deliberately looks to construct an authentic representation of the black experience. This therefore challenges Gilroy’s ideas of othering and double consciousness.
• The advert explicitly gives credit to black beauty trends and innovations such as the hairbrush, ‘cut creases’ or ‘beat faces’. Again, this challenges postcolonial ideas such as social and ethnic hierarchies and places black creators in the mainstream.

3) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 1 (Diamonds advert unseen text). List three examples of media terminology or theory that you could have included in your answer. 

Theoretical framework , hypermasculine , heterosexual and  ‘chiaroscuro’

Snatched, paparazzi style shot.

Black tie as a phallic object (Mulvey)

4) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 2. What aspects of the cultural and historical context for the Score hair cream advert do you need to revise or develop in future?

Emphasis on traditional hegemonic masculinity perhaps a reaction against the gains made by women during the 1960s culminating in the Equal Pay Act in 1970.

The representation of the male as hunter in a foreign jungle setting suggests a reference to the British Empire and the colonial dominance of the 19th century.

5) Now look over your mark, comments and the mark scheme for Question 3 - the 9-mark question on Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty. List any postcolonial terminology you could have added to your answer here.  

• Social and ethnic hierarchies: the belief that certain groups or races are superior to others.

• Double consciousness: Paul Gilroy used the term double consciousness to reflect the Black experience in the UK and USA. One aspect is living in a predominantly white culture and having an aspect of identity rooted somewhere else. He describes this as a “liquidity of culture”. He also uses it to highlight the disconnect between black representations in the media and actual lived experience. Often, these representations are created by white producers.

• Cultural conviviality: This refers to the real-world multiculturalism and racial harmony that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. It is in stark contrast to the racial disharmony and binary view often presented by the media.