Sheet 5.3 Tasks

Coca Cola
I chose the Coca Cola ad “pool boy”  which is a rather recent, teenage centered advert.
https://youtu.be/wWBQP-bxfX0


I also chose “brotherly love” by Coca Cola which centres around teenagers and family life it displays the relationship between an older and younger brother in a light hearted manner which is relatable for many siblings who may tease each other and take advantage of being the older one.https://youtu.be/qdPXQLrueRg

These adverts help to present America as a light hearted, comedic and family orientated country. They seem to focus on family values and Coca Cola tries to prove  their product can help bring the family together and help form relationships.
The first clip features a teenage brother and sister fighting to get to the pool man first to give him a Coca Cola as he is shown as very attractive and they obviously want to be the one to attract his attention. The comedy comes in when they both arrive at the pool after scrabbling and climbing over eachother only to find that their own mother has beaten them to it, this pushes them to accept what has happened after a simple shoulder shrug from the mother. This also presents teenagers in America as quite a stereotypical romantic, both the brother and sister are after the pool mans attention in the hope they would get to admire him from up close, perhaps even converse with him. This is commonly used in teenage movies and tv shows, the character will make a fool of themselves while trying to impress someone that they are interested in. The second clip portrays a relationship between an older and younger sibling, again in a light hearted and comedic way, to show how even though you both may get on each others nerves, annoy each other constantly and wind each other up, you’re still family and you still look out for each other. The older brother teases his younger sibling and this is shown throughout the advert until a bully takes a Coca Cola bottle away from the younger sibling, this then encourages the older sibling to stand up and protect his younger sibling to clearly show how Coca Cola  can bring family’s together and make their bond even stronger.

I think this may be attractive to teenagers in Britain as they share a similar romantic take on life. Many British teenagers in movies or even in real life will go to extreme extents to impress someone they are interested in and by this advert trying to prove that Coca Cola is the way to someone’s heart this would encourage teenagers to buy it and try it for themselves. .
In another way this may be attractive to British teens. Siblings  across the UK treat each other very similarly by teasing and picking on eachother but always being there when needed, this could really appeal to a teenage audience if they have a younger sibling or maybe even an older sibling as they could find it very relatable.

There are some cultural differences which I feel this advert helps to erode such as homosexuality. in America and Britain it is more common and more socially acceptable than it is in other countries. By placing this within an advert and portraying it as a normal and generally accepted view, I feel this advert would be able to erode cultural differences surrounding homosexuality by actually showing people it is normal and perhaps encouraging other people to embrace their sexuality.

Levi’s 

I chose to use the Levi’s advert “sea of blue” which is aimed towards teenagers and people in their 20’s as it is set at a party and the cast are young https://youtu.be/z4wijnEVOWM

I also chose “beautiful morning” as it is quite a popular and favoured advert by teenagers.
https://youtu.be/6JwNYPgBhfM

Both  adverts portray america and american teenagers as quite a sex driven society. Both adverts promote a need to feel, look and seem appealing in order to attract a partner. American teenage life appears to revolve around the ideology that in order to feel good you need to look good and that their jeans are the solution to this. wear their jeans, you'll feel sexy and attractive and wind up with a  potential sexual partner.

This representation may be attractive or seductive to a British teenage audience because there is a pressure as well, in British society, to look and feel attractive, to become sexually active in order to fit  in because of the social construct of virginity. There is real pressure for teenagers in modern society to lose their virginity and be sexually active to seem "cooler".
This advert implies that these special jeans will boost your chances of fitting in, losing your virginity and becoming sexually active, while also making you feel and look good.

Adverts like this may erode cultural differences surrounding sex and the idea of virginity, not particularly in the best way.
The adverts are very erotic and sensual, making sex seem like the norm, perhaps helping to build up the pressure that is already on for teenagers to have sex, this could be unintentional but none the less, this still manages to be my first thought.
Some cultures may not agree with this ideology but it is now becoming more common and sex is more accepted and socially acceptable to talk about or show on  TV and other media platforms.

Over all, the aim of most teenage targeted adverts seem to be; you have to feel or look good to be accepted or you have to have an item of some sort to bring people together and these particular brands claim to be just what you need, helping themselves to also seem attractive to their audience. This applies to Stuart Hall's theory as the adverts both use strong visual representation to represent modern culture and how times have evolved, sex is practically advertised as a need and a want which is now common among teenagers, people have to have a reason to come together and coke is advertising itself as the reason. Representation is extremely important here as everybody wants to look good or feel good and by these actors within the adverts being shown as gorgeous and attractive people or role models, this urges the audience to want to look the same or be the same so by buying these products they believe they can or possibly will achieve this.

Curran and Seaton's theory applies here too as these particular adverts are in fact responding to the concerns of their audience. The audience wishes to look amazing and feel amazing or treasure the special family time they have or attract a partner and these adverts implicitly claim they are the answer to this and they can make it happen if you buy their particular product.

Research of Institutions: Bauer media

Homepage:

 The Bauer media homepage automatically grabs the readers attention by drawing their eyes to the gigantic moving slidely which incorporates cross media.

Cross media convergence is used by mentioning other platforms of media throughout the slidely such as radio and film. It advertises radio stations such as “Kiss” or “Magic”.

Although the slidely is forever moving they succeed in continually advertising themselves through the use of a banner over each image

 This is to advertise the fact they are a successful institution for a mass audience and continually sell their brand to whoever may access their website.

Links

There are multiple links and tabs on the site, which makes it very easy to navigate to different pages. Different information is stored on each page as well as different contact details.

The colour scheme of the site relies on very bright blues and contrasting colours. The blue is representative of Bauer Media as it’s logo is blue and white, something it’s mass audience will immediately recognise.

The tabs allow you to select a specific page relevant to the topic.

Cross Media and Technological convergence

As we scroll further down the homepage at the very bottom you can find very useful tools such as the “Audience Finder Tool” and a direct link to their twitter page, which allows you to scroll through their tweets creating another, cross media and interactive platform.

Genre of texts

Much of the texts are based around entertainment, music or the business industry. Some of these texts are branded and genres may appeal to different target audiences such as, fashion magazines which may appeal to a younger, trendy female audience, “performance bikes” which appeals to a masculine niche audience whose interests are based around bikes and bike racing.

Audiences

Bauer media is able to appeal to a wide range of audiences with lots of different branches reaching out so there I something for everyone. They are able to respond to the concerns of their readers by providing magazines and articles on almost every topic.

The high end fashion and beauty magazines are able to appeal to a young female audience, the biking magazines to a male audience with an interest in bikes, fishing magazines for an older male audience and mother and baby magazines for new mothers. It seems like there is almost everything for everyone you can think of.

Niche Audience Magazine

This particular magazine "Film Comment" is targeted to a niche audience due to selective interests as this film magazine focuses primarily on old and new movies, with in depth reviews and opinions.
This may be very uninteresting for some as topics such as this only appeal to a small group of people, making it a niche market.
The colour scheme for this particular cover is very bland and uses dull, natural colours such as leaf green, browns and yellows to represent the fact that this issue focuses more on old movies so perhaps these blander colours are to help relate to an older and more old fashioned audience. The cover features a large closeup of an actor with his eyes keeping contact with the camera, a very common convention of magazines. The mise-en-scene of the picture depicts him wearing a suit, he has a very stern and serious expression perhaps to represent a powerful or sinister demeanour, helping the audience to assume his character, the lighting creates shadows and highlights details of his face to further represent this.. In the background there are several other images all overlaid and faded, these appear to be other characters from movies and is a big hint to the reader as to which movies are the main focus of this issue.
The masthead takes up a lot of space on the page and covers most of the models forehead, this is obviously to advertise their magazine and to self-promote. The font style doesn't really change and remains a similar mint green colour but the issue date is white and in the top right corner. The barcode is small and situated in the bottom left corner so not to distract you from the actual cover. The magazine price is out of the way so that is one of the last things you look at in the hope that the cover is enough to persuade you to buy and certainly if this is a magazine full of information suited to your interests then you, as a part of this niche audience, would make the purchase. The theory of Curran and Seaton can be applied here as they have responded to the concerns of their readers, this being a large and overwhelming love and interest for movies, by including famous figures and different movies all in one front cover to successfully attract this niche audience by using their love of movies to their own advantage. Hall's theory of representation is present throughout the front cover of this magazine as the man in the image is represented as a stern and serious character through the use of his clothes, a sharp suit and tie to represent authority, the bland colours used further represent seriousness and perhaps a lack of fun as his facial expression suggests anger as his brow is furrowed and eyes narrowed, almost as if he is challenging the reader to pick up the magazine and read.