Reading Lynx

Wow! What a fantastic radio!

If there is one thing that I have learnt in studying media so far, it is that a lot more thought goes into a still image than most people (consciously) notice. If we take this ad campaign for "Lynx Dry Full Control", there is a lot of analysis that can be done.

Clearly the main focus of this image, is Lucy Pinder, who earns a living by posing for a camera, whilst wearing very little clothing. If we took the right-hand portion of this picture away, and only saw this "T and A" shot of Lucy Pinder, we would have no idea that this was anything to do with Lynx, (apart from the fact that the radio says Lynx on it.) In this case, however, the right hand side of the picture has not been removed, and it is indeed a Lynx advert.

If a young man was walking down the road, or surfing the web, and saw this come up, he would instantly make a connection between Lucy Pinder, and Lynx. The advert implies that if you wear Lynx, you will come home, walk into the kitchen, and find Lucy Pinder, in her underwear, in the kitchen, cooking you a nice roast chicken.

There is a lot more than meets the eye with this picture, at first. For example, the model is wearing red lipstick, which connotes lust and passion. Her lips are parted which indicates sexual availability. She is also back-lit, to help her stand out from the 50's/60's style kitchen that she's "standing" in. Why is the kitchen so much like a kitchen from the 50's or 60's? Because back then, times were a lot more sexist, and women stayed at home, cleaning, and listening to their 50's radio, and cooking a turkey in their 50's style oven. Women did whatever the men told them to do. Therefore, setting the advert in a 50's style kitchen, implies that she too, will do whatever the man wants her to do.

"Can she make you lose control?" This has an incredibly obvious duel-meaning that most people over the age of 12 would understand. This flatters the person who reads it and understands the clever wording that is used, as it makes them feel clever.

Overall, it is clear that whoever created this advert, lives by the phrase "sex sells". This ad campaign was actually banned, I cannot say that I'm surprised.

Lucozade

In Wednesday's lesson, we learnt about Lucozade, and the history of advertising for Lucozade. It started out as a drink that people would consume if they were ill, as it would supposedly make them feel better. This was demonstrated in one advert where a woman gave some Lucozade to a sick child.

Later on however, it was advertised as a sports drink. One of the adverts demonstrating this, was an athlete practicing running. When he drank Lucozade, his performance improved. This showed. that it gives you energy and boosts your performance and concentration at most activities. As mentioned in the video we watched, they could have just had somebody in an office looking stressed out, and then drinking Lucozade, but that would have been boring, so they opted for more exciting things instead.

Afterwards, they moved on to using Lara Croft to advertise their drink. Lara Croft is a fictional character from a series of Playstation games, which go by the name of "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider". This is because her name is Lara Croft, and she raids tombs (surprisingly).

Lucozade chose Lara Croft, because as a computer-generated character, she couldn't make any mistakes in public which would show them up. Also, the Lara Croft games had a large following already, so the adverts would already appeal the the audience that play the games. On top of this, she has a very curvaceous body, which was attractive to many young men at the time. She also is a very outgoing adventurous character which many people could aspire to. As you can see, there were many reasons that Lucozade used Lara Croft to advertise their product. The advert cost a very large amount of money, and took 3 months to make. Luckily, it payed off.

Above are different shot types used in films.

OUR FIRST MEDIA LESSON

Today was our first media lesson. We started by talking about what we would be doing in GCSE Media. Then we looked at an old mouthwash advert from the 1930's. Afterwards we watched a Coke Zero advert which was linked to "James Bond: Quantum of Solace". We then talked about the GCSE Media Blog. I look forward to doing Media!