Blog task: 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:

1) 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 market research and leaned more toward creative instinct in planning their campaigns. 

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

Before the war, the normal housewife was portrayed, but afterward, women began to be hypersexualized and objectified in ads,

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 bushes in the background give us the impression that we are on safari; this is a British Empire colonial past, mostly Indian. Costumes are very revealing which sexualises the woman. They are also carrying him like he is a king, perhaps showing how men are superior.

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

The Score advert identifies the man as Propp’s ‘hero’ in this narrative. The image infers that he is ‘exulted’ as the hunter-protector of his ‘tribe’. The adoration – and availability – of the females are his reward for such masculine endeavours. This has a clear appeal to the target audience of males who would identify with the male and aspire to share the same status bestowed on him.

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

1967 audience would be much more accepting and find in normal while the present audience might find it either ridiculous to the point its funny or just degrading and offended. 

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?

It empathises that the cream is indeed "very masculine" perhaps as this is the same year that decriminalisation of homosexuality happened and hair products were seen as feminine.

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

In this historical period, women were typically shown as either housewives or sexual objects, and in Score, they may be seen as both. The Score advertisement clearly shows van Zoonen's argument that the visual and narrative conventions employed in mainstream media texts objectify the feminine body.

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

According to David Gauntlett, audiences and media producers both have an impact on how identities are constructed.
The Score advertisement demonstrates how the producer shapes perceptions about masculinity, and it is certainly similar of many other media texts from that era. 

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)?

The anchorage text tells us that the cream is masculine, and that the men shouldn't worry that people might think of them as homosexuals.

10) 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 people. 

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:

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

"We are much less equipped to talk about the issues affecting boys. There’s an unconscious bias that males should simply ‘man up’ and deal with any crisis of confidence themselves. After all, men (certainly white, middle-class, Western men) are better paid, have more opportunities and are not inhumanely oppressed in some parts of the world." 

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"?

Campaigner David Brockway, who manages the Great Initiative’s Great Men project, urges the industry to be “more revolutionary”, particularly when it comes to male body image, which he says is at risk of following the negative path trodden by its female counterpart.

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

Brands have to be careful with what they do/say as even one scandal is enough to ruin their reputation forever. This is as people have become much more sensitive but also more aware of how big corporations operate. In the west society has became much  more lenient then they were in past.

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?

"To be fair on Fernando Desouches, Axe global brand development director, he knows that. And, as he says, you’ve got to “set the platform” before you explode the myth. “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."