Blog task: Score advert and wider reading

 Blog task: Score advert and wider reading

Complete the following tasks and wider reading on the Score hair cream advert and masculinity in advertising.

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?

According to AdAge, advertising agencies in the 1960s relied less on market research and leaned more toward 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. Print ads took on a realistic look, relying more on photography than illustration, and TV spots gained sophistication as new editing techniques were mastered.

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

Post-war,and now surplus to requirement in the workplace, the advertising

industry stepped in to provide a new ‘propaganda’ campaign – one

designed to make women feel useful in the domestic arena.

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 man is carried on a plank, suggesting a superiority, and is positioned at the top of the all the women signifying his greater status. Both practically and figuratively, men are superior to women.Guns also display the strength and authority of men which is a Phallic symbol. All the women are wearing short skirts which are objectifying their bodies and shows male dominance and  women are presented as "spectacle" (van Zoonen) ,the male gaze (Laura Mulvey) theories.

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

Women in this era were largely represented as either domestic servants or sex objects – and in Score they might be considered both servant and sex object. Much like Laura Mulvey, van Zoonen argues that in mainstream media texts the visual and narrative

codes are used to objectify the female body.

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

The Score advert constructs a representation of women that is typical of the late 1960s - and accepted as ‘normal’. IN the 2020s the ad would have gotten a lot of hate on social media and lots of negative publicity. the product might even be discontinued.

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?

The product had text saying if you use this hair cream you will be seen as a ‘real man’.

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

Judith Butler 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.

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

David Gauntlett argues that both media producers and audiences

play a role in constructing identities. The role of the producer in

shaping ideas about masculinity is clear in the Score advert, which

is undoubtedly similar to countless other media texts of 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)?

Produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality the representation of

heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear.

10) How does the advert reflect Britain's colonial past - another important historical and cultural context?The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and

cultural contexts of the ending of the British Empire. Paul Gilroy

argues that despite the passing of empire, the white western world still

exerts its dominance through cultural products.

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'"?

Due to the fact that men are much less frequently given voice in advertising than women, the author speculates that we may be seeing a "growing boy crisis." Society understands how to deal with and discuss issues that affect women, but men are not treated in the same way.

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.“We’re seeing a huge rise in eating and body image disorders among young men. We can’t isolate the cause. Advertising plays its part. A 13-year-old boy of average build in one class recently told me seeing an ad made him feel fat. He didn’t mean a bit out of shape. He meant everything that goes with that feeling such as seeing himself as lazy, unaccomplished and incapable.”

4) 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.

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?

 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.“What being a man means, and what ‘success’ means, is changing and this change is for the good. The message hasn’t exploded yet but we will make it explode. We will democratise it.”