Advertising assessment: Learner response

  

Advertising assessment: Learner response

The Advertising & Marketing assessment was a great opportunity to keep learning the skills we'll need in next year's exams.

The first part of your learner response is to look carefully at your mark, grade and comments from your teacher. If anything doesn't make sense, ask your teacher - it's crucial we're learning from the process of assessments and feedback. 

Learner response blog tasks


1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).
Revise/ practice social and cultural contexts questions+ question focus


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 one points missed:

• Stereotypical ideals of beauty – slim, twenty-something, white.
• Snatched, paparazzi style shot – over-exposed subject, celebrity (intertextuality).
• Female desire – woman as active sexual agent, empowered sexuality (third-wave feminism). Arguably reflects a changing representation of women post-1980s.
• 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 details.
• Facial expressions – female models’ open mouths suggest lust, desire. Male model makes eye-contact with audience.
• Costume barely visible for female models – flesh on display. Heavily made-up faces –constructed/Photoshopped image. Links to Kilbourne’s analysis of women in advertising.
• 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?
• Armani ‘Diamonds’ advert constructs a traditional, hypermasculine message- fiercely heterosexual. Suit, white shirt, tie – classic masculine mise-en-scene.
• Black tie as a phallic object (Mulvey) – being grabbed by female model.
  

Question 2 points missed: 

• 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.
• Aggressively heterosexual representation perhaps shows male insecurity in light of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.
• Anchorage text in the Score advert reflects male insecurities in a changing world – repeated references to ‘men’ and ‘masculine’ in design, production and use of the product suggests an acknowledgment that hair cream was seen as a more female product in the 1960s.
• 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.
• Representation of women in the Score advert reflects the changing role of women in the 1960s to some extent. This is no longer the stereotypical 1950s housewife but still a reductive, exploitative, objectified representation of women.

Question 3 missed points:

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.

If the advert was largely a response to the racial profiling scandal, then perhaps it could be read in a more cynical way, with a predominantly white company looking to recover from negative PR. Similarly, the 15% pledge that Sephora has committed to still means black producers will account for only a small minority of the products on Sephora shelves.

If you do not finish your learner response in the lesson your work is returned, this needs to be completed at home - due date on Google Classroom.