Advertising assessment learner response

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

8/29 E

WWW : Some attempt at analysing the unseen advert

EBI : Disappointing assessment , lots of gaps in your knowledge displayed here 

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.

1. Monochrome (black and white) – stylish, sophisticated, reinforces traditional heterosexual

meanings; consistent with aspirational branding. Low-key lighting,

2.Armani advert arguably reflects the ‘crisis of masculinity’ some refer to – assertively

heterosexual, perhaps reflecting the struggle men face to find their place/role in the 21st

century. Armani captures the way men wish to see the world.

• 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.

3.• Double consciousness: Paul Gilroy used the term double consciousness to reflect the Black

experience in the UK and USA. One aspect is living in a predominantly white culture and

having an aspect of identity rooted somewhere else. He describes this as a “liquidity of

culture”. He also uses it to highlight the disconnect between black representations in the

media and actual lived experience. Often, these representations are created by white

producers.

• 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.

• The advert very deliberately looks to construct an authentic representation of the black

experience. This therefore challenges Gilroy’s ideas of othering and double consciousness.

• Sephora use a range of locations to reflect different aspects of the black community – hair

salon, kitchen, bedroom, dressing room. It is inclusive – diversity of gender and age is

incorporated as well as race.

3) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 1 (Diamonds advert unseen text). List three examples of media terminology or theory that you could have included in your answer. 

Monochrome , Promise of irresistible appeal , hypermasculine message .

4) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 2. What aspects of the cultural and historical context for the Score hair cream advert do you need to revise or develop in future?

Gender roles in 1950s and 1960s , Equal Pay Act in 1970 , decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. No longer the stereotypical 1950s housewife but still a reductive, exploitative, objectified representation of women.

5) Now look over your mark, comments and the mark scheme for Question 3 - the 9-mark question on Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty. List any postcolonial terminology you could have added to your answer here.  

. ‘Othering’ or racial otherness: Paul Gilroy

. Racial essentialism

. Social and ethnic hierarchies

. Double consciousness

. Cultural conviviality