the big issue analysis

old spice

Lucozade

Old Spice

- Founded in the 1940's.

- product that children would buy for their fathers- good gift for people.

- firstly introduced for women- 1937

- introduced for men- 1938

- 2012- iconic clipper ship logo replaced with a yacht and targeting changed to young demographic segment. 

The old spice campaign 2010- 'THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE'

- was becoming outdated and for old men.

- set on Wieden + Kennedy to re market. 

- direct competition with 'Dove' Super Bowl campaign in 2010. 

- Proctor and Gamble's research showed that 60% of mens body washes were by women so old spice needed to attract female shoppers. 

- Many products on the market lacked masculine credibility so old spice could work on the idea of smelling like a man. 

Target audience- 12-34 men and their women shoppers. 

old spice media strategy for the launch was simple; instead of spending money on the Super Bowl, they aimed to create Super Bowl impact building awareness around it. 

・1ST communication layer- (SEEDING)- start building buzz with old spice fans 'the man your man could smell like'. 

・2nd communication (LAUNCH)- next, search engines strategy played a key roles people thought that super bowl had launched it just because they did it all round super bowl.

・3rd communication (ENGAGE)-  post launch, old spice media strategy addressed one of the key ingredients for success, getting both sexes to talk about the campaign. 

Youtube- 10 million views

Facebook- 55000 fans

old spice.com- traffic increased 9 times. 

social anxieties- 
- the athletic and muscular bodies represent the male obsession with  their body image thus attributing a certain body insecurity to the target audience.

inequalities (race)- 

- black look by bell hooks hyper- sexuality of black bodies over white.

(sexuality)

- importance of heterosexuality in constructing masculinity to sell the product to women.
(gender)
-reinforcing a patriarchal society, a man who uses old spice will take the female viewer away, she cannot take herself. 

lucozade

Lucozade-

* Created 1927 as Glucozade- meant to give energy to the sick 

* Renamed Lucozade in 1929

* 1983- rebranded as sports drink and not a health drink.

Campaign-

£4 million campaign

GlaxoSmithKline consumer healthcare- owners of Lucozade In Jan 2013

Lucozade sold to Suntory in sept 2013 for £1.35b

Ad stars- Gareth Bale (spurs) and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain (Arsenal)

Campaign banned in Jan 2014 by ASA as it failed to show that it only had benefit during prolonged exercise. 

cultural context-

・Consumerism- The total value of the of the soft drinks market in the United Kingdom  is around £15 billion

Gareth Bale use of celebrity, representation if man 'new man'

・Celebrity culture- Capitalising a star appeal/ star as commodity. 

Lucozade Advert- 

・'scientifically proven'- explaining the better results you will have from the drink

・Target audience is sports people-anyone wanting to be fit and have attracted the audience due to well known sports star 'Gareth Bale'. 

・Masculine, focus, strength, determination, 

・Human need- happy, energetic, performance increase, success.

・Do you believe? Yes,  and Scientifically proven- much better than water, brainwashing audience.  

・The colour scheme of the advert is mainly blue and yellow with parts of black and white. The blue and yellow are the exact same shades used on the packaging of the product which make it explicitly clear that the product on sale is Lucozade Sport. The blue colour scheme is also carried over onto Gareth's eyes, the blueness of his eyes appears enhanced to match the background of the advert. 

・ The play on words ' in a different league' could reference a football club, but also that the drink is better than the others because it is 'in a different league'. 
・ Lucozade sport is targeted at people who do sport, as suggested by the name and the use of a famous sportsman (Gareth Bale) is a footballer it may be more specifically targeted at footballers as well as the general sporting community. 
・At the top right of the page the advert references the company that Lucozade is owned by : GlaxoSmithKine. 

advertisement- paper 1 section b

Three set products, exam requirements- 

* Old spice

* Lucozade 

* Charity advert (shelter)

What is marketing?

* create awareness of an issue etc
* create interest in the product or issue
* generate desire to buy or use the product

The four p's-

Price, Promotion, Product, Placement 


Unique selling point (USP)- 

marketing involves identifying the use of the media text.

copy- written explanation of the product. Analysis based on what it says, placement of text, font type and sizes, colour.

Slogan- phrase that describes the benefit of the product the products most important attribute.

logo- a symbol or small design adopted by an organisation to represent the brand.

Analysing an advert?

* aim of print advert
* denotation connotation
* media language- camera shot, mise en scene , typography
* representation of males/ females/ themes/ brand
* psychology- what human needs is it satisfying

the big issue essay

Explain how the representations in magazines reflect their contexts. Refer to The Big Issue covers you have studied to support your answer. [10]

The front cover of magazines are adverts  for the magazine, so in the same way as with advertising they tend to reflect the influence of consumerism. This is particularly visible in lifestyle magazines, where descriptions of lifestyles reflect our consumer society ideals of a 'good life'. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan, for example will often offer advice on how to improve you appearance, life style and diet etc.  However, in contrast to this The Big Issue magazine is designed to help homeless people and and have a more political, more altruistic focus.

An example of this is 'The Big Issue's' front cover of Harry and Megan's royal wedding with a headline 'Celebrate Big Issue style', suggesting that 'The big issue'  are  celebrating the wedding, so they are influencing everyone to celebrate with them. The message being presented is that there is a lot of support around the big issue, this is shown through the famous figures having the big issue vests on, making the audience know that everyone helps. There is a lot of social context, trying to show that 2 completely different classes are and should be equal in society. They use their constant reinforcing message ‘a hand up not a hand out’ as well. They show it on a big flag to portray that everyone can see it and that it is significant.

The clothes that are worn in both covers include the red vests which are worn when the homeless are selling the magazines. This makes the different classes of society mix into one, ignoring all the other factors. It presents the people to be equal no matter their status.

The amount of people in the 'We are here' cover, highlights that there are many homeless people handing out the magazines and making a difference in society. 

In 'The Royal Wedding' front cover the Harry and Megan are cartoons and so is the background, however in the 'we are here' cover, all of the pictures are real life images. This gives a sentimental feeling of the magazine, knowing that the people on the magazine's lives have been helped from the big issue, however due to the other cover being in cartoon, it indicates that they are more blurred to the realness of the big issue as they haven't been affected in that way.

Furthermore, in the 'We are here' front cover the images are all the homeless people who sell the magazine. The pictures are very inspiring and complements the title, as it indicates how they are there and trying to encourage people to make a change like the others have. These images would make the readers warm to the magazine as a majority of the people are smiling, representing how much the big issue has helped them.

The colour scheme of the front cover is blue and red, with having red typography which combines well with the red vests in the images. The colour red represents many things as it is an emotionally intense colour meaning, love, strength, passion etc. The blue is used as a background as it is a neutral colour, explaining how the magazine is gender neutral.

Finally, the anchorage text 'we are here' spreads the message about how there is always someone available to help and that nobody is alone, which also complements the photos of the homeless who have experienced the help the big issue give. 

big issue terms

masthead-  title of magazine (big issue)

Plug-  text that 'plugs' a feature that will appear inside the magazine

Puff-  story given prominence on the cover 

Cover star-  the 'star' featured on cover.

Anchorage text -  text that anchors main image and gives it context/ meaning.


Banner-  text that runs across lower section of cover

Skyline-  text that runs across the top of the story.

 > 70% of money comes from advertising. Magazines with small circulation- more dependent on advertising than one with a large circulation.

> 100,000 copies of big issue sold each week

> venders buy copies for £1.25 and sell for £2.50

> more than 5,000 people in Britain.

> from 2016- 200 million sales on big issue

Big Issue

・political, social and cultural context.
・Niche magazine outside the commercial mainstream.


C lift                 C ostumes                    F rame
L ayout                L ocation/ lighting          A ngle
I mage                 A ctors                      M ovement
F ont                  M akeup 
T ypography            P rops
                       S etting


Key Terms:

Circulation-    number of copies a magazines sells 

Readership-  not just who buys a magazine but the total number of people likely to read it. 

Mass Audience-   readership on a very large scale.

Niche Audience-  narrow group of readers with a particular interest.

Subscription-   where a reader pays for a set number of copies of a magazine in advance at a lower price and receives them by post.

Intertextuality-  Big issue- one media text with early men- another media text. 

types of products

Minecraft merchandise

history of Minecraft

different versions of Minecraft are available on which different platform?

playable on windows, Mac, linux computer
Minecraft for windows 10
Minecraft for mobile phones, apple, android, amazon, window
xbox one
ps4

crossplay-

cross platform play is a term used to describe the ability of a video game across different platforms such as; computer/ pc, xbox, playstation, Nintendo.

overall brand-

increasing the target audience potentially increasing sales- due to being on different platforms
reinvested into game increasing overall gameplay
from years 2014/2015 business year Minecraft tripled their revenue from 1 million to 2 million- Microsoft purchased Minecraft from Mojang for a record 2.5 billion.

realms-

allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft servers. They are not intended for large public servers but for groups of friends or as a family server.
-always online
- play your way anytime/ anywhere
-easy
-safe and private

how has it enhanced gameplay?

no other game has achieved anything this pervasive as of writing

twitch tv

streaming website that is primarily based around gaming, but is broadening its horizons with the IRL section.
live streaming feature that is very easy to use meaning that most people will be able to to access it compared to on other platforms
Minecraft has its own twitch channel where fans and other pro players stream themselves playing Minecraft, completing different set challenges or just streaming their survival world.
Channel has got 34,803 with a total 2,372,538 views.

how Is it regulated?

under a system called PEGI (the pan European game information scheme)
cannot monitor explicit  language, chat is monitored so that any explicit language is not allowed to be said on the chat.

why is Minecraft so successful?

- Sandbox with infinite replay-ability 
- the game is only limited by the confines of of your imagination
- platform agnostic
- co-opted by children
- players creations are Minecraft own marketing campaign
- strong community 

Minecraft facts

Minecraft development referred to as online lego is a Multiplatform open sandbox which started as an 'indie' and was critically and commercially successful. 

・Minecraft was created by 'Marcus 'notch' persson and developed by Mojang.
・These were independent separate too and not financed by a big commercial company.
・But, as small independent products become successful, it is usual for larger organisations/ owners to want to buy them .

Video game terminology

Platform-  different formats games are available in such as IOS,  PS4, Xbox,  Linux

Cross media platform-  games available on more than one format

Conglomerate-  large media companies that own smaller media companies i.e. Sony

Developer- people or companies that come up with the the concept for the game

Digital Distribution- making the game available to audiences e.g. steam

Engine- a system designed for the creation and development of video games e.g. unreal

PEGI- Pan European Games Information- age rating system for regulating video games

Designer- people of companies who bring concept of the game

RPG- Role playing Game

MMORPG- Massively Multiplayer online role playing game

FPS- first person shooter

Event release- hyped date used heavily in marketing of new games

Triple A game-  an informal classification used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion

Open World- players free to roam in a virtual game world

DLC- downloadable content

Sand Box-  style of game with that allows the user to change the world around them whenever they want

Different types of video games

. RPG
. Sports
. Strategy
. Action/ ADV enture
. Construction/ strategy/ building
. FPS
. Simulation
. Horror
. Puzzle Solving
. Children's