C1 - Advertising and marketing

Question 1

What ways are there of marketing a film?

Answer 1

Trailers, adverts, billboards, social media, DVD trailers, music videos, websites and website promotion

Question 2

Why is marketing important?

Answer 2

Helps increase box office numbers and revenue, making it successful

Question 3

What are the functions of a film poster?

Answer 3

Informing and attracting the audience, captures a moment of a film that personifies the whole film. Captures the use

Question 4

Compositional techniques and media language of a film poster

Answer 4

Rule of 3rds, typography, colours and having a also production credits

Question 5

Conventions of a film poster

Answer 5

Main image and release date

Question 6

history of commerical print adverts

Answer 6

-advertising became more popular in the 18th century
-in the 19th ceuntry, advertising became a major force for Capitalists economies
-commerical advertising grew in the 20th century with the development of new technology

Question 7

Product context for the Tide print advertisement

Answer 7

-designed for heavy duty machine washing, procter and Gamble launched Tide in 1946 and it quickly became the brand leader in America, a position it maintains today.
-The D’Arcy Maisus Benton and Bowles (DMB&B) advertisng agency handled Procter and Gamble’s accounts throughout the 50s. Its campaigns for Tide referred explicitly to P&G because their market research showed that consumers had high levels of confidence in the company.
-Uniquely, DMB&B used print and radio advertising campaigns concurrently in order to quickly build audience familarity with the brand. Both media forms used the “housewife” character and the ideology that it’s customers “Loved” and “adored” Tide.

Question 8

Historical and cultural context for the Tide print advertisement

Answer 8

-the post-WW2 consumer boon of the 50s included the rapid development of new technoliges for the home, designed to make domestic chorse easier, Vacuum cleaners, fridge-freezers, microwave ovens and washing machine all became desireable products for the 1950s audiences. Products linked to these new technologies also developed during this time, such as washing powder.
-Print adverts from the 1950s conventionally used more copy that we’re used to seeing today. COnsumer culture was in its early stages of development and, with so mant ‘new’ brands and products entering markets, potential customers typically needed more information about them than a modern audience, more used to advertising, marketing and branding, might need. Conventions of print-based advertising are still recognisable in this text.

Question 9

context for the Super.Human advert

Answer 9

-Bradford Young, an African American Oscar-nominated cinematographer, made the advert. He was also the first Afro American to be nominated for an Oscar.
-The advert was paid for by Channel 4, as the advert was advertising their coverage of the 2020 Paralympics. It was devised and created by Channel 4’s in-house creative agency 4Creative and produced by Serial Pictures and Somesuch, a global production company. The trailer is the third campaign for the Paralympics undertaken by Channel 4, who were broadcasting the event, and was part of a bigger campaign including posters and social media.
-They gave 1,300 hours to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics that year, shown in 2021 due to COVID.
-Every night, during the 2012 London Paralympics, Channel 4 broadcasted a show called “the last leg”, presented by Adam Hills.
-He said about the show “Three guys with four legs talking about the week.”
-Disability represented in the media didn’t really being until the 90s.

Question 10

what is comapssion fatique?

Answer 10

-it can be caused by a long advertisement with multiple examples of suffering, or too many adverts in an acute time frame. Too much guilt cna be counterproductive an make audiences not want to donate, due to the consistent invasive feelings of guilt and pity.

Question 11

Does Super. Human. challenge or reinofrce codes and convetions of a typical charity advertisement?

Answer 11

Super. Human does have repetitive messages of pushing yourself and trying, however it more challenges than reinforces the codes and conventions of a charity advertisement as whilst some bits may come across shocking, the man at the café not helping the woman get into the shop, the vast majority of the advert is detailing Paralympian’s day-top-day life training. There is no voice-over/ dialogue in the whole advert, meaning there’s also no personal pronouns and there is no emotional non-diegetic sound, as the non-diegetic sound used is more a mashup of upbeat songs. Aesthetics also don’t come across ‘muted’ nor is any emotional language used. Here a personal perspective layered throughout the advert, but no narrative

Question 12

Culture context for the Kiss of The Vampire film poster

Answer 12

-Produced by Hammer Film productions and distributed by J. Arthur Rank and Universal, Kiss of The Vampire was intended to be the second sequel to 1958’s Dracula, although the film’s script actually makes no reference to Stoker’s character. This is perehaps to distance itself from unfavourable comparisons to the superior Christopher Lee who starred in the original film.
-In addition to Dracula, Hammer had, by 1963, success with other ‘monster movie’ franchises such as The Mummy and Frankenstein. Distributers Universal also saw early success with films in this genre.
-Historically, 1963 saw the early stages of ‘Beatlemania’ and the so-called ‘swinging sixties’, the assasination of JFK and the Soviet Union launching the first woman to space.

Question 13

Media language for Kiss of The Vampire

Answer 13

-capitalised serif font has connotations of the genre
-use of a ‘painted’ main image conventional of time period, anchored by ‘Eastman color’ box, showing time period
-grey, black and brown colour palette reinforces the film’s dark and scary conventionswhilst the red draws focus to the blood, key signifiers for the genre
-Conventional list of actors in order of fame

Question 14

Representation of Kiss of The Vampire

Answer 14

-politically and socially, the 1960s were seen as the start of women’s sexual liberation, aided by events such as the intro of the contraceptive pill in 1960. America passed equal pay legislation in 1963, something yet to be done in the UK.
-Both stereotypes of the traditional passive female victim of men and more modern take of women challenging male dominance can be seen in the poster.

Question 15

Media language for the Tide print advertisement

Answer 15

-Z-line and a rough rule of thirds can be applied to it’s composition
-Bright, primary colours connote the positive associations the producers want the audience to make with the product.
-Headings, subheadings and slogans are written in sans-serif font, connoting an informal mode of address.
-This is reinforced with the comic strip style image in the bottom right-hand corner with two women ‘talking’ about the product using informal lexis (“sudsing whizz”).
-The more ‘technical’ details of the product are written in a serif font, connoting the more ‘serious’ or ‘factual’ information that the ‘1,2,3’ bullet point list includes.

Question 16

Representation of the Tide print advertisement

Answer 16

-politically and socially, interesting intertexts to consider would be WWII adverts for the ‘Womans Land Army’ and J. Howard Miller’s ‘Rosie The Riveter- We Can Do It!’ advert for the War production Co-Ordinating Committee.
-The representations in these adverts challenge stereotypical views of woman being confined to the domestic sphere, something society needed at the time as traditional ‘male roles’ were vacated as men left to fight.
-In the 1950s, while men were being targeted for the post-war boom in America’s car industry, women were the primary market for the technologies and products being developed for the home. In advertising for these types of texts, stereotypical representations of domestic perfection, caring for the family and servitude to the ‘man of the house’ become linked to a more modern need for speed, convenience and better standed of living than the women experienced in the pre-war era.

Question 17

Audiences of the Tide print advertisement

Answer 17

-Despite women having seen their roles in society change during the War, domestic products of the 1950s continued to be aimed at a female audience.
-The likely target audience of increasingly affluent lower-middle class women were, at this point in the 1950s, being appealed to becuase of their supposed need for innovative domestic technologies and products. The increasingly popularity during the 1950s of supermarkets stocking a wider range of products led to an increased focus by corporations on brands and their USP (unique selling point).

Question 18

Media language for the Super.Human. advertisement

Answer 18

-aware of compassion fatigue and avoid it by offering a different perspective. Audio codes also reinforce this.
-Adverts rely on technical codes and editing, uses close-up shots of expressions to engage the audience and to portray aspects of disability in a non-victimising way, emphasing that this is part of their life.
-Visual codes also communicate meanings, such as the iconography and the settings are related to the athlete and the sport, for example Ellie Simmonds, a swimmer, putting on goggles. Gestures are also used to communicate frustration, etc.
-narrative follows their lives of the Paralympians and their battles through training.
-Some stylised sequences to contruct meaning, the dream sequence for example, repeated with the Games postponement announcing showing athletes falling ‘over the edge’.
-Uses humour such as the hamster on the training wheel to signify struggle put also to lift the mood and interject scenes of the Paralympians.

Question 19

Representation of the Super.Human. advertisement

Answer 19

-Representing athletes “mental determination, not of disability”- Lynsey Atkin, 4Creative’s Exectutive Creative Director
-Juxtaposes previous adverts to focus on the ‘Human.’
-Paralympics as a whole saw lots of people change their attitudes and perceptions of disabled people.

Question 20

Audiences of the Super.Human. advertisement

Answer 20

-The target audience for this advertisement is a relatively broad demographic, including Channel 4 viwers, who largely fall into the 16-34 age bracket; fans of sport; and those who desire to see more inclusive representations of social groups, of which they may be a meber, from a channel whose remit states that it ‘appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society’.- Quote from Ofcom.