Dissertation backup copy

(Adair, 1988: 51).

Paul Brandreth
Graphics Design Level 6

Would 18-25 year old males and females more likely to buy into a product/ brand offering the product as an everyday purpose or as an offer of a more fulfilled life?

“Of all the time-honoured accusations levelled at advertising, it’s refusal to reflect a true picture of the real world is one of the most familiar. It is, we are told, a failure to face up to reality.” Bullmore (1996: 54)

This dissertation is to find out if the offer of a more fulfilled life is a successful medium to sell products to audiences, which are more luxuries not necessities. The quote above from Jeremy Bullmore argues the decisions the marketing team decides to market certain products as hyper-reality and not facing up to the product in it’s purpose/ context to reality. From looking at advertisements it is clear that hyper-reality is used to target all ages/ backgrounds as offering a more fulfilled lifestyle rather than showing the reality of the product. This dissertation will focus on the principles of advertising for 18- 25 year old males and females to find out is the strategy of marketing brands and products as hyper-reality more successful rather than reality of the purpose of the product. I will focus the dissertation on the 18-25 year olds audience within Britain because I fall into this age category and can relate to part of my design practice.

The areas the dissertation will to investigate is how do marketing teams use hyper-reality to sell brands and products offering a more fulfilled life/lifestyle within advertising. Also to find out for if the target audience would rather buy the product as an offer of a more fulfilled life or the product for being advertised for the context of everyday living.









Chapter 1: An analytical breakdown of two adverts from the same brand aimed at a male/ female audience to understand the power of offering a more fulfilled life.

“Publicity increasingly uses sexuality is never free in itself; it is a symbol for something presumed to be larger than it; the good life in which you can buy whatever you want. To be able to buy is the same thing as being sexually desirable… Usually it is the implicit message, If you are able to buy this product you will be loveable. If you cannot buy it, you will be less lovable.” Berger (1972/ 144)

The best starting point to this dissertation is to analytically summarise two magazine adverts aimed at the 18 – 25 years of age audience to find out what techniques the adverts use to offer a more fulfilled life. From looking through articles and magazines to find a set of adverts aimed at male and female audiences, I noticed that fashion, fragrances and watch brands (luxuries), offer the promise of a more fulfilled life more than adverts advertising everyday necessities such as cereals and mobile phone adverts. To make this investigation fair I have chosen to use the same company marketing two products, one towards a male audience and the other at a female audience. The two adverts I have found are marketing Gucci fragrances (figure.1. – male & figure.2.-female). They were found within the same magazine which makes it a fair test due to the date they were designed and published (2011), so the same techniques and culture would be similar to each other rather than analysing a male advert from the 70’s to a female advert from 2011 which would use different culture and language within the adverts.

The first advert aimed at the male audience (figure.1.) uses a direct gaze of the male, where he looks out of frame directly to the male audience viewing the magazine. The male advert also has another gaze of the female who uses an intra-dietetic gaze where her focus is looking up to the male. Quoted from Berger (1972: 47),” Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at” which defiantly applies to this advert, as the male audience would instantly look towards the female and read her body language, this would give the audience the idea of how much power this male has within the advert. Thinking back to the initial question of “the promise of a more fulfilled life”, the brand is trying to sell the product as a certain character/ person regarding the idea if you wore this product, this is the lifestyle you could purchase. Although the males direct gaze is strong, the appearance and body language of the females intra-dietetic gaze is just important to gain the males attention which supports the quote from Berger (1972: 47),“women watch themselves being looked at”. This consequently offers the women audience the promise of a more fulfilled lifestyle of being loved by male without being sold a product.

However within the other advert aimed at a female audience (figure.2), the gazes used are a lot different from the male target advert. The roles of the male and female have been switched. This time the female gazes directly towards the audience and the male uses the inter-dietetic gaze. Although these gazes of the male and female have been switched for different audiences, Berger’s (1972: 47) statement, ”Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”, still applies to the female advert (fig.2). The female audience again would look into the direct gaze of the female because of the strong eye contact looking towards the viewer, and the males would also look towards the female because of her seductive body and facial composition. Although the purposes of both adverts are to sell the fragrances, they both use powerful imagery that stands out to be more of a focus of the brand lifestyle rather than the product itself. The statement by Berger applies to these adverts as the adverts offer the lifestyle of the male and female roles to become a more fulfilled life when buying into the Gucci brand.

The series of gazes are very similar, because both gazes being used in each advert are switched for the different gender audience but what is different between the gazes are the different body languages used within the roles of the male and female. The female intra-dietetic gaze in the male target audience advert, looks up towards the male, but in the female advert the male intra-dietetic gaze doesn’t look at the female because of his eyes being shut, so the use of the eyes is an important sign to the audience to communicate the message of power and gazes being used to sell Gucci.

Within both of the Gucci adverts, the female gaze offers a strong visual representation of fetishistic and voyeuristic pleasure. "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness" Toland (1997: 226). Both in the male and female-targeted adverts, the female gaze of her eye positioning and body language suggest a sexual connotation due to her composition and actions in the advert. The male gaze supports the idea of fetishistic and voyeuristic pleasure but his gaze and body language isn’t as strong as the females. This supports Toland’s statement that the woman offers a strong role woman displayed for visual and erotic impact but also supports the idea from Berger (1972: 47) that ”Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”. The males gaze is important to sell the product/ brand of Gucci, his gaze become a commodity to sell a product through the thought of being someone else. In the male advert the male audience would look into the males eyes and think about the females body positioning looking into his eyes as if the viewer has now become part of the advert where the female is seductively looking into his eyes. The female advert, the womans gaze become a commodity to women to be in her position with a male next to them, feeling loved. Laura Mulvey stated, “I was interested in the relationship between the image of the woman on the screen and the “masculinisation” of the spectator position, regardless of the actual sex (or possible deviance) of any real live movie-goer. In built patterns of pleasure and identification impose masculinity as a point of view; a point of view which is also manifest in the general use of masculinity third person.” (1989: 29) Both adverts are visually strong with the purpose to sell a more fulfilled life. Both have used the concept of creating the interaction through the third person to relate to the actions of the male and female used within the adverts. This quote indicates that the woman sells the product to a masculine audience but it also applies to a female audience who look at her sharing similar aspirations of the perfect life.

These connotations regarding visual voyeuristic and fetishistic pleasure support the idea of being in the males/ female’s position within the advert to sell the product Gucci, as an offer to a happier fulfilled life, through buying the product. The use of the gaze and image within the two adverts are important elements to sell the brand as a comoddity to it’s target market of 18-25 year ols
















Chapter 2– Case study: Language within adverts vs. images used within adverts

After the first chapter critical analyzing two adverts for the same brand aimed at a male and female audience of 18-25 years old through the use of imagery, I have decided to concentrate this next chapter on text and language being used within adverts to support and sell a product. During reasearch into advertisements for fashion and fragrence brand I noticed that from the language used in adverts they can persuade audiences into being products they don’t necessarily need through the promise of a more fulfilled life. Copywriter from design firm Beautyfulmeme (Leeds) (Appenidix 1) stated that, “within our design team it consists of a copywriter (being himself) and a designer who produced adverts and branding based around the use of language and text, because if we use images there is a lot of noise and distractions within a photograph or image, rather than looking at language and the personality of typography.” The point that Beatifulmeme states that image has too many distractions within advertising restricts the design team to just use text and language to communicate the product which would make a good investigation into how powerful type by itself is.

The first chapter was dedicated to the use of the gaze to sell the Gucci fragrances to offer a more fulfilled life, chapter two is to investigate the use of text and language being used in two adverts selling similar products but from two different brands, as this would use two different brands selling the similar product but through different marketing techniques and offering different personalities and character through their branding. It is important that both adverts are aimed at 18-25 year olds but one brand offering the product to an everyday audience and the other offering to sell the product through the promise of a more fulfilled life.

To make the investigation as fair as possible I wanted to find two adverts selling for the same gender audience, aimed at 18-25 but both brands trying to sell a similar product. Two adverts selling fashion ware such as jeans or perfumes to a female audience would have been good to use for this investigation into language as these offer to sell brand as both through the offer of a more fulfilled life/ lifestyle and also selling products for what the product actually is produced for. Instead I’ve found two brands selling hair products one being Loreal and the other Toni & Guy. The Loreal advert uses the language, “Hold it, Glam it, Don’t party without it.” (This being the advert offering a more fulfilled lifestyle due to the idea of this hair product is used for nights out, or going to parties). The other brand Toni & Guy used a mathematical equation concept of replacing the algebra with words describing the product,” (Suede Tassels – Fancy a cuppa) & (Sea Salt texturing spray - finger twirling)” this selling the product as an everyday product rather than offering an everyday lifestyle, this reffering to the use of everyday language such as “fancy a cuppa”.

****Annotate the language of both adverts****

To make this investigation fair I have decided to write these phrases on the same piece of paper using the same colour font to take away any influences of font choice, and to ask the target audience of 18-25 females which hair product would they most likely buy into buy only looking at the two phrases and not the image to support them in the advert or the brand name (figure.3). I hope to find out what the target audience of 18-25 females would rather buy, the everyday hair product or the hair product trying to sell the product as a lifestyle just from the restrictions of language used and question Beautifulmeme (appendix 1) how important the use of copy text is within adverts and trying to sell brands through his stated method.

I asked twenty females aged between 18 – 25 years of age, on a Saturday (7th January, 2012) afternoon on The Headrow Road, Leeds city centre (geographical location) to find out which hair spray product they would rather buy. Sixteen out of twenty females said they would prefer to buy the Toni & Guy hair product,” (Suede Tassels – Fancy a cuppa) & (Sea Salt texturing spray - finger twirling)” and the remaining four females said they would buy the Loreal hair product “Hold it, Glam it, Don’t party without it.” Ideal lifestyle- loreal party glamour rather everyday use. Bullmore (1996: 54): “Of all the time-honoured accusations levelled at advertising, it’s refusal to reflect a true picture of the real world is one of the most familiar. It is, we are told, a failure to face up to reality.” As Bullmore stated to face up to reality, this investigation of the use of language show the statistics that offer a more fulfilled life (Loreal advert) has shown less of it’s target audience would rather buy into the product due to the language use than Toni & Guy’s advertising the product on an everyday use. The brand Toni & Guy relates to their audience as the suggestion of everyday living, which from the investigation argues that the use of a more fulfilled lifestyle within language gains a smaller section of it’s target audience compared to offering the product as an everyday use.


As part as the same investigation to see how important the elements are within selling brand products as a more fulfilled life, I showed the same participants the two adverts as images and marked out the text and brand logos to see which hair product they would then buy. Eleven from the twenty said they would buy the Toni & Guy hair product and the remaining nine said they would buy the Loreal hair product. From these findings it is interesting to question why people would choose the everyday. “Publicity increasingly uses sexuality is never free in itself; it is a symbol for something presumed to be larger than it; the good life in which you can buy whatever you want. To be able to buy is the same thing as being sexually desirable… Usually it is the implicit message, If you are able to buy this product you will be loveable. If you cannot buy it, you will be less lovable.” Berger (1972/ 144) The image however of the Loreal advert offers the more fulfilled life, buy choosing the model Cheryl Cole as a familiar celebrity who tends to live a luxurious lifestyle and is a public role model to many of it’s 18-25 years old target audience which adds value to the brand, rather than the a less known public figure model used within the Toni & Guy figure who represents the brand as an everyday person.

The statistics of the image showing the different personalities and characteristics of the brand compared to the language used disagrees with (Appendix 1) statement of, “within our design team it consists of a copywriter and a designer who produced adverts and branding based around the use of language and text, because if we use images there is a lot of noise and distractions within a photograph or image, rather than looking at language and the personality of typography.” The power of the image within fashion and beauty advertisements seems that the offer of a more fulfilled lifestyle is more powerful than the use of text. If this is true it seems to reflect why it was difficult to find slogans and language next to fashion advertisements and why a lot of adverts mainly use the image as the main communication of the brand product rather than language to offer a more fulfilled life or as an everyday use.

However as the increase of the audiences vote from the language figures compared to the image investigation proved that the offer of a more fulfilled life for the Loreal advert proved that the audience would rather buy into the product if they could see the offer of a more fulfilled life as an image which uses techniques which Bullmore stated that (1996: 54): “Of all the time-honoured accusations levelled at advertising, it’s refusal to reflect a true picture of the real world is one of the most familiar. It is, we are told, a failure to face up to reality.” Proves that the audience would rather buy into product more with the image to show a more fulfilled life compared to Beautifulmeme’s (Appendix 1) statement that, “images there is a lot of noise and distractions within a photograph or image, rather than looking at language and the personality of typography.”

The costings for each advert would be different as Loreal uses a celebrity instead of Toni & Guys professional model for the adverts but both brands have choosen these decisions to commuincate there brand to different market audiences. For both image and language investigations the target audience of 18-25 females choose Toni & Guy both times to buy into the hair product rather than the more fulfiled Loreal advert. From this investigtion, it seems that within selling hair products females aged 18-25 are more likely to buy into the brand offereing the brand as an everyday use. This argues against the disseration question, whether or not a more fulfilled lifestyle is a good marketing technique compared to an offer as the brand as an everyday use product. I am aware that this investigation was only for hair products so for other products or brands the use of a more fulfilled lifestyle may increase or decrease depending on the subject. My verdict for why the majority of the votes went in the favour of Toni & Guy advert agrees with Bullmore “It is, we are told, a failure to face up to reality.”and the reality of the audience can see themselves as the using the more everyday use, atainable hairstyle shown in Toni & Guy’s advert rather than the more luxurious, more sculptured hairstyle used for the Loreal advert.

Buzzwords
“These terms have often been called buzzwords, suggesting a kind of electrical charge as a result of making a connection, hitting the spot, having a finger on the pulse , pressing the right buttons”.Slater (1997:73)

“Comparatives are more likely to feature in the advert slogan, while the adjectives in their base from often occur in the body of the text (called the copy).” Slater (1997:73)























Chapter 3: Needs Must


Andy Park,

I asked Andy Park (appendix 2) are there any brands you have worked for that have asked not to add lifestyle to the product and have marketed the product for the functionality of the everyday use of the brand? Park (appendix 2) stated “Smeg company, asked for just the product as they don’t do lifestyles. Their point was if the product is drop dead gorgous, why would you need to add an extra value to the brand?” It is pretty much similar to Apple, if the product can do the advertising why would want to add lifestyle to the product, although apple advertise with hands to show the functionality of the product, they don’t show characters or peoples faces within the advertisiements offering a morefulfilled lifestyle. It seems that apple are at the end of the scale by producing adverts that show the product in its context and the futher away from apple adverts the more lifestyle is added to the brand. What be interesting is if Apple did add lifestyle to their brand and see whether or not they were succesful than showing the product as its functionality.

Park (appendix 2) then stated that “the reason for why fragrance brands add lifestyle to the product is because they are familiar with the lifestyle of the brand and make social connections with the models in the adverts”. This supports Bergers (1972: 47) theory ,”Men look at women” as the third person.

“The contrast here is with critical theorists who claim to asses actual preferences against a baseline of supposedly real and objective needs, those which can be rationally reconstructed in relation to a vision of a properly human life, and who can use these to critique wants as they are structured by contemporary social relations.” Slater (1997: 52)

“Despite the populist turn in analyses of consumer culture some of the questions raised by the critical theorists such as “how to discriminate between cultures values”. “how we should live.”, it can be argued have not actually been supersesed but have merely been put aside” (Featherstone 1991/ viii)


“We come to most of our decisions in this country as a result of what has been called “the principle of competitive persuasion”. Bullmore (1996: 12)








Chapter 4: ?



Conclusions






Bibliography

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Appendix 1
Commuincation within advertsing, November 2011, Leeds College of Art. Beautifulmeme
“Within our design team it consists of a copywriter and a designer who produced adverts and branding based around the use of language and text, because if we use images there is a lot of noise and distractions within a photograph or image, rather than looking at language and the personality of typography.”

Appendix 2
Language for advertising, January 2012, Leeds College of Art, Andy Parks
Why is it important for fragrence brands to add a lifestyle to thier product so that audiences realte and buy into the product?
“the reason for why fragrance brands add lifestyle to the product is because they are familiar with the lifestyle of the brand and make social connections with the models in the adverts”.
Are there any brands you have worked for that have asked not to add lifestyle to the product and have marketed the product for the functionality of the everyday use of the brand?
“Smeg company, asked for just the product as they don’t do lifestyles. Their point was if the product is drop dead gorgous, why would you need to add an extra value to the brand?”