”Young, white, straight male”

“The gruesome death of women for shock value is especially prevalent in modern gaming”

”Make them exude sexuality for the entertainment of the presumed straight male player.”

“Worse still are the portrayals of Muslim/Arab/Middle Eastern people, who are often relegated to the role of terrorist.”

“The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most popular in the world, yet it treats Muslims, Arabs, and Middle Easterners as an interchangeable monolith, despite being diverse groups of people.”

“Some may be surprised to learn that the most-active gameplaying demographic is African American teenagers”

“The Damsel in Distress predates the invention of video games by several thousand years”

“As a girl growing up playing games I was always like, why do I have to play as a boy?”

Male Gaze The perspective of typically heterosexual men as intended for media

Voyeurism gaining sexual pleasure through watching others who are naked or engaged in sexual activity

Patriarchy A male dominated society

Positive and Negative Stereotypes Good or bad oversimplifications of a person or thing

Counter-Types A view opposite to what would be expected

Misrepresentation Showing things in the wrong (or just a bad) way

Selective Representation Only showing specific things, not everything

Dominant Ideology The view most shown in society
Constructed Reality

Hegemony Leadership or dominance over others

Audience Positioning the relationship between the audience and a piece of media

For my AD I want it to be similar to other cologne ads that are seen in the media, like the AD above. However whilst I want it to be similar to this AD shown, I do not want to copy the style completely and would like to go for something more modern instead – that would be seen today. I still want to have a dominant signifier of a well-dressed man taking up most of the ad, with the product, its name and a slogan at the bottom. The model will be well dressed as to symbolise wealth, with a gold waistcoat and sunglasses.

As I want my ad to be more modern I feel like a minimalistic approach would be more appropriate, with no background in the AD – this will help keep focus on my product -instead of distracting the audience with background elements – and still keep the AD looking how I want.

My AD is targeted towards predominantly richer men shown in the gold waistcoat and gold box on the bottom of the AD – an iconic signifier of wealth and luxury. I want my AD to have a connotation of dominantly wealth and luxury, and link the cologne to being wealthy as to make it fancy and to show that the product is prestigious.

My AD will come out as quite reactionary and stereotypical, possibly helping promote the ideology of the patriarchy and men being powerful as my male model will appear powerful due to the symbolism of wealth.

As mentioned earlier, I have positioned my audience to be predominantly richer men, those who can afford luxury items, which fits into Young & Rubicam’s audience model

Icon(ic) – Index(ical) – Symbol – Connotation – Dominant Signifier – Ideology – Reactionary – Signifier

David Gauntlett – Constructed Identity – Collective Identity

Audience Positioning – Positive/Negative stereotypes – Selective representation – Patriarchy

Young & Rubicam (The Aspirer and/or succeeder) And Opinion Leaders

The AD appeals to many people through having multiple races and genders in the AD, the diverse “cast” appeals to more people who fit into that diversity instead of just straight white women. The male model – MannyMUA- is a youtuber with a sizable following, this following may also help the AD as his followers are likely to be keen in the product and watch the AD just because Manny is in it. This AD would never have been aired just a few decades ago, where most if not all models were described as “Tall, white and skinny” – the inclusion of diversity in this AD and many like it show a slow progression to include everybody regardless of who they are. “After decades of limiting makeup ads to women, beauty brands are finally getting the hint that makeup isn’t just for girls; it’s for guys too.”

Advertising budget in millions per year (Maybelline)

The same year that MannyMUA Maybelline spent 291 Million dollars on advertising alone, showing not only their size but the budget they put into the AD with Manny in.

• The advert is based around a luxury lifestyle with the New York apartment, gold clothing and gold suitcase. The product is also in a gold mascara tube.
• The ads background presents the opinion that anyone of any social class is able to afford Maybelline’s mascara, as it isn’t a glamorous hotel but not too low priced.
• Manny’s encouraging everyone, no matter their gender, to “lash like a boss.”

	Quantitative	Qualitative
Research Product 1 – Razors	Any Demographic Descriptor or Social Grade	The Aspirer, The Explorer, The Mainstreamer
Research Product 2 – Hair Gel/Wax	Any Demographic Descriptor or Social Grade	The Aspirer, The Explorer, The Mainstreamer
My Product – Aftershave	New Affluent Workers -> Elite AB -> C1	The Aspirer, The Succeeder, The Mainstreamer

	RESEARCH PRODUCT 1 – RAZORS	RESEARCH PRODUCT 2 -HAIR GEL/WAX	MY PRODUCT – AFTERSHAVE
UNDERSTANDING SELF	Choose how you want to look	Choose how you want to look	Choose how you want to smell
ENJOYMENT			Typically worn when going out
ESCAPISM
KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD
SELF CONFIDENCE/ESTEEM	Choose how you want your beard or if you don’t want one	Can style your hair however you want	Makes you smell nice 🙂
STRENGTHEN CONNECTIONS WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS
ANY OTHER CATEGORY	Can be cheap or expensive depending on which you want to buy – all audiences	Typically cheap, more people buying	Can be very expensive – materialism

Also known as “Active Consumption”, the model was developed in 1948 by Paul Lazarfeld when he recognized that the linear flow model of communication may not be complex enough to understand the relationship between ‘message sent’ and ‘message recieved’