Media Piece Essay, Research Paper
The advertisement is for a car: the Peugeot 206 and is
aimed largely at young men. It was broadcast in the break of the
Graham Norton show, which a lot of young people watch. It
contains a young man in a large white room with medical
equipment such as a heart monitor in it, the camera angle shows
the whole room making it obvious that he is in a hospital or
somewhere similar. Then enters the room a young female doctor
and despite the way she is dressed; in a white scientist coat; has
her hair rather boringly adjusted and is wearing glasses, she is
obviously extremely attractive. She is his doctor and after asking
him to remove his shirt she connects him to the heart monitor.
You can clearly hear his heart rate and it begins to dramatically
increase rapidly. The doctor begins to act in a suggestive manner
and she comes up to the man, all the time his heart rate is still
increasing. He stands up as she gets close to her and as she goes
in closer he looks past her out of the window at a Peugeot 206
that has been making his heart beat faster all of the time. It
suddenly cuts to shots of the car going at great speed around
windy road and in red over the top is written ?Stop Liking, Start
Loving?, Blur?s ?Song 2? is being played over this and then as the
advertisement ends it skips back to the man and the woman and
shows her roughly pulling the wires from the heart monitor off of
him. The woman plays the role of a doctor because a
stereotypical doctor is not a young and attractive woman. This
shocks the audience and makes them become involved in the
advertisement because they want to know what is going to
happen next.
There is only one and very simple aim of this advertisement
and that is to sell the car they are advertising. They are aiming
the advert at young men in particular. This is obvious because
they have used such a lady that is attractive to young men. If a
man sees a beautiful woman on the television he is much more
likely to keep watching. The music on the advert is ?Song 2?
which is a song associated with young men which again will make
them like the advert.
The advert could also in some ways perhaps be aimed at
young women too because the man used in the advertisement is
also quite attractive and because he is more attracted to the car
than to this beautiful woman, the women might want to buy the
car to make them more attractive to men.
If this advertisement were to compared to those for other
types of cars it is more obviously aimed at a younger audience.
For example other car advertisements stress safety aspects of a
car: something more appealing to adults that have children.
Others emphasise the amount of space there is in the car which
is more likely to be aimed at a woman who is a housewife and
needs to go out shopping. The Peugeot advertisement doesn?t
concentrate on any of these points because they are not
appealing to the right audience and creating the correct image
they want their car to have.
The timing of the advert also shows how it is aimed at
young people because it was broadcast during a programme that
is also aimed at mostly watched by only young people. Also the
time that it was shown: eleven thirty – eleven forty-five in the
evening is a time when young people are coming home from the
pub and a time when perhaps older people have gone to bed.
They creators of the advert have used a number of devices
to make the advertisement appealing to the viewer and to stick
in their minds as opposed to being just another car
advertisement
roles with the woman being superior to the man, although it is
extremely sexist to think in this way the creators have relied on
people doing so. They have not made it obvious until the end of
the advertisement what the product is that they are trying to sell.
This creates suspense and will get the audience involved, it will
stop people from changing the channel because they will be
intrigued by what it is about and when they do find out it shocks
them and makes the advertisement stick in their minds. The
clever ending of the advertisement also shocks the viewer
because the last thing they expect is for the man to look past
this gorgeous lady and to look at a car. This will also help the
advertisement to stick in their mind too because it is funny as
well as shocking.
The use of non diegetic sound like the calm and quiet
music played in the background when the man and doctor are
being filmed in the medical room create a tranquil mood and
then when ?Song 2? is suddenly played it creates more impact
and therefore has more of an effect on the audience. The
diegetic sound of the heart monitor is crucial to the scene also
because without it the advert would hardly make any sense and
be nowhere near as effective. The camera angles used
furthermore help to create the roles of the man and the woman
and to give views from both of theirs perspective. The POV (point
of view) angle is used to watch the suggestive movements of the
doctor and a pie angle is used to establish that the woman was
in control of the man. The facial expressions and body language
of the woman were essential in setting the scene because she
wouldn?t of seemed so attractive otherwise. The way that the
woman is dressed and how her hair and make up are done is also
vital to define the role she plays. If she was presented as a
supermodel in a doctors uniform it would not have been the
same but because she looked professional it was more realistic.
The scenes in the medical room were very slow and
contained nothing fast or any action. Once the man has seen the
car and it has cut to shots of the car being driven around at a
great speed with the music playing loudly, the way it is being
shot changes. It is very fast and full of action, it flashes the
image of the car on the winding road and then has the phrase
?Stop Liking, Start Loving? put over the top in red. This contrast
of dullness followed by action means that when a Peugeot 206
comes into your life, it too will be filled with action. This is
another appealing aspect of the car to any young man.
I think that a television advertisement there is more of an
opportunity to grab the audience by surprise and make them
remember your product. In this case the creators have made an
interesting scenario and made it appeal to the right people. The
only chance an advertisement in a magazine has is to have
something funny or boldly shocking to catch the readers eye and
then connect it with their product. There is also a magazine
advertisement to follow up the 206 on television but all it does is
make us think about the one on television. However, it is easier
to advertise some products in specialist magazines because you
know that the right people will see it. An example could be the
advertising of fishing equipment in a magazine about fishing.
Taking these points into consideration I think that no way is
better than another when it comes to advertising, it merely
depends on the product in question or the type of person it is
aimed at.
By Joe Holmes