Score advert CSP and wider reading

 Media Factsheet - Score hair cream

1) How did advertising techniques change in the 1960s and how does the Score advert reflect this change?

Advertising agencies in the 1960s relied less on market research and leaned more toward creative instinct in planning their campaigns. “Eschewing portrayals of elitism, authoritarianism, reverence for institutions and other traditional beliefs, ads attempted to win over consumers with humour, candour and, above all, irony.”

2) What representations of women were found in post-war British advertising campaigns?

In the UK, advertising in the post-war period was characterised by campaigns that very effectively reinforced that idea that a woman’s place was in the home. Ironically, during the Second World War,  propaganda posters had convinced women that their place was on farms and in factories while the men were away fighting.

3) Conduct your own semiotic analysis of the Score hair cream advert: What are the connotations of the mise-en-scene in the image? You may wish to link this to relevant contexts too.

Costume-The woman are wearing more revealing clothes than the man illustrating that they are being objectified and sexualised and are seen as spectacles for men.

Body language- The women are holding him up which shows a power imbalance between genders

Setting- Jungle which suggests the man is in a hunter role

makeup/hair- The women are more obviously wearing makeup and have their hair styled conveying them to be like the prize for purchasing the product.

4) What does the factsheet suggest in terms of a narrative analysis of the Score hair cream advert?

The Score advert identifies the man as Propp’s ‘hero’ in this narrative. The image infers that he is ‘exulted’ as the hunter-protector of his ‘tribe’. The adoration, and availability, of the females are his reward for such masculine endeavours. This has a clear appeal to the target audience of (younger) males who would identify with the male and aspire to share the same status bestowed on him.

5) How might an audience have responded to the advert in 1967? What about in the 2020s?

In 1967 people would have accepted or admired the advert as it aligned with social norms and gender roles but in the 2020s people would see it as sexist and objectifying because women are being sexualised and slightly dehumanised. 

6) How does the Score hair cream advert use persuasive techniques (e.g. anchorage text, slogan, product information) to sell the product to an audience?

Like many large companies of this era, they paid much more attention to building a distinctive character for the brand. The brand message is clear: to present the product as grooming product for a ‘real’ (masculine) man. The choice of the ‘Score’ brand name is deliberate and carries very obvious connotations.

7) How might you apply feminist theory to the Score hair cream advert - such as van Zoonen, bell hooks or Judith Butler?

Judith Butler suggests that woman are represented as spectacles for men which is evident in this advert.

Zoonen argues that in mainstream media texts the visual and narrative codes are used to objectify the female body.

8) How could David Gauntlett's theory regarding gender identity be applied to the Score hair cream advert?

David Gauntlett argues that both media producers and audiences play a role in constructing identities. The role of the producer in shaping ideas about masculinity is clear in the Score advert, which is undoubtedly similar to countless other media texts of that era. Surrounded by such representations, 1960s men would inevitably use these to shape their own identities and their sense of what it means to be a man in the mid-twentieth century.

9) What representation of sexuality can be found in the advert and why might this link to the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality (historical and cultural context)?

“It’s a commonly held misconception that the 1967 act legalised male homosexuality. It didn’t. It partially decriminalised it under certain conditions. In the years that followed, gay sexuality was policed more aggressively than before and the number of men arrested for breaching those conditions actually rose considerably.” Incredibly, several police constabularies actively took advantage of loop holes in the Sexual Offences act of 1967 to prosecute homosexual men.

10) How does the advert reflect Britain's colonial past - another important historical and cultural context?

Paul Gilroy argues that despite the passing of empire, the white western world still exerts its dominance through cultural products. In Hollywood film, for example, the white male (usually American) plays the role of the hero, who inevitably saves the (dependent) world from disaster. The Score advert follows a similar narrative. The jungle setting, the gun, the throne all infer that the white western male has been successful in fighting off primitives or dangerous animals to save his own tribe.

Wider reading

The Drum: This Boy Can article

Read this article from The Drum magazine on gender and the new masculinity. If the Drum website is blocked, you can find the text of the article here. Think about how the issues raised in this article link to our Score hair cream advert CSP and then answer the following questions:

1) Why does the writer suggest that we may face a "growing 'boy crisis'"?
A growing global ‘boy crisis’ suggests that we could be, in fact, empowering the wrong sex. Of course, women are woefully under-represented in boardrooms and certain walks of life, with casual sexism and unconscious bias still endemic, but the difference is that we are all now familiar with the narrative around tackling these issues. Also we are less equipped to talk about the issues affecting boys.

2) How has the Axe/Lynx brand changed its marketing to present a different representation of masculinity?

As Lynx/Axe found when it undertook a large-scale research project into modern male identity, men

are craving a more diverse definition of what it means to be a ‘successful’ man in 2016, and to

relieve the unrelenting pressure on them to conform to suffocating, old paradigms. This insight led

to the step-change ‘Find Your Magic’ campaign from the former bad-boy brand.

3) How does campaigner David Brockway, quoted in the article, suggest advertisers "totally reinvent gender constructs"? 

In order to prevent a full blown crisis of self-worth, Brockway advocates that advertisers “totally

reinvent gender constructs” and dare to paint a world where boys like pink, don’t like going out and

getting dirty, or aren’t career ambitious, for example.

4) How have changes in family and society altered how brands are targeting their products?

As Miller says, the definition of “family” in places like Britain is profoundly changing – but advertising

is not helping to normalise different scenarios by largely failing to portray this new normal. Quite a few brands still segment like this, but others are seeking “a true understanding of their target consumer; who they really are, their beliefs, their attitudes, where they are now, where they want to be in future. “These brands are not just governed by the jobs men do or their age”.

5) Why does Fernando Desouches, Axe/Lynx global brand development director, say you've got to "set the platform" before you explode the myth of masculinity?

To be fair on Fernando Desouches, Axe global brand development director, he knows that. And, as he says, you’ve got to “set the platform” before you explode the myth. “This is just the beginning. The slap in the face to say ‘this is masculinity’. All these guys [in the ad] are attractive. Now we have our platform and our point of view, we can break the man-bullshit and show it doesn’t matter who you want to be, just express yourself and we will support that.