CI 5472: Ad Analysis

This commercial from the Norwegian Association for the Blind is targeted at those people who feel inclined to distract working blind-seeing eye dogs out in the community. The variety of participants in the commercial allows the audience to assume that the commercial is intended to be seen and internalized by a variety of different people. By using images of people treating working citizens like pets—using a discourse reflecting someone playing with a dog—the audience can comprehend that the ridiculousness of behaving in such a way mirrors the irreverent treatment of working dogs as mere pets when they are doing their job. The ad starts with a simple enough comment and gradually becomes more and more identifiable with the way one treats a dog, ending with a woman taking away a train station workers flag and throwing it in a game of “fetch.” The ad ends with an image of a working dog and the script “vest on = at work.” Letting people know how to recognize working dogs and how to treat them accordingly. The ad is emphasizing the need to respect the animals at work and their owners when they are out and about. I think the ad does a great job in getting this point across by mirroring the work of the dogs with the work of people; the connection makes such behavior seem funny and out of place for both humans and animals. Overall the ad adds a new spin on how we think about working dogs.



In this ad I tried to capture the never-ending search for perfection that over the years has been starting at younger and younger ages with a parody on a common Maybelline commercial tag line. Here we see a picture of an adorable little girl juxtaposed with an enhanced version of the image in which she is wearing make-up and fake hair as well as having been airbrushed to remove some of the flesh around her cheeks. I hoped to convey the ridiculous obsession our nation has with superficial beauty and the tireless pursuit of an impossible, ideal perfection. The use of an infant in the commercial centers around the idea that as children we are typically praised and exalted for the natural appearance, but the search for beauty and perfection is never too early a quest to begin. Today, more and more products and agencies are marketing beauty products or toys to girls—from the newly vamped image of Strawberry Shortcake to makeover kits for girls. Even the much beloved Barbie forces girls to have a false sense of what is natural versus what is an impossible standard of physical and superficial appearance. I chose the Maybelline slogan to help highlight the comparison between natural “born” beauty and the use of make-up or other appearance changing tools that target women from a young age.

Ad Analysis Activity:
I think it would be neat to divide students up into small groups and assign them each a channel to watch 30 minutes of television on. Students would record the different commercials that are presented during that time slot on their designated channel. Students can note not only how many commercials are broadcast during this time period, but also what ads have been selected for that particular channel. In class the next day, students could pair up with those who watched the same channel as them and compare their notes on the commercials aired during the 30 minutes they watched. Using their data they would come up with a summary of the target demographics for the commercials and assumptions of the ads and compare that to the channel itself and the assumptions made in connection with the channel—for example, there might be a lot of beer commercials targeting men on ESPN fitting with the assumption that men are the ones primarily interested in sports and that to enjoy sports one needs alcohol. Groups would then present their findings to the class or use their findings to create a parody commercial that illustrates the connections made within each group between the channel, commercials, target audience, and assumptions.

CI 5472: Media Assessment

I think you could have students analyze media representations by looking at the types of advertisements in magazines. You could start by taking different ads out of specific magazines and stock-piling the ads from each magazine in a numbered stack. You could put the students in groups and assign each group a stack. The groups would be asked to analyze the different ads and come up with a target audience for their selection of images. Then they could try and guess which from which magazine their images were pulled. As a group they could present their findings to the class--who their audience is-- and what their prediction is for the magazine the images appeared in. I think this would be a great way to illustrate the power of marketing and the differences in marketing strategies.

CI 5472: Critical Lens Commercial Analysis

Little Boy

Okay, so I thought that this commercial fits well into the reader/audience-based/rhetorical lens. Clearly, this commercial is targeting a specific audience with specific goals in mind. The brand of condoms wants to highlight the possible outcomes of having unprotected sex and ending up with a monstrous, ill-behaved child. The commercial draws its audience to assume that a.) children throw tremendous tantrums, b.) they cannot be controlled, and c.) that by using a condom, you can prevent this from happening. While some of these assumptions might be true, there are also alternative views of children and parental control as well as other ways to prevent pregnancies. What is important to note in correlation with using this lens, is that nothing is explicitly stated in any way; the audience is left to make the connections and thus inferences on their own. One of my roommates watched the commercial with me and did not understand the connection between the screaming child and the condom company…it really is up to the viewer to correctly interpret the images presented in the video. My friend was bringing something to her viewing of the video that I was not and therefore she had a different reaction and understanding—or misunderstanding—of the commercial. The commercial is able to use the frightening image of life with children as a means to ensure that people associate their product with safe sex that will prevent pregnancies and lives bogged down by awful children. They also end the commercial by saying, “Zazoo Condoms. Fun. Sexy. Safe.” Again, this equates the condoms with these images in direct opposition of the grocery store tirade—final score fun: 0, hell: 1 (at least).

To correlate with this lens, I also looked at the commercial from a gender lens. I think it is interesting to note that the father is the one in the grocery store with the child. As is often portrayed, he does not appear to know how to deal with the child’s bad behavior as made apparent by his inability to control and end the never-ending tantrum and the disheartened look on his face throughout the commercial. This inability or lack of knowledge on how to care for children is a male stereotype that makes men seem incompetent in areas of child-rearing. I think the commercial can also lend the viewer to assume that the man has been tied down unwillingly by the child and this leads into the dominant perception that men are “trapped” by woman into relationships or marriage. The “ball and chain” metaphor can clearly apply to the man in this situation with his little boy. What’s more, the commercial is for a brand of condoms—condoms offering protection for men and women to engage in sex without “negative consequences” such as an unwanted pregnancy. Because the parent in the clip is a man, this could imply both the use of condoms to avoid children as well as permanent ties to a woman. The commercial places the responsibility for contraception on the male by presenting him as the one dealing with the grocery store situation. In general, I think men do receive much of the responsibility for providing contraceptives one because they are typically stereotyped as being more promiscuous and two, because they are also stereotyped as being driven by their sexual urges—leading to the more promiscuous behavior. It is almost as if the commercial is a warning for men to use a condom in order to further their days of freedom, their ability to “sow their wild oats” before being tied down. Because of these assumptions and the fact that he is the looks at the camera at the end of the commercial in despair and regret, it seems directed more at men than women. I think the commercial would take on an entirely different meaning if the parent in the clip were a female, perhaps suggesting that dangers of similar female stereotypes about having sex; it might turn into an abstinence commercial rather than a contraceptive commercial in our society.


I think that both of these lenses could be applied to other commercials that indirectly target their specific audiences with messages they can infer. Students could look at print media in various magazines and perhaps determine what those messages suggest about who the magazines audience is and what things have meaning to them; this could also be used with television commercials on various channels—how do the commercial on Lifetime differ from those on ESPN? This would be an interesting study to do and I think students would be amazed at how much they are targeted by the media and companies. Students could be assigned—or chose different channels/magazines/newspapers or even websites and asked to analyze the commercials or advertisements used within them. After this has been accomplished they could come back to the class and in small groups present their findings and compare their analyses. Then the entire class could discuss what each group came up with and how the media and producers use these lenses to shape how members of our society think. This could be a reflective practice as well in which students question their susceptibility to these advertisements. Overall, I think this would be a neat way to not only teach students how to use these lenses but also to force them to analyze what is presented to them in the media.