Advertising assessment: Learner response

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

Revise key theories, terminology and CSPs.

2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify at least one potential point that you missed out on for each question in the assessment.

Armani ‘Diamonds’ advert constructs a traditional, hyper-masculine message – fiercely heterosexual. Suit, white shirt, tie – classic masculine mise-en-scene. Brand logo – serif font, links to monochrome colour scheme, style, sophistication, tradition. Understated, placed in bottom-left. Product not specified – about brand ‘feel’, aspiration rather than actual product details.

Traditional representation of masculinity more in keeping with 1960s or 1970s; Reinforces glamorous James Bond style of masculinity. Aggressively heterosexual representation perhaps shows male insecurity in light of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.

Cultural conviviality: This refers to the real-world multiculturalism and racial harmony that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. It is in stark contrast to the racial disharmony and binary view often presented by the media. ‘Othering’ or racial otherness: Paul Gilroy suggests non-white representations are constructed as a ‘racial other’ in contrast to white Western ideals.

3) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 1 (Diamonds advert unseen text). List three examples of media terminology or theory that you could have included in your answer. 

Man as the hunted, looked-at object; objectification of men (Gill – female gaze).

Promise of irresistible appeal – ‘sex sells’ (common narrative in men’s grooming; Barthes’ action code).

Costume barely visible for female models – flesh on display. Heavily made-up faces constructed/Photoshopped image. Links to Kilbourne’s analysis of women in advertising.

4) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 2. What aspects of the cultural and historical context for the Score hair cream advert do you need to revise or develop in future?

The legalisation of gay marriage and the end of colonialism

5) Now look over your mark, comments and the mark scheme for Question 3 - the 9-mark question on Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty. List any postcolonial terminology you could have added to your answer here.  

Othering, racial otherness, racial essentialism, double consciousness, cultural conviviality