Advertising and Marketing Assessment

Using media language, compare the advertisement for Lucozade Sport with the advertisement for X. 

Your answer must show knowledge and understanding of structural features and persuasive techniques.

The visual narratives within the advertisements are different as for the Gareth Bale Lucozade ad, the questions that are evoked are ‘What relevance does this have to Gareth Bale?’ and ‘Is this the secret to his World Class ability?’

However, the visual narrative within the Sofia Vergara Pepsi ad seems to produce different questions such as ‘Why is the ‘skinny can’ such a big deal?’ and ‘Why does it matter that the can has changed in size?’

A similarity between the two is that blue is their dominant colour. However, this could all be because the brands themselves are mainly associated with the colour blue. A difference within this, however, is that the Lucozade ad does seem to use the colour blue to represent masculinity; whereas, with Pepsi the idea of masculinity is not overly present as it just looks much more natural and softer.

The shots that are used also make both the advertisements differ. With the Lucozade ad a medium close up is used of Bale, and in that close up he is gazing directly into the camera. This reinforces the idea of masculinity as a direct gaze to the audience asserts so much more dominance. However, with the Pepsi ad Sofia Vergara is looking away and the hat is covering the most part of her face this then conveys that there is no dominance being conveyed in this ad.

The shots are successful in ensuring the target audience find the advertisement appealing. The target audiences will be different across the two advertisements. The Pepsi ad has a target audience of single women, aged 25-44 in social group C. Whereas, the Lucozade ad seems to target single males, aged 25-44 in social group C1-B

The copy in the advertisements are also different as in the Pepsi ad ‘the new skinny can’ is the copy whereas Lucozade has ‘in a different league’. The Pepsi ad seems to be more controversial at first glance than that of the Lucozade ad, as the Lucozade ad is just stating that the drink will give the audience the same amount of skill as Bale. However, the copy in the Pepsi ad seems to make people get the idea that skinny is somehow better than anything else. Also, the fact that they have used an incredibly skinny model reinforces the idea to the audience.

The Lucozade ad also uses association much better than Pepsi does as although both ads use people who hold fame; it is not explicit that it is Sofia Vergara in the Pepsi ad as half of her face is covered so it takes some research t figure out it is her. However, the use of Gareth Bale, who is a world class footballer, he is clearly endorsing Lucozade. This is key as Lucozade is a sports drink and the fact it is being associated and endorsed by a leading sports star will register to the target audience making them more likely to purchase it.