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. They have used the man in the women in reverse

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