Analyses of Advertisements of Old Spice, Dolce & Gabbana, Cannery Row and Others - Book Report/Review Example

Advertisements Review Question 1 Cannery Row This advertisement depicts a picture that has three children on a white sand beach playing alone, with an image of a woman transparently imposed above them. On top of the advertisement is written the following words “Cannery Row/Stay Here Play Here” (Cannery Row 2013)1. Below the picture is a black box with the following text: “When was the last time you had time to just watch your kids play? Come to think of it, when was the last time you joined them.” The purpose of the advert is to convince the audience to rush or come to Cannery Row. The intended audience in the advert is mainly the mothers’ emotional attachment to their attachment to their kids. The women can therefore relate to the image of a woman watching over the children as displayed in the advert. The image transparency makes it resemble a window reflection, as if the woman is looking out for her children while seated in her condo inside a room while happy and smiling. The woman looks relaxed implying that Cannery Row is the best place to make the ladies relaxed and have time to enjoy. According to the ladies design and make-up, it is evident that the advert is meant for upper-class women. The woman is holding a cup of coffee wearing pearl earrings, a large diamond ring, an expensive shirt and a gold watch. This is an implication that Cannery Row as a place that accommodates vacation for only rich people. Therefore expect high charges in every service provided by Cannery Row. The children at the beach look jovial, free and getting along well. The happiness seems to be brought along by the environment which is conducive and lovely. They are relaxed because they feel free and jovial despite the absence of their mother giving an image of comfort, discreet, remote or exclusive and more appealing environment. The Golden Arches Go Green: McDonald and Real Lettuce This was an advert placed in Men’s Health magazine in the year 2004 by McDonald and Real Lettuce. This is the center piece of new McDonald menu that was being advertised in the summer period. In the advert, lettuce looms over two elements and a comment card with a question concerning lettuce is from a female smiling customer (McDonald's Corporation 2004)2. A friendly reply note is also seen from McDonald’s. An interpretation of the advert in a superficial manner points out that McDonald with is a fast-food giant, is trying to rebuild its image into a restaurant that is health conscious. The Golden arches greening follows public attitude shift environmentally unfriendly food industry and diet. What is not obvious in the advert is the fact that McDonald which is known as a fast-food restaurant, creates an association to persuade people that its committed to a certain product. Fast-food restaurants are known commonly for artificial and impersonal modern life conditions in terms of assembling food and robotic drive through windows and counter exchanges. The advert is trying to create images that seek to replace associations of familiarity and authenticity. The underlying message in the advert provides emphasis to the viewers on real visa vie artificial. This upholds the image of McDonald as restaurants that provide quality food to its customers. The image implies to the viewers that McDonald product ingredients that are wholesome. The Lettuce head that forms the background of the advert image is a revelation of a mouth-watering wholesomeness. The lettuce enlargement to many times its natural size indicates spring-green edges, beads of water on its leaves and sharpness. This resembles a natural and original product that is nutritious and beneficial to human body. It also indicates that the company’s wants to convince viewers that their service is as genuine as the lettuce. It also invites clients to a closer look for verification of pure and fresh claims products. Old Spice The current campaigns by Old Spice involves a series of commercials that use various sports stars who are good looking and fit in highlighting their body wash. Ex-NFL receiver Isaiah Mustafa is used in two specific spots adverts to promote humor, sex appeal and masculinity elements. One advert portrays Mustafa coming out of shower in a towel clad, in a deep voice saying, “Hello Ladies”, and converse with women viewers on comparison of him and the men next to the viewers. The commercial goes ahead to rapid shifting scenes of romantic fantasy-like settings of Mustafa created to appeal to ladies. He is on a sail boat shirtless in sunset, holding a ticket to “that lovely thing” (Allen and Kallman 2010)3. The ticket turns into diamonds and the advert ends with seated Mustafa at a tropical beach on a white stallion. The second advert is more or less similar on message to the viewer but with different scenarios and display style. In the two adverts, the constant reminder by Mustafa to lady viewers that their men can use Old Spice wash and be like him. One web blogger contributor, Annamarya wrote on The Daily Femme stating “These two sports are meant to appeal to women like me who not only want their men to smell like Dos Equis instead of cherry blossoms but also have a sense of humor about the absurdity of it.” The adverts’ appeal to women relies on humor that is based on idea that the perfect man exists and can be available to all. Humor is an appeal of advertisement to both sexes but more powerful especially with women. The attractiveness along with humor demonstrates the understanding of women as important part of the targeted audience. On Men audience, the advert provides the image of how they should smell like and should be like. Dolce & Gabbana: the one The one is a Dolce & Gabbana publications sub-genre that was founded in the year 1982. This advert portrays a high profile actress or celebrity known as Scarlett Johansson as the advertisement focus in the latest campaign to boost products (Niven 2011)4. Modern day females have the tendency of admiring success and beauty of celebrities. Therefore notion has been adopted in marketing by using celebrities on advertising to associate the product to her beauty, success and glamour. The advert displays a beautiful woman sitting at her bedroom or dressing room in a simple way that relates to the simplicity of the name “The One.” However, the use on the simple name meaning goes deeper that the visible aspect through the use of certain effects to make the viewers believe on the created myth of becoming seductive and glamorous if they obtain and use the fragrance. The advert focuses on the rhetoric image of Scarlett Johansson‘s lips as the central pictorial apex. This together with positioning of her body as if being caresses indicates the idea of being special, precious and beautiful. The mise-en-scene of soft glamorous pale aura and golden colors are symbolic of wealth and luxury. The background that is blurred and soft creates a frame that exaggerates Scarlett’s presence in the picture. The red color in the lips that is the central apex is associated with seduction, romance and power in connotative level. Therefore the image is linked to the fragrance allowing it to sell to the viewers because everyone is associated to these attributes. Scarlett is wearing low-cut silk dress which depicts being ready for a special event or party. The fragrance name suggests being ultimate which has power connotation reinforcement. The use of lower case letters in contrast appearance with the brand name in capital letter suggests the brand selling of an established brand name DOLCE & GABBANA. Question 2 Market segmentation is the homogenous market subdivision and definition process into segments that are clearly identifiable. The segments are to have similar demands characteristics, needs or wants. The objective of market segmentation is to have a designed marketing mix that matches customer’s expectations in targeted segment. Market segmentation allows companies to focus directly to different categories of customer targets that possess the full view of services and products that are certainly different one from the other. Market segment can be identified via three different criteria. The three criteria are unique distinction, homogeneity or segment common needs and reaction which is known as market similar response. Market segmentation breaks up the entire markets into portions that can be targeted easily and lower expenses of marketing through targeting specific segments. This is effective and beneficial for budgets of small companies. Better returns are relative to better market focus. Many of the automobile companies have resolved to focus on car segmentation of small batches for better returns. Market segmentation increases competitiveness. The moment focus is increased, market segment competitiveness also increases. The focus on youngsters requires very high equity and brand recall. This might increase the market share resulting to low chances of competitor emerging entering the market. The resultant effect is definitely increased brand loyalty. Therefore, firm competitiveness will increase from a holistic view in market segmentation. Market expansion is another organizational benefit of market segmentation. Expansion is possible immediately through segmentation type known as geographic sedimentation. In the existence of a market strategy based on geography, one can expand to the neighboring territory once the company is catering to a specific territory. In the similar manner, the target of customer is based on customer demography, and then similar product will require expansions depending on its fitness range. The role of market segmentation is very vital in expansion. A territory cannot be expanded in the situation where there is no idea on the exact customer segment that will be met. Segmentation can be used to encourage customers’ retention through customer life cycle. The best sector that uses customer retention as beneficial market segmentation approach is the airline segment. Many of life cycle customer segmentation are practiced in hospitality segment which may be airlines, hospitals or hotels. The best example of products that have planned life cycle for customers is the Titan in India. This is the wide range products of watches that vary from Sonata to fast track that are segmented by pricing and life cycle. Bibliography Allen, Craig, and Eric Kallman. Isaiah Mustafa: Old Spice. February 11, 2010. http://www.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/isaiah-mustafa-old-spice (accessed April 23, 2015). Cannery Row. Cannery Row Hotels. 2013. http://www.canneryrow.com/ (accessed April 23, 2015). McDonald's Corporation. Men's Health. Carlifonia, July - August 12, 2004. Niven, Lisa. "Dolce & Gabbana The One with Scarlett Johansson." You Tube. October 18, 2011. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyFOfty5pmg (accessed April 23, 2015). Read More