This ad was released by Diet Coke in January, 2013. The ad isn't too complex. There really isn't any hidden or deeper messages. It's a bunch of girls having a picnic near a gardener. They offer him a diet coke and one thing leads to another and he's shirtless. Which could make the subconscious mind think "Hey, maybe if I drink diet coke, I'll see an incredibly attractive gardener (who in real life is actually a male model) and then one thing will lead to another and he's shirtless". Now this is a pretty big leap, but it's definition the subtext that the people were going for with this ad.
This ads total audience is going to be broad. Coke is an international company, and, although I don't know if this ad was used in TV (probably too long for TV) or on the internet, I do know that it was shared off of YouTube (over 5,200 times) and has almost 2 million views.
But this ad does have a more specific target audience. Their ideal viewer is a mid 20s to mid 30s woman (or person who is attracted to guys). This ad wasn't made to be much more specific. The women featured in the ad were mostly Caucasian, but there is one (really Coke, just one?) minority. I don't know, I feel like most women would be able to appreciate shirtless male models?
There isn't really any specific cultural knowledge needed, but I get the feeling that's because the culture needed to understand this video is the culture I've been raised in. It's important to be able to understand what the West considers beautiful. Also, to understand the normal behaviors of gardeners in (what I'm assuming was) a public park. This creates the context for what happened in the video.
Also, an important part of this video is the way lighting is used. Not only does it create really dramatic shots (0:12-0:16), but it also highlights what the advertisers were putting emphasis on (0:25-0:27, 0:38-0:40, 0:45-0:48, and 0:52-0:56) which really is how incredibly gorgeous the gardener is.
There really is no question that the advertisers were using lust to sell their products. The series this ad is from is named "Hunk" and the guys are hired based on how attractive they are. The first "Hunk" ad was released in 1994.
Then there were two more in the 90's-00's:
There are some pretty obvious similarities, mainly being the attractive shirtless guys, but the song is also a constant. It really helps to illustrate the already not-so-subtle meaning with lyrics like:
I want you to be true. I just wanna make love to you.These earlier ads were some of the first ads that showed working women objectifying men in lower position in society (all the women are in offices working white collar jobs while the men are in blue collar labor intensive jobs). This is something that is still relatively rare today. I can only think of one other ad series that objectifies men. Lust is something we see in ads quite often and it's usually pretty blatant.
Sidenote: I originally wanted to do this ad for this assignment, but decided it to go with the Diet Coke ad because the Diet Coke ad is a) an ad series meaning there would be more to analyze and b) an actual ad. Either way, I feel like everyone needs to experience this SNL skit at least once in their lives.
I really liked how you looked at multiple ads by the same company with the similar themes and compared how they had evolved over the years. Also, I think your point on cultural knowledge was very interesting! When I was considering my own blog, I could not think of any cultural knowledge that would be required ,but that was probably because I grew up in the culture as you pointed out, making me blind to the differences in knowledge.
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ReplyDeleteI liked that you pointed out the dramatic use of light and lens flares as an artistic technique to emphasize both the sexy gardener and the sexy carbonated drink. I agree that it made it all the more intense when the gardener got sprayed all over, making him a dirty, messy gardener. I would have never though of this as an advertisement that pushes against the norm, but you make a really solid point that women are rarely portrayed as being able to objectify men. This is not surprising coming from Coca-Cola, as they are known to sometimes slightly ignore "traditional, 'Merican values" in the name of their capitalist efforts to appeal to a larger market and sell more soda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=443Vy3I0gJs). I love the idea of looking at the entire series of ads and using the similarities between them to create a better understanding of their context and their intentions. Although it was obvious that the first ad was appealing to lust, getting to see all four of those muscular, handsome, often shirtless men definitely didn't hurt my understanding of that fact.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't one of my two comments, this is just a comment because I saw this after my actual two comments, and now I'm laughing really hard and I need to say something not serious what so ever. I really hope I can actually do that without getting in trouble. Okay, so the fact you basically said "also by the way I really appreciate the way he looks in the lighting here, here, here, and here is great, thank you Coke" in the middle of the post has got me actually crying. My stomach hurts from laughing, thank you for existing. All hail Margaret.
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