Analysis of the Gap’s TV Commercials
Why are Gap ads so powerful? The concept of all of their recent television commercials is very simple, yet highly effective. An attractive young person, or perhaps a small group of attractive young people, is on a stark, white set. The actor/ model/ celebrity then sings and or dances around. The commercial ends with a catchy phrase about the Gap: Gap Rocks or Gap Swings, or something similar. It’s a simple concept, but somehow it works. What branding is about for this company is identifying through the elaborate cool-hunting market-research process what it is that the public cares about and are passionate about as a culture, and harnessing that to sell something very different. So it is, in a sense, a betrayal. The Gap's not selling music, they're selling clothing. By examining the institutions, sign systems, subject positions, and mediation used in the advertisements, perhaps an explanation to their success, and why the public allows itself to be duped, can be determined.
The Gap hit it big in April of 1997 with its first ad of the series, one for khakis. The ad, which featured about10 swing dancing couples (all, of course, wearing Gap Khakis), lasted 15 seconds. No one onscreen spoke at all. Quickly following this ad, was a second, equally effective commercial. In this ad, a dozen actors sat and took turns singing a line from Donavan’s famous hit, Mellow Yellow. These ads apparently spoke to people, because they received great results in the polls. To this initial popularity, of course, one can attribute the barrage of similar advertisements that plague today’s televisions. The campaign was very popular and very effective with adult consumers of all ages according to Ad Track, USA TO...
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... Marketer of the Year. The publisher of Fashion Network Report observed that "they made their name into a brand. They are one of the few retailers that has that luxury." Gap now spends more than half a billion dollars a year on advertising: almost five percent of the company's sales is devoted to selling the attitude that brands the clothes and the people who wear them.
Works Cited:
Enrico, Dottie, "Viewers Find Ads Toe-Tapping Good." USA Today Ad Track: http://www.usatoday.com/money/index/ad206.htm
"Levi’s 501s and the ‘Knowing Wink’" ENG 341 Library Reserve.
Lukens, Clinton, "Credibility gap widens with new ads" Trojan Daily Vol 136 No 58. April 20, 2003: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/dt/V136/N58/03-credit.58v.html
Temple, Kim, "Naomi Klein: Who’s the rock star now?" Chart Attack. June 7, 2003: http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2003/06/0706.cfm
In the article, Jesus is a Brand of Jeans, by Jean Kilbourne, we get an insightful look into the effects of advertising on us, as human beings. As we all know, humans let us down. We are imperfect beings, going about life interacting with each other, good and bad. It seems though, over the past 50 years advertising has taken away from human value, and brain washed us into thinking stuff is more important than people.
According to Robert Scholes, author of On Reading a Video Text, commercials aired on television hold a dynamic power over human beings on a subconscious level. He believes that through the use of specific tools, commercials can hold the minds of an audience captive, and can control their abilities to think rationally. Visual fascination, one of the tools Scholes believes captures the minds of viewers, can take a simple video, and through the use of editing and special effects, turn it into a powerful scene which one simply cannot take his or her eyes from. Narrativity is yet another way Scholes feels commercials can take control of the thoughts of a person sitting in front of the television. Through the use of specific words, sounds, accompanying statements and or music, a television commercial can hold a viewer’s mind within its grasp, just long enough to confuse someone into buying a product for the wrong reason. The most significant power over the population held by television commercials is that of cultural reinforcement, as Scholes calls it. By offering a human relation throughout itself, a commercial can link with the masses as though it’s speaking to the individual viewer on an equal level. A commercial In his essay, Scholes analyzes a Budweiser commercial in an effort to prove his statements about the aforementioned tools.
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
...oreover, Hugo’s eager acceptance of Sara’s father and his cultural traditions draws Sara full circle into reconciliation with both her father and the traditional Jewish culture he personifies.
In the 1997 article Listening to Khakis, published in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell effectively paints a vivid picture of the thought and science that goes into advertising campaigns. Gladwell begins his paper by focusing on the Dockers’ advertising campaign for their line of adult male khaki pants, which he labels as extremely successful. This campaign was the first line of successful fashion advertisements aimed directly toward adult males (Gladwell, 1997). This campaign was cunningly simple and showed only males wearing the pants being advertised with the background noise filled with men having a casual conversation (Gladwell, 1997). This tactic was used because studies showed that Dockers’ target market felt an absence in adult male friendships. (Gladwell, 1997). The simplicity of the advertisements was accentuated as to not to deter possible customers by creating a fashion based ad because, based on Gladwell’s multiple interviews of advertising experts, males shy away from being viewed as fashion forward or “trying to hard” (Gladwell, 1997).
The commercials were mainly directed at men. Every single advert glorified masculinity, except one, where a man’s “sensitivity” being referenced as a reason his partner chose to have a relationship with him. This advert depicts a woman at a car dealership, describing her dream car as a “perfect.” Seconds later an attractive man comes to the desk holding a pup...
Impressionism is very pretty and complicated. It was from 1860 to 1910. Monet is the perfect Impressionist. Impressionism had its basic tenants. Their subject matter was the middle upper class, the city, and leisurely activities. They painted on en plein air which means they painted outdoors. They painted in snow, rain, storm, just in order to record directly the effects of light and atmosphere. They painted with strokes and touches of pure color by using a great deal of white and rarely black. They recorded the shifting play of light on the surface of objects and the effect light has on the eye without concern for the physicality of the object being painted. They were influenced by Japanese art and photography. One of Monet’s works is titled Water Lilies. The medium of this work is oil on canvas. Monet is an impressionist. He puts up pure color just describe the water. He said, when you go out paint, the impression of the scene not the exact scene.
Enlightenment was a term used to describe an intellectual movement which ‘…would create a better future” with “…the conquest of disease’ (Porter, p.245). The age of enlightenment saw the rise in pneumatic chemistry where physicians believed ‘…held the key not just to environmental medicine but to therapeutics’ (Porter, p.254) .Physician Thomas Beddoes worked with an engineer named James Watt and his apprentice Humphry Davy and together they “…discovered nitrous oxide” (Porter, p.254). Even though the ‘…valuable anaesthetic properties’ (Porter, p.254) of the oxide were side lined the eighteenth century saw the knowledge of science progress and its link to medicine enhance ‘…man’s control over nature’ (Porter, p.245) as Francis Bacon once remarked.
The Impressionism period for the longest time was considered to be the first distinctly modern movement in painting. The Impression period first started in Paris in the 1860s and its influence spread throughout all of Europe and eventually made it’s way to the United States. The originators of this time period were artists who rejected the official; government subsidized exhibitions, or what the French would call, “salons”, and they were consequently shunned away by powerful academic art institutions such as the, “Acedémie des Beaux Arts" (Academy of Fine Arts). Removing themselves from the fine finish and details to which most artists of their day aspired, the Impressionists during this time, their goal was to capture the momentary, sensory
Like most companies The Gap Incorporated usually has some type of commitment or vision that they want their company to fulfill. The owner, Don Fisher wanted his company to be unique and really help the community. The company does not have a set mission statement but they have made commitment to their stakeholders, employees and they community. One of the commitments the company made was that they will do way more than just sell clothes (Gap Inc. 2014). The Gap Inc. also ensures that everyone that works with the company or is associated with the company will be treated with the up most respect, fairness and dignity (Gap Inc. 2014).
“To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them” (P.A.R Quotes). Pierre-Auguste Renoir was an artist that put his heart and soul into a painting. Prior to Renoir there were many artists. Renoir was a man after diversity and difference in his paintings. He did not want to be like everybody else. He and many others felt this way, forming a new art called Impressionism. This new concept originated in France in the 1860’s. In 1874 Impressionism really took off, these artist were going against Realism in every way. These artist of Impressionism only became a group because they were rejected by the Salon des Refuses. Their
With the extremely wide variety of channels now to choose from it makes it easier for advertisers to be specific about who sees it. For example children’s stations such as ‘Nickelodeon’ are packed with adverts for toys and games as the majority of their audience is under 12. But stations such as ‘The Cookery Channel’ that have an older, mainly female audience use adverts for perfumes, clothes, holidays. It is essential for adverts to be eye-catching and stylish because they are in competition with all the other adverts for similar products. Anything from catchy jingles, to horrific scenes are used in advertising [IMAGE] Hugo Boss Analysis The first advert to be analysed is the Hugo Boss fragrance.
Impressionism was a more sensitive medium for more personal expression. Paintings were touched strongly by the spirit of romanticism. These paintings usually contained women and children to symbolize love, sorrow, or despair. Impressionism began with Monet Renoir and Bazille. They all disliked the academic teaching so it was then they decided to paint with a new cause to be different and stand out.
“Impressionism” is a word that is mostly used within the artist community when referring to the artist movement. The first time the term impressionism was used was when a writer was talking about Claude Monet’s painting Impression: Sunrise. Technically however, the term was first officially used in 1877. The artists involved in this movement were called impressionists because of their simplified works. These artists were part of a group where artists shared their similar styles and techniques. This all happened between 1867 and 1886. Some of the more well-known and important artists were Monet, Renoir, Pisarro, Sisley, and Morisot. Monet and Renoir both panted scenes of La Grenouillere (restaurant and bathing place on a small branch of the Seine at Croissy). Their work helped define the beginning of this new period of art. The
Throughout history, Africa has been a vulnerable player in the eyes of the rest of the world. From the slave trade to various civil right injustices that have taken place over in every century, from what we have studied in this class, we have been able to see the lasting impact on the continent as a ramification of certain events occurring. Using various sources from the text, which serve as evidence, and help prove how the western world exercised its power in order to capitalize on the African continent and exploit the African people and land.