English Lang. & Lit. Blog | Tómas Egilsson

Popular culture is defined as the "culture based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than an educated elite." It includes the entirety of mainstream ideas, attitudes, images, and perspectives. This culture is heavily influenced by the media, especially today where companies aim to sell you their product through meticulous marketing plans. These are specifically aimed at young people, as they are the ones who are most involved in pop culture. In class we watched the Frontline episode focusing on the marketing strategies of companies with a young target audience. This included YouTube stars, actors, film ads, and specifically how 'likes' and 'shares' have become a new advertising currency. As social media is mostly used by teens and young people, those tend to be the main forms of media used to market their products. This can be linked to the core media concept of the mass media selling audiences to advertisers. Companies often pay these media platforms, li...

In this ad, we see a soldier in what is most likely a foreign country on duty for his country. He is jumping from one rock to another, holding his rifle above his hands, with an angry and determined face, basically the tone. This gives the audience a sense of inspiration. The audience is young men who might not be able to get a job or into university. This is shown with the slogan "The best place to start a business career isn't always in business." They also try to appeal to the audience through the use of inclusive language like "Army. Be all you can be," and "qualities that will help you in any career." This is all done in order to spread and hopefully fulfill the purpose of helping young adults to find future careers and therefore getting more recruits for the army. The overarching theme is that the army will be able to set you up for the rest of your life. Finally, the fact they take the picture from a low angle shows the subject in a position of...

This is an ad for Fedex specifically for the link from the US to Brazil. In the ad we see a building that has the US, Central and parts of South America painted on it's walls. Two windows are open, one place on the US, and the other on Brazil. A man is standing "in the US" and is passing a package "down to Brazil". Colour and contrast is important in this picture, as you must be able to see the continents while also noticing the package as well. That is why the continents and wall have similar colours, while the package is completely white, as it is mean to be the focal point. The focal point is emphasized as the perspective is almost directly on the package, and it is just to the left of the center of the advertisement. As the subjects are not looking at the camera, the main focus of the ad is on the package, and of course the passing and receiving of it. The aim of the ad is to showcase the ease and simplicity of the delivery service, and they showcase thi...

The ad campaign my group had to pitch was an advertisement trying to attract international students to NYU. The target audience was obvious, students from grade 10-12, but we decided to focus on IB students, as it makes it easier to find students from multiple countries in one place. The main appeal we wanted to focus on was curiosity, as New York is one of the most famous cities in the world, and one that many films and TV shows are set in. The other big appeal was bribery, as we decided to create an international students package, giving them one free plane ticket a year for holidays, making it easier financially for them, while also giving them a sort of "reward" for picking our school. Included was also a discount for students achieving 38 IB points or more. Smaller appeals included plain folks and testimonials, focusing on the success stories of former IB students who attended NYU, giving them people they can relate to and maybe aspire to be like. This ties into the app...

Looking at this advertisement, one would assume that this is obviously targeted at a male audience, in their late 20's or early 30's, either middle or upper middle class. However, you cannot make such rash assumptions. Looking at the data, women tend to do most of the shopping even for men's sanitary products. The fact that the model is Chris Hemsworth, an actor now famous for his role as Thor, does have his fair share of heart-throb roles as well. Now, that is not to say that men cannot be a part of the audience as well, as his most famous role is in a superhero movie, something mostly associated with young men. The slogan for this ad is #MANOFTODAY. The background of this ad shows a picture of a city, giving us a sense of modernization, matching with the hashtag. However, Hemsworth is pictured in a suit, a relatively classic clothing option. I feel like every young man feels they look good in a suit, and look forward to every opportunity they have to do so (might just ...

The Balance defines advertising as the "attempt to influence the buying behaviour of your customers or clients by providing a persuasive selling message about your products and/or services." Almost all companies out there advertise their products through some sort of media, meaning that we are constantly bombarded with commercials, billboards, newspaper prints, pop-up ads, YouTube ads, and sidebar ads, all of which aim to connect with us in some way in order to sell their products. This can all be a bit overwhelming, and having to see them everyday understandably begins to have effects on us. These effects can go both ways. If the advertisement has a well-planned, and thoughtful message aiming to inspire and persuade their audience, then we will obviously leave that ad feeling motivated and better than we were before. However, the more common effect is when an ad is not thought out, and simply aims to attract their audience by any means necessary. When firms opt to go in thi...

If you help her choose the clothes someone else will tear, she's seeing you with braids. Stop being a friend and start being a man For this task, I picked three Lynx/Axe advertisements. Lynx is the British version of Axe.  All of these advertisements both objectify and sexualize women in order to try and sell their product. In every single one, the women are wearing minimal clothing. The first advertisement shows a man and a few women clothes shopping. The point they are trying to make is that if a man does not pick provocative clothes when shopping with women, then they will only see him as a friend rather than someone they might date. This puts a gender role on men needing to be the direct ones in a relationship, which is not necessarily a bad gender role. However, it is portrayed in such bad taste that it makes the gender role so much worse. It also emasculates men who might not feel confident approaching girls. The second advertisement has a woman in the kitchen p...