How the gender's are portrayed in the media.

Are you beach body ready? Campaign - Protein World


Are you beach body ready was a advert campaign for protein world which garnered controversy when it was displayed as a poster on the tube. The poster shows a scantily dressed woman in the centre of the poster in between the text 'Are you beach body ready?'.

The poster is objectifying the model as a beauty standard to be upheld through the use of their product. The woman also seems to be fully on display like a product and that the poster could be seen as implying that her worth is entirely based on her body and looks.

The use of yellow as a base colour stands out well and the matching colour of the bikini could be showing the implication that the woman belongs to the company through matching to them rather than being an individual. Yellow as a base colour denotes energy and positivity which matches well with the product of protein powder for exercise. The fact that the woman is monochrome rather than having her skin be a normal colour both contrasts the yellow of the poster better and makes it easier to dehumanise her and she her as an object rather than a person. They grey acts as the posters positive space, while the yellow is the negative

The text goes across the woman to frame her and draw attention to her as the positive space. The beginning 'are you' is separated and draws attention from the audience referencing them directly. The next part of the text 'beach body ready?' finishes the question and having the woman directly before establishes her as what beach body ready actually means.

This poster received a lot of backlash for how the model was objectified and put on a pedestal above others. People argued that this was an unrealistic body standard for women, this was exacerbated by the fact that the audience that saw it the most; commuters, likely don't in have a lot of time in general and didn't like the implication that they were being lazy for not being in as good of a shape as the woman in the poster.

Men's Health magazine



The magazine Men's Health is a lifestyle magazine about health and bodybuilding for men. A common them is that they have an image of a body builder or otherwise famous man on the cover shirtless to show off their muscles. This gives the message that reading the magazine can help a man body build and look like that.

This image is surrounded by the titles of articles found inside about quite similar things every time. The articles are usually about bodybuilding, healthy lifestyle and sex. While this is a magazine about these topics it also reduces men to being the sum of these things. A man's worth is determined by how strong he is and looks and by how much sex he has. This perpetuates the stereotype that men are sex obsessed.

The black text contrasts the white background to draw attention to the titles of the articles. However the addition of the red text contrasts the other text to draw attention to the title, list of tips and the sex.

The man being centered shows him off as an ideal to strive towards for the intended audience. However his view is off camera to show that he isn't being framed as an object of desire through a sexual look.

Definition and example of cross platform advertisement

Cross-platform advertisement is a form of advertising that spans multiple media types such as TV, online ads and posters. Most well funded advertisement campaigns are cross-platform. This is because cross platforming can engage a product with a far larger audience than a single media type could.

One of the best cross-platform advertisement campaigns was the ad campaign for the Netflix series Stranger Things. It featured extremely innovative collaboration adverts in preparation for the airing of its second season after the success of the first series.

The marketing team collaborated with Clothing brands to create lines of clothing featuring the characters in the run up to the second season.They collaborated with Reebok to create limited edition shoes in the style of one of the shows main characters. This acted as a reference to the show for those returning and would garner interest for people who haven't seen the show. Netflix also paid the retailer Topshop to refurbish their Oxford street store into a Stranger things theme. This went with the line of clothing that they also released in the run up to the season's release.


The music streaming service Spotify created a test for users to see which character they were most like and let users listen to a playlist of music based on the characters. This works well because the age demographic of Spotify users and the target audience of the show are very similar with the majority of users of Spotify being 18-24 and the majority of Netflix users being 18-29.

A mural to the show was created in oxford circus tube station through TFL which was larger than any other posters around the station. Rather than being just a poster the art extended onto the signs around the station to stand out to passerby's and make them more likely to take notice than with a traditional poster.

However the traditional posters that were created didn't advertise the show directly they advertised a Fictional company from the story of the show which looked like a normal energy provider's poster. The locations chosen for the posters were even among other posters for energy providers and similar companies. All of these posters featured a number which when called played a recording from one of the shows actors which played a message about the plot of the new season. This was targeted more at those who were already fans of the show but also may have played a practical joke on unsuspecting people to create interest in their show.

Key Terms Dictionary

Purpose - the reason for which something was created.

Style - a particular appearance typically determined by the principals in which it was designed.

Performance - how the form of entertainment is presented/the music video being focused on the artist.

Narrative - the music videos focus being on the story mostly.

Thematic - Having or relating to subjects or a particular subject.

Representation - How a certain group is portrayed by the media.

Gender - Male or Female

Ethnicity - cultural factors including nationality, regional culture, ancestry and language.

National Identity - sense of a nation as a cohesive whole represented by traditions culture and language.

Shots - a shot is the continues footage and movement of camera in between cuts or edits.

Angles - the position of the camera relative to the subject of the shot.

Movement- how the camera moves through the shot

Cut- a cut is an abrupt but trivial transition from one shot to another

Fade- a transition effect where the image slowly goes to black

Pace- the rhythm of the action in conjunction with the sequence.

Cut to beat- the cuts of a sequence being in time with beats in music

Expression and Gesture- visible body and face actions in a scene as a form of nonverbal communication.

Costume and Props- costume is what the subject is wearing in a shot which can match a theme or reflect something in the scene. A prop is an object used on the screen by an actor which is considered separate from the costume.

Iconography- the identification of symbols or themes that reoccur in an artist's films.

Lighting and Colour- the position of the lights, the light level and the set's colour.

Graphics- images which are generated by a computer.

Genre- a specific type of writing, film or music.

Star persona- The images and set of meanings that are recognisable to the audience in a star's work.

Motif-a re-occuring idea or image in the work of an artist.

Anchorage- when a piece of media uses another piece of media to reduce the amount of connotations in the first so it can be interpreted more easily.

Intertextuality- the process of creating references to any kind of media text via another kind.

How we consume media video