AS Media Studies Introduction Task

I was given an introduction task in which I was to produce a magazine advert for one of two new products, either a new fragrance or a new mobile phone. I chose to produce a new fragrance advert which was aimed at men.
This is my finished product.

The 1st stage in my magazine design was the planning however this was done on paper as I enjoy sketching out my ideas.

Once I had finished producing my product I evaluated it, this is my finished evaluation:

Media Evaluation

Before I started creating my advert I looked at others to find the conventions that are used in them, I found that all perfume adverts show the actual product they are promoting and most have a model in it.

I chose to produce a magazine advert on a new fragrance which is specifically aimed at men. I had the idea of making my advert quite animalistic in order to emphasise the masculinity of the cologne and for who the cologne is aimed at.

I used written codes within my advert by giving the product the brand name “unleashed” and also a slogan as anchorage, “for the beast within…”. This implies the idea of the cologne literally “unleashing” a more masculine persona for who ever uses it.

The target audience I chose to aim my product at was the male gender, no specific age in particular however aimed at adults rather than children.

It will appeal to the target audience for a number of different reasons such as:

• There may be men who feel they are lacking in masculinity and therefore will buy the product in the hope of being seen as more manly and confident.
• It will also appeal to women with male partners, they may feel the sex appeal which “unleashed” portray and wish to get their partner the product.
• Some people might feel that this product matches their personality.

I produced my advert by firstly planning the different aspects within it, such as what the brand name may be, what type of background I wanted and thinking about the type of photo which is suitable for the product.

Once I had a good idea of everything I wished to include in my advert, I began to collect all of the resources I needed, for example, taking the photographs of the male figure which I needed to include into my work and also the perfume bottle, the technical code I used for my model was the mid-shot.

I initially chose to just have the male model stood posing for the camera however with further thought I decided to add symbolic codes into the advert by making the model wear a wolf mask and gloves, this was to represent the beast within the man, it also implies the idea that this male has used the fragrance and as a result of it a the beast within him has been "unleashed".

After I collected my photographs I started to edit the ones I needed using Photoshop, this was one of the most difficult parts of the task as I encountered many obstacles whilst putting my advert together like trying to get the background of the picture to disappear, I had to carefully rub out any unwanted parts of the photo and I found this was very time consuming and quite boring.

I believe my advert would be best displayed in a magazine such as "nuts" because this is one of the more popular men’s magazines, meaning more men will see the advert and also the advert fits in well with the genre of the magazine. Men who get this magazine are mostly interested in women and therefore an advert such as this would inspire them to use the product and “get the girl”.

When I received my introduction task feedback sheet I found that I had got 73 marks out of 100 which is equivalent to a grade B or level 3. Overall I am extremely happy with my work and I now know the conventions needed to get the best marks possible in my further tasks.