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| Gary Lineker is situated through a low angle establishing mid shot. The white, middle class celebrity forms a binary opposition between himself and the urban, inner city setting. By being the first and most important image, Lineker's appearance guides the secondary white middle class audience in to an alien environment, and provides a point of reference for middle aged audiences who may find this vision of Britain different from their expectations |
Watch the advert by clicking here
How does media language combine to create meaning in the Adobe advert?
Knee jerk reaction
Media language combines to specifically target a young, urban ethnically diverse audience. It does so by constructing an edgy, exciting and absolutely working class setting.
Plan
Celebrity endorsement
Intertextuality
Branding, franchising
Low key lighting
Repetition
Variation of pace and camera movement
Whip pans
Urban setting
Informal lexis
Binary opposition b/tween dark alleyway and halogen lighting
MES wet concrete
Ethnically diverse
Postcolonialism - black people are represented differently in media products, because of UK's colonial past
Binary opp between lineker and the urban working class setting
Intertextual ref to grime videos?
Content
- M/S of GL reflected in shop window superimposes his head on a white suit, connotation and suggestive of the KFC colonel. This functions as a referential code, and forms a cross promotion, which allows Walkers to target a pre-existing KFC fanbase
- The advertisement sells a lifestyle of of an exciting, urban existence, living in inner city london, and living among the lights, grime and edginess of a modern British city
- The audience is presented with a symbolic annihilation of the covid-19 pandemic, which allows the advert to target its audience more effectiveness, and also associates the KFC X Walkers brand with the positive and optimistic connotations of life before covid
- Fast based editing and MES of bright neon halogen lights is a clear reference to the iconography of grime music videos, which allows walkers to target a pre-existing young, ethnically diverse urban audience who are fans of this genre. This reference is further reinforced through the setting, a south London Urban sprawl
- MES of neon arrows feature throughout the advert, guiding the eyes of the audience towards the most important parts of the screen. This emphasizes the idea of the brand and the product as being an important final destination for the audience
- Modern notions of Britishness is shown through a range of stereotypically british iconography. The hegemony of football is constructed through the MES of a football match being shown in the Barber shop. Later, a typical London bus stop and iconic red london bus further anchor and situate audience within a relatable mode of address
- Frequent and repetitive use of whip panning clearly targets a younger and easily distracted target audience. The excitement and relatability is further anchored though the young male voiceover, which uses an informal lexis
- Gauntlett's theory of audience identity can help us to understand how audiences can relate to and take identity from this video. From a stereotypical perspective, a young black audience may relate to the inner city setting, the MES of the barber shop, and the relatable setting of the takeaway, yet a stereotypical middle class white audience may instead relate to the representation of Gary Lineker
- White saviour stereotype: while this advert is very ethnically diverse, and features a setting not often seen in adverts, let alone crisp adverts, in is bookended by appearances from Lineker. GL is first introduced in the establishing shot, a closeup of his smiling, confident face emphasizing his importance. And, in the final shot after the camera whip pans left from the mes of the setting of the KFC shop front, we see Linnea Car apparently wearing a spotless white suit. This reinforces his patriarchal hegemonic powers, and his status as a powerful middle class man, a binary opposition to the run-down inner city sprawl. It also emphasises that Lineker, a white middle class celebrity, simply 'does not belong' in a setting such as this. Yet, even more crucially, to see Lineker in a hierarchical position of power over the BAME extras in the video is reminiscent of post-colonial themes, and a clear, if subtle references to how casually racist ideological perspectives still exist today