For my English project we have been asked to investigate a particular use of language. I have chosen to look at the way the way cars are advertised.

English Language Coursework Project

Introduction

For my English project we have been asked to investigate a particular use of language. I have chosen to look at the way the way cars are advertised. I am going to look at whether the style of the advert changes depending on which gender it is being advertised to, and whether the use of language varies depending on whether the car is being advertised to men or women. I am going to collect some examples of car adverts, and analyse the language used in the advertisement. I have decided to investigate this particular subject because I have already got some ideas about the type of language uses that I will find.

Aims

I already have perceived ideas about what I will find in my investigation, but I am hoping to find out if my predictions are true. I am expecting to find a lot of stereotyping within the advertisements, with the male-targeted adverts selling the car as a fast, powerful machine, and the female targeted adverts selling it more in terms of its space for shopping and ease of nipping around town. I am hoping to find out if this is actually the case, and if I am wrong, how the cars are advertised to the different genders.

Description of data

I have found several car advertisements to use for my analysis. Two of the advertisements are for the same car, but one advert is from a men’s magazine, and the other is from a woman’s magazine. I thought this would make it easier to make comparisons between the two. The first advert is from men’s magazine Loaded, and is advertising a Ford Focus. The second advert is from Cosmopolitan, which is a well-known woman’s magazine. Although both advertising the same car, the two adverts are very different, and draw particularly on the typical gender stereotypes that I expected. I am also using an advert from men’s magazine FHM advertising a sports car, and an advert from women’s magazine Glamour which advertises a hatchback.

Methodology

I selected my data by looking through both men and women’s magazines to find interesting and suitable adverts to analyse. I wanted to have two adverts for the same car, but one from a men’s magazine and one from a women’s magazine. I thought this would be an interesting starting point for my analysis, and it would be much easier to compare the way the cars were advertised differently if the adverts were selling the same product. The other two adverts I am analysing were chosen because they reflected the general stereotyping that is used predominantly in adverts. The male-targeted advert is for a sleek sports car, and the female-targeted advert is for a small car, a nippy little hatchback.

In order to analyse this data I am going to use the linguistic framework of analysis. In particular I am going to look at the graphology of the advertisement. This involves looking at the layout of the advert, the type of text used, the picture used and the relevance of each graphological feature. I will also be analysing the semantics, which is the study of the meaning, and what the advert is trying to get across to the reader.

Analysis

The two car advertisements that I have chosen to analyse first are both for the Ford Focus. I decided that the best way to compare the way cars are sold to men and women was to find two advertisements for the same car, but take one from a men’s magazine and one from a woman’s magazine. The male-targeted advert came from Loaded magazine, and the female targeted advert from Cosmopolitan.

Graphologically, the two adverts are immediately different. The advert from Loaded is for the Ford Focus Zetec, and has a picture of the car as the main focus. The name of the car ‘Focus’ has the connotations of the car being eye-catching, and ‘Zetec’ is very modern. The advert is on a double page, and the car is the first thing you see. Above the car is the slogan “get the body you’ve always wanted”. The car is positioned so as you can see both the front and down the side.

The advert in Cosmopolitan is for the Ford Focus Black, and is only one page, and the image is of a wardrobe with a dress hanging from one of the doors and a pair of shoes on the floor in front of a wardrobe. The page is cut down the middle so that when the reader opens it up, the page is made to open like the doors of the wardrobe. This immediately has stereotypical connotations of all women being interested in fashion. Once the ‘doors’ are open, we see the picture of the car, imposed on a background so as it looks like the car is sat in the wardrobe. Above the car is the slogan “it goes with everything”. This is a well-known slang phrase that is automatically connected with fashion. Because of the fashion element of the advert, “it goes with everything” is also probably a reference to the idea that every woman has a ‘little black dress’ that goes with everything and is suitable for almost any occasion. The advert is implying that the Ford Focus has the same function. The font of the last word ‘everything’ is in bold, putting emphasis on the fact the car is suitable for any occasion or purpose. In this advert the car is only shown side on, perhaps even having the connotations of the way women admire themselves in the mirror, side-on.

Underneath both of the pictures are the specifications of each car model, telling the reader about the features on offer with the car. The text along the bottom of the advert for the Ford Focus Zetec reads “This summer look fit in a Focus Zetec Collection. It has front and rear spoilers, six spoke alloys, fog lamps, sports seats and trim as standard. Plus, of course, a muscular 1.8 16v Zetec engine.”

Underneath the picture if the Ford Focus Black in Cosmopolitan is the text “Limited edition Ford focus Black, three-door hatchback with air conditioning, leather trim, alloy ...

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Underneath the picture if the Ford Focus Black in Cosmopolitan is the text “Limited edition Ford focus Black, three-door hatchback with air conditioning, leather trim, alloy wheels and remote control CD/Radio-£12,495 by Ford. Dress £225 by Whistles, Shoes £270 by Jimmy Choo.”

The two adverts have the same general layout, but the styles of the adverts are very different. Both show the car, both have the slogan above the car. The fonts are the same in both the adverts, and both have the specification information along the bottom, laid out in the same way with the telephone contact number, website address and Ford logo in the bottom right corner.

Looking at the semantics means the study of meaning, and what message the advertisement is trying to get across. It includes the formality, and connotations of the language used, and what it means. In the Cosmopolitan advert, the phrase “it goes with everything” has the connotation of making the car seem like more of an accessory for the fashionable woman. It immediately gives the impression that the advert is aimed at women, even without the fact that it is in a woman’s magazine. Matching clothes and ‘accessorising’ is very much a woman’s thing, and so the implication of the phrase “it goes with everything” is that it is a fashionable car that will suit anyone’s taste. The word ‘goes’ may also have been used as a pun, meaning the way cars move.

The way they have written the specifications is in the style of the fashion pages in women’s magazines. “Ford Focus Black (description)-£12,495 by Ford. Dress £225 by Whistles, Shoes £270 by Jimmy Choo.” Again this shows that this advert is aimed at women. The car is described as a “three-door hatchback with air conditioning, leather trim, alloy wheels and remote control CD/Radio”. These are the features described and are being used as a selling point. These are obviously supposed to be the type of features that will appeal to women. The connotations of this is that women want a nippy little hatchback with air conditioning to keep them looking and feeling cool, and stylish extras of leather trim and alloy wheels to add to the overall style of the car.

In Loaded magazine, the Ford Focus Zetec advert has the slogan “get the body you’ve always wanted”. This phrase isn’t immediately gender specific, as it could apply to either sexes, but in this case is possibly meant to give the impression of men working out in the gym. It could also refer to men wanting women with perfect bodies, but the use of the adverb “muscular” implies that it is referring to men working out at the gym to tone and firm their own bodies. The slogan is not actually saying men need to work out in order to get the body they’ve always wanted, it is implying that they can get it in the form of the Ford Focus Zetec.

The specifications along the bottom connotes the typical male better, as they describe the car as more of a guys car with “front and rear spoilers, six spoke alloys, fog lamps, sports seats and trim as standard”. This makes the car sound sporty and would make it appeal to men much more than women. It also gives the connotation of being more of a ‘lads’ car, appealing to younger men more, and this ties in with Loaded being more of a younger men’s magazine. The text goes on to say “Plus, of course, a muscular 1.8 16v Zetec engine”. The advert in the woman’s magazine doesn’t mention engine size at all, implying that it’s not important to them, or perhaps that women wouldn’t understand what it meant. On this same note is that the male targeted advert says the car has “six spoke alloys”, and the female targeted advert says, “alloy wheels”. The abbreviation of alloy wheels to ‘alloys’ in the male advert implies that men will automatically know that this means the wheels, whereas this is pointed out to the women reading Cosmopolitan.

After looking at these two adverts for the same car, I analysed two other adverts, one from a women’s magazine advertising the new Renault Clio, and one from a men’s magazine advertising a Lotus Elise sports car.

First I looked at the advertisement for the Renault Clio, which came from women’s magazine Glamour. The advert shows a room of white furniture, quite simplistic, that has white walls and carpets and some wooden furniture, but overall is a plain room. In the middle of the room sits the car. It is bright red and turned slightly to the side so we can see the front and a side view of the car. The advert compares the plain minimalist room and the bright vivacious car, well equipped with all its high tech accessories and features. The relevance of the plain room and the bright car are clear when you read the slogan of the advert “Now engineered for extra Va-Va-Voom”. The relevance of the plain room is to imply that the owner of the room is boring, and in need of “Va-Va-Voom” which presumably means that it needs livening up.

The slogan “Va-Va-Voom” is used throughout the advert. It has the connotations of sexy women, feathers and fluffy slippers, and gives the impression of fifties glamour. Va-Va-Voom may also be onomatopoeic, a play on words for ‘vroom’ like the noise that cars are described as making. It is used four times in the advert, the repetition presumably for emphasis. It is used twice in the passage describing the car features, once in the slogan for the car, and it is also in the website address. ()

The advert has the manufacturers logo in the top left corner, and the brand slogan “Createur D’automobiles” next to it. This is used because the make of the car, Renault, is French, and they have chosen to use the original French for the slogan. It also lends the advert and the car an air of sophistication. This slogan is used in all of Renaults car adverts, and because the French reads practically the same as the English would, it is easily understandable by anyone about what it means.

In the top right hand corner of the advertisement is the manufacturers name in bold print, upper case letters, and the brand of the car, “Clio” is written next to that, again in bold, but in lower case letters, and styled so as the letters are round and bubble like, reminiscent of the cars shape. The cars number plate shows the same word, printed in exactly the same style.

The slogan “Now engineered for extra Va-Va-Voom” comes across the advert from the right, and is written in white inside a stripe of red. This makes it stand out from the white background, and ties in with the red car.

The passage of text describing the car is in the top right corner of the advert, underneath the manufacturer and the model names. It is in a small print, and the first line uses the slogan straight away. It reads “Put extra Va-Va-Voom in your life with the new Renault Clio”. This is an imperative, as it is telling the reader to do something. It implies that the reader needs more Va-Va-Voom in their life, and that by buying the car they will get it. It goes on to say “Now with big car features”. This is a pun, and it refers to the size of the Clio. It is a small car, but has all the same features as bigger ones. It could also mean that the features of the car are ‘big’, meaning it has high-tech top quality features. The adverb ‘big’ means the sentence has a double meaning.

The passage goes on to read “big car features like Climate Control, Carminat Satellite Navigation, Cruise Control and Electronic Stability Programme”. This is quite technical language, and these don’t seem typical of the things women are portrayed as wanting in a car. The language is more technical than it needs to be, climate control is just air conditioning with a fancy name. This differs from the Ford Focus advert in the women’ magazine, which simplifies the language that describes the car features. The text goes on to say “And a head turning restyle, inside and out”, so the advert is not only focusing on advertising the features that come with the car, but the look of it as well, on both the interior and exterior.

The final advert I chose to analyse was from FHM magazine, and was for a Lotus Elise 1.8 convertible. The fact that I found an advert for a sports car in a men’s magazine, but none in any women’s magazines was stereotypical in itself right from the start, assuming that women wouldn’t be interested in or want sports cars. The background of the advert is plain black, and the picture of the car is near the top of the advertisement. The text on the page is all in white, to make it stand out against the black background. The lotus logo is shown on the right hand side of the advert, and on the bottom right are the awards that the car has won.

At the very top of the advert, the first line reads “you only live once”. This is a well-known cliché, and also a variation on the James Bond movie title ‘You only live twice’. This gives the impression of saying that life is short so you should do what you want while you can, which in this case is buying a Lotus Elise. The James Bond connection has connotations of fast cars and beautiful women, which supposedly is meant to encourage men to want the Lotus Elise and the James Bond style panache that goes with it.

Underneath the car is another cliché “so live life in the fast lane”. This is the title of a song by an American band called The Eagles, who are one of the best selling bands of all time. This lends an element of rock and roll to the advert. The use of the word “so” in the second cliché makes the sentence an imperative. It is telling the reader to do something.

The advert is not just advertising the car, it is also advertising the finance deal that the car can be bought on. This part is written underneath the second cliché. It reads “for £199 per month before 2nd January 2002* (plus deposit and final repayment, APR 7.7% )”. These are the main details of the finance deal, but the asterix is for the small print that is in the white box at the bottom of the page.

The text underneath the finance information reads “Why refuse the ultimate in pleasure when it is affordable and available to you?”. This is a rhetorical question. It encourages the reader to think that they can have what they want. The use of “ultimate in pleasure” gives the car the image of being the best thing you can have, and the connotations are of it being the reader’s utmost desire.

It goes on to say “Lotus have a special finance detail running until 2nd January 2002, which makes it easier to say yes to the £23,385 for Britain’s Best Drivers Car”. Again this is persuasive, trying to make the reader think ‘why not?’. The use of the adverb ‘special’ when describing the finance deal gives the impression that the deal is personally for the reader, and it is ‘special’, so it is different to any other deal and better than any other deal. It also mentions one of the awards the car has received, which is meant to be more persuasion for the reader to want the car.

The final line about the car is “Experience the legendary ride and handling of a Lotus Elise and you’ll never look back”. The adverb ‘legendary’ makes the car sound supreme and also has connotations of it being historical or myth like, as if it was too good to be real. ‘Experience’ is also an imperative, as again it is telling the reader to do something. ‘You’ll never look back’ is another well used cliché, and in this case it has the effect of implying that once you have driven a Lotus Elise, no other car will compare, and so you will never go back to having another car. It also implies that you will have no regrets about your decision to buy a Lotus Elise.

The rest of the text is just details about arranging a test drive, giving the phone number to call and the web site address. The awards that the car has won are shown on the left hand side of the advert. It has received the award for AUTOCAR Britain’s Best Drivers Car and Auto Express Roadster of the Year. The Lotus logo and slogan are on the bottom right of the advert. The slogan “driving passion” can be taken two ways. One is that the car, the Lotus is passion, in which case would mean you were literally driving passion-the Lotus being the definition of passion. The other way it could be read is that the passion for the car is so intense that it is the driving force-so it is driving passion in that it is a very strong feeling.

Just above the small print is one line of text that is meant to be the final persuasion, “Selected by the Design Council for the Great Expectations worldwide exhibition showcasing the best of British design and innovation”. This is again meant to make the reader feel that they will be getting a good deal if they buy the Lotus Elise. The advert is making out it is a very highly regarded machine, and every line is another persuasion tactic.

The advert uses clichés and connections with James Bond and rock and roll music to try and sell this car, and it seems that they are not just trying to sell the car, but a whole image that comes with it as well. The advert uses stereotypically ‘male’ things to typecast the kind of image it wants the car to have. The connection to James Bond gives the car the appeal of being sexy, attractive to women, masculine and stylish, just like the James Bond character. The James Bond theme is also suitable for the advert because James Bond drove a Lotus Elise in one of his more recent films.

Conclusion

From looking at both these adverts, I have noticed several similarities between the two, despite their being aimed at two different audiences. While they are being advertised in different ways, both adverts are being sold to their respective target on the basis of looks. The Loaded advert being sold more on the image of being sleek and powerful, a really masculine car. And the women’s advert in Cosmopolitan appealing more to the fashionable woman, being sold on its versatility, of being a stylish, yet practical car for a woman’s needs.

My preconceived ideas about cars being advertised in a stereotypical way was right to a certain extent, but I didn’t expect to see as many similarities between the two as I did. I expected the advert aimed at men to focus on the speed and power of the car, which it kind of did, more so the power than the speed, but I didn’t expect the car to be sold on appearances very much at all, and that came as a surprise to me. The female-targeted advertisement was very similar to what I expected. It portrayed women as wanting boot space for their bags and luxury accessories such as air conditioning and a CD player. The way the car was advertised was very clever, and in both cases, the language used really did imply accurate connotations.

If I had to repeat this research, I would like to look at different car adverts for men and women to see if other adverts use this gender stereotyping. I would also want to look at advertisements aimed at a different target audience. It would be interesting to see how an advert for a family car compares to the adverts aimed at young men and women. I would like to investigate which aspects of the car the advert would focus on for a family car.