The writing that accompanies this picture reads; “Guinness By-The-Sea. The favorite holiday resort”. It then says at the bottom; “ Be sure to stay near Guinness this year – its so invigorating.” The word “Guinness” is printed very big and immediately draws the reader’s attention to it. The rest of the writing gradually gets smaller as it moves down the page. This again draws the reader’s attention to the top and the word Guinness. This is emphasizing the product name and, in collaboration with the picture, makes sure that the reader cannot forget what the advert is advertising, as is the case in some more modern adverts. There is a slight pun in the words “Guinness by-the-sea” as it depicts Guinness as a holiday resort instead of a drink. This lightens the advert up and may make the reader laugh. This is to make the advert stick in readers’ memories, as you are more likely to remember something that you laughed at than something that you found dull and boring. Also the color helps to achieve this by being very bright.
I believe that the target audience of this advert is the young adults because it shows that drinking Guinness is cool. In this way it appeals to snobbery and the desire to be cool and to keep up with what is fashionable. It also challenges popular notions of gender by showing women drinking with the men. In this way it depicts women as equal.
The second advert that we will look at is a T.V commercial from 1996. It is broken up into eight slides. It shows women at work in what were traditionally considered as men’s jobs, like working down a mine and driving a lorry. It also shows a woman beating a man in an arm wrestle and an empty maternity ward. This is showing that women are as good as if not better than men at a man’s own job. This is re-enforcing Guinness’ statements in previous advertisements that women are equal to men.
Accompanying these pictures is one slide of writing. It says “ A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. Accompanying this slide is a picture of a fish on a bike. This image was later transformed into a highly acclaimed PC screen saver, which was down loaded by over one hundred thousand people. This writing basically says that women do not need men at all as it is obvious that a fish does not need a bicycle. This again re-enforces the notion that Guinness is a unisex drink.
I believe that the target audience of this advert is women as it is completely biased towards women and was probably created by a woman. I think that there is a subliminal message which is that Guinness is as much a woman’s drink as it is a man’s. This is an attempt by Guinness to broaden its consumer group in a bid to generate more profits. Unfortunately for them Guinness remains very much a man’s drink.
My third advert is a statue of an ancient hero, with a statue cleaner sitting next to the statue drinking a pint of Guinness. This picture, coupled with the headline, is supposed to tell the reader that drinking Guinness will make you look like the statue. The image of the cleaner drinking Guinness is designed to show that anyone can drink Guinness, and you don’t have to be like the statue. This is designed to reinforce Guinness’ image of it being a workingman’s drink.
The headline of the advert is, “Guinness for Strength”. This is telling the reader that drinking Guinness will make you strong and that it will make you look like the statue shown in the picture. Although the avert does not actually say this it implies it. The writing is big and bold and done in capital letters. This is to draw the reader’s attention to the word Guinness and the slogan.
I think that the target audience of this advert is young men, who want to get better bodies, and also middle-aged men, who are worried about their figures. I think that the advert appeals to the motion of wanting to better ones elf and the desire for perfection.
In conclusion I would say that Guinness’ continuing ability to challenge popular ideals of sexuality and gender has kept the drink and the adverts popular.
