‘Poison Vodka’ has a multicultural demographic of 18-26 year olds, inclusive of; University students and younger Millennials who are on low incomes. From our research we found our main competitors are Glens Vodka, which has a similar target demographic of those on lower incomes, their pricing of around £13 per liter will match ours. Our second main competitor is ‘Sourz’, a multiple flavor shot drink that have a target demographic of students. Our product is both affordable Vodka ‘Pure Poison’ and fruit flavor ‘Poison Berry’ and ‘Poison Apple’ in order to appeal to buyers of both Glens and Sourz. We decided on the previously mentioned target demographic due to the legal, ethical and diverse restrictions and range of challenges advertising alcohol, specifically to that age range has. The main features of our threefold advertising campaign include; a 30 second TV video advert, print posters referencing the video advert and our Digital marketing campaign which includes social media pages and an online poll/competition ‘Pick Your Poison’, where our buyers decide on their favorite flavor. Due to our research we decided this was the best way to develop and market the brand because the digital natives who we are targeting use social media substantially more than older generations, specifically Twitter and Instagram. Digital natives being the generation born during the age of technology, the Internet has both a collective cultural and individual significance, unlike the MTV and previous generations. (First Monday 2005) Furthermore Digital natives expect brands targeted at them to be digital, they expect online engagement through websites and social media, further inclining us to have a competition as a major part of our digital strategy.
We decided in our campaign to focus on Sex and Fun, these were implied in the campaign and not directly presented due to the strict legal requirements for alcohol advertisements. Aristotle’s theory that ‘Humans understand signs from how they have socially created meaning from language and objects’ (Aristotle, 1976) is reflected in the campaigns use of phallic objects, colour and the human body, more so in how all three interact with each other throughout the three fold campaign which was set up with the use of sexuality and constructs of gender to target the consumers in the foreground. A critical analysis will be undertaken of the whole campaign considering aspects such as; appealing to the conscious and unconscious, representation, target demographics and the use of different media environments and how, if so, continuity runs throughout.
The entirety of the advertisement campaign is designed to create discourse by being explicit, provocative, heteronormative and controversial. It needed to appeal to the products target demographic and be the subject of debate in the media, all three platforms illustrate the same provocative symbolism for instance; biting into an apple and licking lips have sexual connotations because of the cultural meanings placed on them, the insinuations are intended to stir such debate and this is critical to the success of Digital Marketing Strategy. It is expected our target demographic will focus their discussion on twitter since 37% of Twitters users are aged between 18-29 (Sprout Social, 2016), consequently the brands focus for digital strategy will be on Twitter at the time of the Video ads release.
Our Campaign plays on the stereotype that 18-26 year olds drink to excess, party and are sexually free, furthermore we presented classic gender roles and had contrasting portrayals of men and women. We did this by; only including people who appeared like our target demographic, which includes students, using bold colors and motifs to symbolize sexuality, femininity and masculinity, putting the product and actors in positions that sexualized both and finally in our choice of camera angles and shots. Our decision to only including a select section of our target demographic; on reflection the selection was too narrow, our target audiences are much wider than how we presented them by only having white British19 year olds therefore cutting out representation of our non-white and older demographic across our campaign.
Moreover, having only white actors in our campaign and then having white paint represent ‘Pure Poison Vodka’ could imply some racial symbolism, with the historical context of ‘blackface’ and white racial superiority, in retrospect, naming a Vodka ‘Pure’ whilst symbolizing that with the white paint would be damaging to the brand. This is due to racial superiority being unacceptable in modern western society, supporting instead equality and multiculturalism. In1935 USA, Elliot’s white veneer (News Activists 2015) advertised their product with ‘look how it covers over black’ as two black boys paint each other in the paint, this was accepted and wide-spread, however the 2016 the Chinese Qiaobi detergent ad (BBC News 2016) became synonymous with white-washing and received Global backlash as appearing to support white superiority whilst implying darker skin tones are filthy. ‘Pure’ has historical connotations with the holocaust and ethnic cleansing as recently as 2013’s South Sudanese Conflict. The implications of associating the brand with signs that have these negative historical connotations would damage the brand by aligning it with these negative values and beliefs.
The Video Ad had clear defined gender roles and representations of men and women as binary opposites, dominant and submissive, subject and object. Exhibited with having three males, three females and three colors of paint, the paint representing the flavor of vodka; White ‘Pure Poison’, Blue ‘Poison Berry’ and Green ‘Poison Apple’. Having both binary genders use each colour, Lips for the females, cheeks for the males ‘Poison Vodka’ represents itself as not gender specific, but heteronormative: both men and women can enjoy ‘Poison Vodka’ so long as they’re straight and young. Furthermore, ‘Men act and women appear’ (Berger J, 1972:47), women having their faces cut out are seen as passive, compared to men breaking the fourth wall and looking straight down the camera, they are shown as dominant. Additionally, the screen time men have is elongated compared to the quicker cuts on the females, further collectively illustrating that the females are passive objects, where the men are dominant subjects throughout our campaign. Similar to the common practice in advertisements to focus on women’s body parts and we wanted to emphasize sexuality and desire whilst objectifying women, so our campaign would truly embody the gender divide. Comparable shots to Boots No 7 Match Made Lipstick service (YouTube 2014) TV ad, were critical to this portrayal of women were the ‘lip shots’, having cut up their faces to focus on the lips. Having specific shots of body parts rather than the whole of the women is so ‘The viewer need not feel self-conscious about looking as no one is looking back’ (Mershkin D 2013:207). Lips are the most noticeable sexual organs and the most associated with drinking, hence through the campaign lips have served as a key image, because of restrictions we could not use anything too explicit in our campaign. ‘Scopophilia’ is the sexual pleasure of watching others engaged in sexual activities, used as an aspect of our campaign, Scopophilia is so clear in our ad because of the male gaze, the way in which visual arts and literature depict women from a masculine perspective (Mulvey 1999). The male gaze reproduces women as sexual objects for the viewer, this is evident in our campaign with the video ad and selected images on Instagram of our female characters; the use of blowing kisses, biting food, seductive smirks and licking their lips. Each of these aspects have their own cultural meaning associated with the action, they are all sexually provocative and indicate lust and passion, they’re collective existence within the campaign, viewed through male gaze supports the patriarchy, a system of society where men hold the power and women hold none.
Masculinity and Femininity needed to be distinct in our ad, having used lips and shots to sexualize women the decision to use a symbol and gesture to present masculinity was to contrast the females and emphasize binary opposition and the traditional Gender roles. Originating from the Vietnam War (1954-1975) having paint to mark camouflage symbols on their faces, using the conventional gestures to paint it, as seen throughout the media including; Platoon (1986), Black Hawk Down (2001) and The A-Team (1983-2010) Is to present strong male characters and symbolize; army, war, heroism, masculinity and notion the traditional male role. Having it on young men specifically echo’s conscription and implies they are ready to fight, alluding to the young soldiers who fought in WWI (1914-1918), 100 years prior to the advert. In addition, they could reference the Shoot ‘em up games like Call of Duty that our target demographic have been expected to engage with because of socially constructed gender norms; Boys get Action Man, Toy Guns and Call of Duty, Girls get Barbie, Dolls Houses and Make-up. The adverts use of the paint epitomizes these gender norms and presents the reality that they continue with us as from childhood to adulthood. Nonetheless the identity of our male characters are not however based fully on hegemonic masculinity which legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, rather our characters also represent the ‘Historical shift that recodes the male body’ (Ervin 2011) known as Metrosexual, exhibiting a strong aesthetic sense and interest in style. The bold bright colors symbolize a more playful, less hegemonic, more commercial, form of masculinity, more David Beckham than John McClane (Die Hard, 1989). Beckham as; the retailed aspect of masculinity, the new metrosexual male, is the shift from and contrast to the character John McClane as the traditional tough, hegemonic man. The illustration of the shift in ideology from 1989 (Die Hard, 1989) to the early 2000’s when Beckhams modeling career had just started to take off is consequently exhibited in 2016’s ‘Poison Vodka’ video advert.
The Print ad does not have continuality with the video advert, where the video objectifies women and portrays them as submissive compared to the dominant, masculine men, it has a woman in the position of power and a man as submissive. This inverse of function ranking where a man would likely perform the executive role (Goffman 1979) and therefore depict women as submissive and men as dominant is a continuality error. Just having the male slightly lower and the use of a high angle camera shot from the woman’s side symbolize the woman’s power over the man and the product. That said, the feminine touch (Goffman 1979) presented, with the female delicately grasping the bottle still sexualizes and therefore objectifies her, not placing her as a subject in charge, still an object to be gazed upon. Furthermore the Print ad does not continue the Heteronormativity as seen in the video advert, the Bottles phallic symbolism is explicit in the video, and this continues to the poster where there is both a female and male licking the bottle. The poster is designed to reflect the sexual scene in the video ad but having a male lick the bottle also does not conform to the Heteronormativity of the campaign, therefore in retrospect we should have changed our print ad to ensure continuity of meanings and messages connoted. Our Digital Marketing strategy would need to ensure not just continuity across our different media environments but also across our digital platforms such as our Instagram and YouTube videos. However, The representation of our demographic needs to be widened in our campaign, therefore the need to have some older and more racially diverse characters in our campaign would improve said representation although at the cost of continuity.
The campaign does not sell ‘Poison Vodka’ instead it sells Sex, Fun and the party lifestyle, exactly what the brand stands for, ‘Rather than simply telling consumers about the use-value of a product, the emphasis is on the products exchange-value’ (Mershkin, 2013:203/204). ‘Poison Vodkas’ fetishization is formed through implying the product has these powers that it does not, therefore creating meaning through integrating into a system of meaning. “It’s not very convincing to baldly state “drink this booze, it’s really strong and will mess you up” since intoxication is culturally problematic” (Charazan 2013 p107). Consequently ‘Poison Vodka’ is presented to mean sex and fun, similar to how Lynx Chocolate Man (2013) made the association of Lynx deodorant with female attraction. Through affiliation with ‘Poison Vodka’ the consumer unconsciously adopts these conferred qualities as their own, thus fulfilling their need and desire for sex and fun (Mershkin, 2013:203/204).
In advertising our alcoholic product we have created the Myth (Barthes: Visual Memory 2014) surrounding ‘Poison Vodka’ to be sex, fun and adventure. Our campaign links several sinful activities together to provide a “Promise of pleasure” (Charazan 2013, p118), these are explicitly Drinking and Sex and implicitly Suicide. Our promise as told in the story of the campaign to enhance the consumers life is: Drink Poison Vodka and you will achieve sexual gratification, and have a fun, adventurous time with your friends (Charazan 2013 p107). Coupling the two sinful yet pleasurable activities to our product. Naming the brand ‘Poison Vodka’ with ‘Pick your poison’ as the campaigns tagline, has connotations to death and suicide. It is ironic because initially branded ‘Poison’ to imply the danger and excitement of drinking it, the products name in reality is unconsciously telling the consumer that drinking leads to death, but you can choose which flavor to kill you. ‘Poison’ has associations with weakness and submissive, it is a feminine way to kill because of its passive, non-aggressive nature, therefore the brand ‘Poison Vodka’ is innately female.
The use of an Iconic sign (Peirce, Indiana 2000) in the brands logo rather than indexical or symbolic one is because of the physical and representational traits trees have could not be presented using either of the other signs in our logo. The tree has connotations to; Life vs. Death, Religion and Veins. Having a tree grow from the word poison symbolizes life from death, renewal and strength, however the tree is flowerless and withered reiterating poison is still toxic. The icon of the tree along with the word ‘Poison’ collectively portrays to the customer the product is dangerous and exiting, drinking Poison’ will lead to renewal and strength but consequently it will lead to aftereffects, in popular culture referred to as a hangover. Our target demographic will often refer to the aftereffects of alcohol as ‘feeling like death’, the brands logo has tried to capture this phrase and the story of drinking from start to end. Religious connotations to the sign would mainly occur in the ‘Poison Apple’ product where a single apple would hang from the dead tree, alluding to the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. The symbolism here is designed to affiliate the forbidden fruit and the tree with ‘Poison Apple’ vodka, embracing the sin to gain pleasure, the product is sold as toxic, dangerous and deadly but that is precisely what makes it so exiting and attractive to our demographic. Moreover, poison is generally considered as running through the veins of its victim, the Tree as well as being an iconic sign is also symbolic of veins; the ‘veins’ run through the poison, over the bottle that is the human body, they are black in colour suggesting death and impurity.
Because of the ‘Veins’ symbolism in our branding along with ‘Poison’ the original soundtrack choice was Alice Coopers ‘Poison’ (1997), the lyrics ‘Poison running through my veins’ embodies the symbolism of the logo and brand name ‘Poison Vodka’. However due to the age and popularity of the song among our target demographic we decided instead to pick a soundtrack that was more rooted in current popular culture. Specifically the final chosen soundtrack: Earned it by the Weekend (2015), is there to further highlight the sexiness of ‘Poison Vodka’. Having implicit intertextuality to 50 Shades of Grey (2015), a film that portrays sex, sexual adventure, fun, desire and Heteronormativity associated these representations to our product. The song itself isn’t explicitly sexual but being affiliated with the film the soundtrack connotes the same signs and therefore we have used the song to attach ‘Poison Vodka’ to these same messages. Moreover, the Weekend is a band whose target demographic is the same as ours, additionally the majority of the soundtracks for 50 Shades of Grey are sang, by artists whose target demographic is the same or similar to ‘Poison Vodka’. Therefore a critical reason behind the song choice was that our audiences would know the song, the film and the artists producing the soundtracks in order to make the association to sex, fun and desire because they are apart of popular culture. The choice to produce the video and then decide on the soundtrack lead to the advert being poorly timed with the music, there are parts where a longer shot or a specific image would have emphasized certain meanings we wanted to come across. For example at the end of the advert the song cuts off mid-lyric, this has less impact than removing the line and finishing off with no lyrics or allowing the line to end before cutting away. Furthermore, where the actress bites into the apple, the soundtrack should have had a drop in beat, or a change of some sort to establish the importance of the action both in the sexual connotations of eating and emphasizing Apple being a key flavor.
To conclude, there are aspects such as the choice of soundtrack where the campaign has succeeded in using the best and most applicable option at our disposal in order to engage with and reflect the products target demographic. There are aspects however such as racial representation in the video where a large quantity of that demographic are not represented enough, if at all. The Campaign uses traditional gender roles, binary opposites and therefore male gaze in order to represent the target demographic, whilst simultaneously understanding the shift from hegemonic masculinity to Metrosexual masculinity, within the demographic and the wider world. That said, continuity was a problem, particularly from Video to Print, function rankings were inversed therefore breaking the ideals and gender norms presented in the Video Ad and the Digital Marketing Strategy. Every image used in the campaign supports a meaning ‘Poison Vodka’ wants associated with the brand, this relies heavily that humans have an understanding of signs from how they have socially created meaning from language and objects (Aristotle, 1976). The campaign uses older signs, rooted in popular culture to underpin their new myth: Poison Vodka satisfies yours sexual desires and need for fun and adventure. Emotional appeal, both conscious and unconscious works throughout, from the use of iconic signs and religious symbolism, sinful pleasure and Scopophilia to associations to a sexually provocative film, the product gains emotional appeal to the consumer through Sex and Sin.
