Genre Theory and Advertisements

• Genre helps to minimise risk and predict expenditure. This is important because companies require a predictable income and need to budget.
• Genre creates familial pleasures – we see what we expect and enjoy watching the things we like.
• Genre satisfies our needs for entertainment and escapism. 

However...

• Genre can also lead to repetition of the same conventions, leading audiences to become bored.
• In order to maintain an audience’s interest, producers will need to maintain some conventions of the genre and use them in a traditional way, whilst also creating difference in others. 

Steve Neale - Repetition and Difference

The idea that:

• Genres may be dominated by repetition, but are also marked by difference, variation and change.
• Genres change, develop and overlap with one another.
• Difference is essential to the economy of genre. For example, he discusses the growing sub-genres of music which appeal to wider audiences. 

Hybridity 

This is where hybridity can be achieved as  producers strive to make products that blend, familiarity with innovation. Hybrids are media products which have conventions of combined genres. 

Christian Metz

Metz was a French film theorist who known for his genre characteristics theory. Metz claims there are 4 development stages that can be applied to a genre:

• Classical
• Experimental
• Parody 
• Deconstruction

The Experimental Stage

This is an original piece of work which is developing the initial codes and conventions of the genre. 

For example the Thriller movie genre was established as early as 1926 with silent thriller film, ‘The Lodger’.

The Classical Stage

This is where genre develops and conventions are set. Texts in this stage become iconic.  For example, Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho ‘ which is thought to have set the conventions of a typical thriller. The sound either creates suspense and an ominous atmosphere or is fast paced to create fear. The lighting, editing and so on also create the same effect within the viewer. These iconic elements are still used today.

The Parody Stage

Beyond the development stage we reach a phrase where thriller scenes and movies incorporate comedic effects watering down expectations of the film and mocking the conventions we expect of the genre.  

The Deconstruction Stage

The thriller genre has now evolved into a stage where hybrids are evident. The thriller has now fused with several other genre creating sub-categories the most established being sci-fi/thriller or horror/thriller hybrids.

Crime/ Mystery Genre

Codes and Conventions - Police, Detectives, Drama, Murder, Mystery

Sub-Genres - legal, mystery, police procedural, medical, forensic, military, suspense

Hybrid Genres -  Crime-Drama, Crime-Horror, Crime-Romance

Murders in the Rue Morgue ( Development Stages):

Murders in the Rue Morgue - 1932 

Detective fiction/Mystery

The Murders in the Rue Morgue - 1986

 Adaptation/Historical period drama











Morgue Street - 2012

Thriller/ Short











The Raven - 2012

Drama/ Mystery











Old Spice

Which codes and conventions of the male grooming genre does the advert use and what does it subvert? 

Similarities

• Product Image
• Muscular/ masculine
• Mid-shot - shoulders and chest
• Privileged - holiday, escapism
• Women - sunbathing, bikinis

Subversion

• Ethnic Model
• Vibrant Colour Scheme
• Comedic Undertone - volcano, 'this fact has not been fact checked'

The Old Spice Fresh Collection features the scents Fiji, Matterhorn and Denali, available in antiperspirant deodorant, body spray, body wash and bar soap (Fiji only). The copy states that it is ' Inspired by some of the freshest places on earth' and that 'the Old Spice Fresh Collection is infused with just the right touch of scent to leave guys feeling fresh and confident all day long' 

Ownership

• Old Spice is owned by the large corporation Proctor and Gamble, often known as P&G
• The company has a massive portfolio of leadership brands
• These brands include Ambi-Pur, Ariel, Bounty, Charmin, Crest, Duracell, Fairy, Febreze, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Olay, Pantene, Vicks to name a few!

1960s advert for Old Spice. The logo of the clipper ship with connotations of American colonial trade with Africa and the far East emphasised its 'classic' and 'traditional' image. We might speculate what a 'masculine aroma' really is. Clearly it was meant for each man/woman to apply a shared sense of the conventional 'masculine' man whilst stressing it to be 'clean,crisp'. 

 

In the '30s, the Shulton company tried to focus on the colonial style and early history of the United States. Shulton, created by William Schultz in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, was engaged in soap manufacturing. He rented his office and production and packaging were put on credit, but the company ended its first year with a profit.

In 1937, Bullock’s department store in Los Angeles suggested that Shulton develop a line of cosmetics and perfumes with a colonial theme, based on the good sales of furniture in this particular style.

The project turned out to be too expensive for one department store, but nevertheless Schultz decided to release his product on the American market. Shulton already had Old Spice soap in the line; the name of the fragrance expanded it a bit.

In 1937, the Early American Old Spice perfume set for women appeared on the US market: It consisted of talc, soap, toilet water, powder, and bath salts. The packaging in the colonial style, which looked like it was painted by hand, was reusable, for example, as a box for napkins, knick-knacks, spices, or as a sewing box. The bottles and boxes were painted in the style of German or Dutch migrants who settled in America.

Contexts

• Proctor & Gamble’s Old Spice was, for many years, in a market with much less competition, the best known men’s grooming brand. 
• Old Spice first appeared in 1938. Between the 1950-1970, there was much less competition for male grooming products. 
• The market was small because values of the period regarding masculinity did not stretch to male deodorants or aftershave, Aftershave for most men, was something to be worn on special occasions. 
• During the 1970s, brands such as Brut marketed new products by making clear links to masculinity. Brut hired sports celebrities such as Kevin Keegan to widen the appeal to men and to emphasise the link between using the product and a newer emerging concept of masculinity. This would fully establish itself in the 1990s with the concept of metro-sexuality. 
•  A consequence of the campaigns of brands such as Brut, Denim and later Lynx was that established brands such as Old Spice became associated with an older generation. 

Whilst brands such as denim emerged in the 1970s and emphasised the sexual allure of their brand - that women desire men who use such products - Old Spice stuck with traditional and conventional notions of ruggedness, hiring American Football stars such as 'Hacksaw' Reynolds and emphasising 'tough guys', 'the meanest face' 'smells clean, classic and masculine'. 

Key terms for this theory:

• Codes
• Conventions
• Sub-genre
• Hybridity 
• Repetition
• Difference 
• Expectation 
• Subversion
• Development stages