But He Has Bud Light

Labatt Blue commercial - It's the weekend

Guinness ad - Rugby World Cup 2007

Beer Me - Duncombe and Beer Advertising: Response to Reading

Beer – the world’s oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage. Most people can’t list the breweries in their country alone – especially in beer hot spots like Germany, The UK, The US and Canada because they are so plentiful. It goes without saying that beer ads are all over the place(usually with scantilly clad, sexy women helping to sell to the predominantly male buyers) , and beer conglomerates will spend millions if not billions in advertising to lure certain types of drinkers in. Being that I work at Canada’s third largest brewery, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at Duncombe’s chapter on advertising and how it translates to the beer industry.Of course, dissecting my own company’s ads could hurt buyers, which could then put me out of work, but we can take an in depth look at big players from Canada (John Labatt’s Blue), Ireland (Guinness) and The US (Budweiser). This will hopefully shed some light on the international beer scene.

In the opening pages of his chapter on advertising, Duncombe states, "ads make their pitch not to our heads but to our hearts (or anatomy a bit lower)"(Duncombe 79). By this Duncombe means that advertisers aim to pull consumers in by appealing to what means the most to them, whether its sport, weekend antics or sex. Consider the above ad with the Bud Light girl - "Life is good" boasts the ad. Bud Light is trying to convey to consumers that life is good when you consume their product, but also that sexy women drink their beer. What kind of drinker would buy this beer if the ad depicted an unattractive or average looking woman - very few. Drinkers want to consume the same products as beautiful people do in order to become beautiful, special, etc.

"All advertising is about transformation. The product advertised will transform you from what your are (incomplete, inadequate and thoroughly normal) into what you would like to be (fulfilled, successful and completely special)." (Duncombe 80) Both the Guinness and Labatt video advertisements above play on this principal. With the Guinness ad, Guinness tries to imply that by consuming their product the average Rugby viewer or Rugby player can be carried by their team through spirit and unity to glory on the pitch. However the Labatt's ad seems to work on many different plains with respect to this principal. The average joe, office workers, etc. are all shown coming out of their shells and becoming weekend warriors while drinking with friends. Blue is trying to promote their product by showing that the average joe transforms into a hooligan and can embody youth and exhuberance while drinking Labatt's. Although Labatt's shows these average people becoming fulfilled, the ad also works to show people who are already successful and fulfilled being transformed to the thoroughly normal. In this way, Labatt has made itself accessible to a much larger demographic than Guinness or Budweiser. It is important to note that Labatt's is domestic - meaning the price is neither cheap nor expensive but mid-range, and this advertising ploy helps to maintain the average drinker but also may draw in people who spend more money on imported beers, as well as those who spend less money on beer.

Individualizing advertisements is difficult for most advertisers, but where there is a will there is a way. Of individualizing the product, Duncombe writes, "It is natural for advertisers to address the individual. They want individual people to buy individual products, and their model world is composed of individual units in pursuit of self-gratification." (Duncombe 85) The Bud Light TV advertisement above helps to illustrate what Duncombe is referring to. The man hitchhiking with an axe and case of Bud Light is individualized, and picked up by the average joe and his girlfriend merely because he is a Bud Light drinker. Bud Light is attempting to say 'if you drink Bud Light - you're a good person" through this advertisement, which also plays on Duncombe's theory of transformation. However, this ad individualizes its drinkers by showing an axe weilding psycho, which leads me to believe it was probably aired around Halloween or on some horror movie network in order to grab the attention of people who are fascinated with horror. The Labatt Blue advertisement above also individualizes with the pictures of all different sorts of their drinkers and their weekend antics appearing before the 'Cheers to Friends' slogan. Guinness also plays upon this by directing their ad at Rugbyer's (please take note this ad was aired during the Rugby World Cup 2007 during match commercial breaks).

Works Cited

Duncombe, Stephen. Dream: Reimagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. New York: The New Press, 2007.

For the Love of Rugby and Parody: Response to Class Discussion

For some, February is the month of ‘love’ being that the 14th is Valentines Day. However, since I was young February has also held a different type of importance to me. Never could I love a person as much as I love my sport – Rugby, a gentleman’s game enjoyed by ruffians and hooligans.

February marks the beginning of two very important tournaments in the sport – The Six Nations (comprised of England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Italy & France) as well as the Super 14 (a club tournament with 5 South African, 5 New Zealand and 4 Australian club teams). In keeping with our class discussion of fake news, irony and parody within the media I came across a wide array of images and articles relating to these three topics. Of course, what better way to spread Valentines love with the help of Rugby and fake news?


Being that my heritage is English it goes against the grain of my nature to promote such garbage teams as France and hopefully you will forgive me for being biased because of my pride. The images I found were generated after England won the Webb Ellis (the sport’s most important trophy/ the World Cup) in 2003 by defeating Australia in overtime in Sydney, Australia. Below are some ironic images England used post-World Cup to assert their new status as World Champions. My particular favourite is the Sydney Opera House with St. George's flag and the English Rose slapped across it.


In the 2007 World Cup, England went in as the massive underdog, with Ireland and South Africa looking extremely strong and in beautiful form. That’s not to say the English didn’t have their fun with parody and propaganda to promote their way through the tournament. Perhaps their fun loving nature depicted by the images below was what motivated them to a final with heavy favourites South Africa Springboks. Please take note; we did beat Australia in quarter finals, with several depressed Aussie having to be assisted by mates to the help lines below. Also, the dominant hand of English Rugby squashed French hopes in semi-finals (on their own soil nonetheless, being as RWC 2007 was held in France), much like a dirty Englishmen squishing a frog in his hand (sorry if this is culturally offensive to French readers).

A final with the South Africans was set and England had left all other teams in utter disbelief because of their weak pool play. But things had turned around lately for English fans with their surprising big wins over Rugby giants France (for a 'spoof' pre-match assessment see article 3 below) and Australia. A close game, some poor refereeing and some stupid penalties on England’s part helped the South Africans hoist the Webb Ellis on the 20th of October 2007. However, the following day vital information disallowing South Africa the cup was discovered (please see links below for full articles.)

"The South African team were boarding their Apartheid Airlines flight for their triumphant journey home when the story broke and French Air Traffic controllers refused to give the aircraft clearance for take off.

After armed Gendarmes boarded the plane and arrested full back Percy Montgomery the World Cup was seized and tagged as stolen property, the Springboks were taken from the aircraft in disgrace, Habana was close to tears,"I just cant believe it! They said if we won they would let me sit on a seat on the way home and even have some food."A Rugby World Cup Attorney confirmed this afternoon that Montgomery had been found to be ineligible because he is under contract to Steven Spielberg's Production company, Dreamworks and has been cast as Prince Charming in the next 39 Shrek Films." TheSpoof.com (see link 1 for full article)

If only this were true, I would be one happy Englishman. However, after reading this article I had a good chuckle and realized there is always 2011 to bring the cup back to England. TheSpoof.com also had another interesting article regarding English Rugby. On February 2nd, 2008, England opened their Six Nations campaign against Wales at Twickenham (their home field in London). Being that Wales hadn’t won at Twickenham in roughly 25 years, I was relatively disappointed when they beat England. Since England’s national soccer team haven’t won a FIFA World Cup since 1966, and have grown even worse since the appearance of the notorious ‘David Beckham’, I found TheSpoof.com article relieving. At least someone could make light of the current state of British sport.

The English rugby team has found itself in hot water with the government's watchdog for mediocrity. The Council for Underperformance in National Teams has launched an investigation into how the England XV nearly won at Twickenham yesterday.The unfortunately acronymed Council made the following statement: "We are pleased at how poorly the England Football and Cricket teams have been playing recently, and the results have enabled England to maintain its worldwide reputation for being perennial losers. We were apalled at the dominant position the England rugby team had achieved after forty minutes. Praise should go to Brian Ashton whose team talk at half time did the trick and allowed Wales to beat us." - TheSpoof.com (see link 2 for full article)


I hope my exploration of parody and Rugby was entertaining. If I had of had the time to throw together a proper thesis for this piece it probably would have read something like ‘my essay will attempt to prove that a) parody is useful to relieve tension and make light of situations and b) by some miracle of God, Rugby players are now able not only to lay big hits and consume alcohol in vast quantities, but scientists have discovered they are now trying to associated with other human beings by attempting speech and the most advanced specimens studied can even joke and parody things.

Links:

Article 1 - http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s3i26027
Article 2 - http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s1i29872
Article 3 - http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s6i25717

Other Rugby Spoofs:

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s6i29890
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s6i25780
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s6i25849
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s6i25773

Welcome To Fight Club - What I've Learned So Far: Self Reflexive Post

Fight Club (1999) – Probably one of the more important films in the past decade. The reason Fight Club is appearing in a self reflexive post is because that is what I feel the past three weeks has become.

When out for drinks with my friend the other night we got to talking about film as we usually do and our on-going debate of whether to get with Blu Ray or HD, and why both of these were even invented became a sort of catharsis for me. As Jack would say, ‘And there they were… Bolter and Grusin’s words coming from my mouth’. My new knowledge of remediation helped me better understand why there is suddenly this new craze for Blu Ray and HD – because the technology has been remediated and thus become the new and improved DVD, just as DVD replaced VHS. Ian also furthered these ideas with his discussion of CD player to Mini Disc to Ipod.

Jack: ...Consumers?

Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.

There you have it – this is the answer to whether or not my friend and I will get with the times and pick up a Blu Ray or HD DVD player. The answer is quite obviously yes, we will both end up purchasing these because we are indeed consumers with a lifestyle obsession burned into our minds because we live in a capitalist society and media has constantly reinforced this over our 20 years. The thing that aggravates me the most is how right my friend was in saying, "I could buy The Exorcist, The Godfather, Fight Club, American Psycho and every other film essential to a good library on five or six different formats throughout the course of my life." Entire media libraries, built up over a few years until the latest and greatest comes along - just when you thought you were finally complete. It would be nice to throw it all away and ‘lose everything so that we are free to do anything’ like Tyler, but let’s face it – this is the way it is. ‘The things I own have ended up owning me’ just as Tyler warns Jack in the film, and I have become my MP3 player, my Xbox 360, my Dell desktop, my Lexmark printer, my flat screen HD TV and will eventually become my Blu Ray or HD DVD player.

My point with all the Fight Club examples is that I have become a hell of a lot more media conscious in the past three weeks, and this is just by reading one text and engaging here and there in class discussion. The biggest thing that I feel has contributed to my new awareness as a consumer of media is this blog. By placing me in front of my computer and asking me to think critically and interpret the things projected to me by media every day, I feel I have learned a great deal more than I would just sitting in class writing notes. This also allows for me to put a piece of myself into each post I write, which makes things a great deal easier than having a strict outline before me. Lastly, the group presentation helped me learn a great deal about my learning style. In my past year and a half at University of Guelph I have never got together with group members to work on a presentation, and I have had my fair share being in a good deal of English seminars. Getting together with the group members helped me realize I get a lot more accomplished on my own – not that their input wasn’t exceptional – I just feel that by working on my own I can set and monitor my own work habits which is easier for me.

Thanks to this course I am quickly becoming Jack’s media conscious consumer.

Works Cited

Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Art Linson Productions, 1999.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996.

The Transparency of First Person Shooters: Response to Class Discussion

The group presentation tonight seemed to generate a great deal of discussion, much of which was of great interest to me. A considerable amount of questions were raised about the concept of transparency in film, and the possibility of a film being completely transparent. The best examples of this from classmates were Maya’s interest in the films of Michael Winterbottom, and Dewey’s interest in Trailer Park Boys.

The Winterbottom films are quite close to complete transparency, in that in The Road To Guantanamo (2006), In This World (2002) and 24 Hour Party People (2002) all make you feel like you are actually involved in the plot. Winterbottom has a real knack for making the audience feel like you are right next to the character through the use of night vision camera work and the majority of the film being shot in hand held. Trailer Park Boys also does this with the interviews with characters, the use of hand held, and the feeling of a documentary style film.

However, both of these are quite immersive in their own right, but after listening to all the examples and presenting some myself, I couldn’t help but realize they can’t even come close to offering the transparency of a video game. To get down to specifics, the first person shooter is the closest we have come to a transparent medium.

To start from the beginning, in 1999, Irrational Games created System Shock 2 for the Sega Dreamcast. The game appears on numerous ‘Best Games of All Time’ list, and takes place in the future on board a spaceship. The interface (shown below) is quite complicated. Just from looking at it, it isn’t hard to see how frustrating operating such a massive interface to switch weapons, reload, etc. would be. It is interesting that Irrational’s next success was a game set in 1961 in an underwater dystopian society much like Atlantis.

At some point, Irrational Games became 2K Game’s, and they created Bioshock (2007). With Bioshock, gamers receive the latest in transparency and interface design (or lack thereof). There is a screenshot from Bioshock below. When walking through levels, all that is displayed on the screen is health, eve (the supply of special abilities which diminishes each time used) and what type of plasmid (special ability) or weapon is currently drawn (ammo appears when guns are drawn). For the Xbox 360, you must press RB or LB in order to cycle through the plasmids/weapons available to you, at which point the game pauses and an interface pops up for gamers to select from. This revolutionizes game play and makes everything less cluttered, easier to operate and much more transparent. Just compare the two screenshots below and it isn’t difficult to see which game you’d rather be playing.

In short, as time goes on, games become much more transparent. The reason video games are becoming more transparent than film is because they are interactive. Film may place you directly beside a character as with the Winterbottom films or Trailer Park Boys, but you can’t reach out and touch them. Video games bring us that much closer to transparency, specifically with interfaces disappearing. When you talk to someone about a film, you may say ‘remember the scene where so and so shot that guy?’ However, when discussing a game, it is easy to catch yourself saying, ‘I finally killed that guy!’ The high level of interaction in a video game allows for users to lose themselves much more easily, and brings us that much closer to complete transparency of the medium.