M3 - Squack follows Codes and Conventions

How Squack follows Codes and Conventions

Introduction

Advertising, whether it be multimedia or traditional, must follow a set of codes and conventions in order to create an effective campaign. This will include the messages and imagery an advertisement uses or how it is sent to an audience. Squack, my drink brand and multimedia product to be advertised, follows these codes and conventions while also standing out in its own way.

Codes and Conventions

For all media, there are a set of common codes that  are used to create an engaging product, from a full length film to a six second advert. Many media sectors such as film, TV, radio, print and music follows these codes without even realizing.

Symbolic Codes

Symbolic codes are an associative method of deciphering how a media product relates to real life. Because of how these codes are used in our day-to-day life, they are not hidden in the least and are easily recognized by anyone. For example, a dove sat on a cross would heavily connotate religion and Christianity, as those two factors are related to that real-life topic. This can be symbolized in many ways, such as setting, clothing, colour and mise-en-scene. The image above shows an advertisement for a drink and includes the products dead center in the background with a beach setting behind. This imagery can show freshness and a summer mood, which is emphasized by the bright lighting and blue sky. It makes the drink itself look refreshing and satisfying.

This Squack poster follows the Symbolic Codes through it's use of mise-en-scene, colour and props. The can is central in the poster, with an imposing rubber duck looming above it. It makes the originally silly duck look intimidating and threatening, like it's guarding the drink like a god. The dark blue contrasts the sharp yellow of the Squack can and makes the drink look even more colourful and important. These images can  be affiliated with real life and recognized in the real world to not be like how they're seen in the advert.

Technical Codes

Technical Codes are the way that the technology used to create the media is used to make an aspect effective. This contrasts the Symbolic Codes as it is not used throughout a day-to-day life and will probably not be recognized by the target audience. This will use techniques such as camerawork, editing, lighting, sound and special effects. The image above shows a scene from a film that's been adapted from a comic book. The scenes been edited to saturate the red and shape of the heart, making the area around it look grey and dull. Even if you have not seen the film or even the scene, you can tell that this is a melancholy scene, from how dark the lighting is and how even the heart is a lavish dark red as opposed to a light, hopeful red.

Unfortunately, there is no real evidence of Technical codes being used in the Squack advertisements because all of these are done graphically and without any use of camera work. If I was to create a Squack advertisement that demanded a use of Technical Codes, those adverts would have bright lighting and saturated colours that are used to make the drink look fun and quirky.

Written Codes

Written codes are how the language and writing of a media product is used to create effect. This can be done in the lyrics of a song, the dialogue in a script or the wording in an advert, and includes the consideration of written text, typography, graphics and both printed and spoken language. The image above shows a great example of written code through a magazine cover for a fashion company. The red text is large and bold, showing its importance yet the font is serif and includes lots of curves and thin parts, which makes the text look elegant and professional. The wording is straight forward without a sense of irony or sarcasm, which shows how professional the product is.

The text used in the Squack advertising always uses the same font and colour for each advert. This makes it consistent with the brand and creates a weird but effective contrast with the usually blue backgrounds. None of the sentences or text include capital letters or punctuation, which shows how informal and lax the brand is. The slogan used for Squack is "all natural" which highlights the main selling point of the drink being it's a naturally created drink with no artificial flavors. It's also simple and straight forward, adding an odd sense of simplicity that contrasts the weirdness of the brand.