Analysing advertising, marketing and music video set products through the four frameworks, including persuasive techniques, brand identity, the conventions of music video, and how these forms target and position audiences.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to analyse advertising, marketing and music video set products through the four frameworks. You should know persuasive techniques, how brand identity is built, the conventions of music video, and how these forms target and position audiences. Advertising and music video are media forms in the AQA GCSE Media Studies (8572) specification, examined in Paper 2, where they reward strong media language and audience analysis.

Advertising and persuasion

Adverts work by association: they position the audience to link the product with positive feelings or an aspirational lifestyle, so that buying it seems to deliver those feelings. The codes do the persuading. Warm lighting and a happy family connote belonging; a celebrity endorsement transfers the star's desirable qualities to the product; an aspirational setting connotes success and status; a memorable slogan fixes the brand in the audience's mind. The analytical move examiners reward is explaining how a technique persuades, not just spotting it, and showing how the advert builds a brand identity that works over time and across many products.

Music video conventions

A music video is promotion as much as art: its job is to sell the song and build the artist's image and brand. Performance footage establishes the artist's identity and connects with fans; narrative engages the audience with a story that may or may not match the lyrics; concept videos use striking, symbolic imagery to create a memorable, shareable identity. The codes (costume, setting, editing pace, colour) construct a representation of the artist that the target audience can identify with. Linking the conventions and codes to the artist's image and to audience appeal is the route to the higher bands.

Targeting and positioning audiences

Both forms target a defined audience and position them to respond in a particular way, whether to buy a product or to identify with an artist. An advert aimed at young adults uses different codes, platforms and mode of address from one aimed at families, and a music video targets the artist's fan base through genre conventions and a carefully constructed image. Linking persuasive or video techniques to the intended audience, and explaining the gratifications the form offers (entertainment, personal identity, aspiration), is the core analytical skill.

How this is examined

Advertising and music video set products are examined in Paper 2, with questions worth up to 12 marks that name a framework. Questions may ask you to explain how an advert persuades, evaluate how a music video constructs an artist's image, or analyse audience appeal. The reliable scoring move is to name the techniques, explain how they persuade or promote, connect them to brand or artist identity, and tie them to the target audience.