Lucozade Advertisements Essays

Lucozade Advertisements Essays Lucozade Advertisements Essay Lucozade Advertisements Essay Lucozade was first launched in 1927 by Smith-Kline Beecham. When it was first launched, it was for the sick to help them with their recovery. From the 1980s it has changed to an energy drink for the healthy. In this essay, I will explain how this image changed and why. The First advert had a typical 1950-1960s family with the wife talking care of the family and the husband working. The advert starts with a sick boy in bed with a home made get-well. He is the typical boyish figure of untidy hair and still jumping around even when ill. You then see his sister on the side of bed, who is also the typical girl with the pigtails in her hair and dimples in her cheeks and the frilly dress. You see the boy fall out of his bed and stand up straight away and get his drum and start banging it. The advert then cuts to the mother looking happy and pouring him a glass of Lucozade and going up stairs to give it to him. After he has finished the glass he gets the drumsticks for his drum and taps the bottle of Lucozade. The Lucozade bottle is right in the middle of the screen and up close to the lens so most of the screen is taken up by the bottle. At the end, in the top right corner of the screen the slogan Lucozade aids recovery comes up just after he has banged the bottle. In the advertisement there is no sound except for the banging of the drum. Most of the advert has a man narrating about what happens. If the voice over wasnt there you would see so clearly what is happening in the commercial. There are no famous people in this commercial, only actors. In this commercial it was only imaged for the sick and nothing was said about giving energy to you. An improvement to this advert would have been the boy lying in bed looking very ill and groaning and when his mother gives him the Lucozade, the boy starts jumping around and making a noise. Without the voice over you would think that Lucozade does nothing to you. The bridge between ill and healthy happened in a commercial in the 1970s. This was when the new medicines were being sold in shops that didnt need a prescription. Lucozade was becoming less popular as an aid for the ill and Smith-Kline Beecham were loosing money on it. They had to find another way to sell Lucozade and then Smith-Kline Beecham had an idea. They were going to change it to an energy drink for the healthy. They couldnt change it straight from one to another so they made a commercial that would compromise both of the uses. The commercial was a mix between a cartoon and real people. It started with a cartoon of a family working out in the garden and getting too tired to do anymore. It changes to real people when they enter their home. They all have a glass of Lucozade and they are all ready to go to the fair and have a good time. It finishes with a cartoon of them in the fair and a slogan, Lucozade. Helps you through the ups and downs of the day to a tune that you would remember and stick in your mind. A voice over guided you throught the commercial, telling us that Lucozade gave you energy. The image formation was complete by the 1980s with Olympic gold medallist Daley Thompson in it. It was the first Lucozade commercial that had an idol in it. It started with a red light on screen and Daley Thompson training and looking tired. You then see an amber light come up, which is the colour of Lucozade and then Daley Thompson having some lucozade and being ready on the starting blocks. A green light comes up on the screen and then you see Daley Thompson running at full speed and not looking tired at all. It ends with the slogan, Lucozade. The Refreshing glucose drink This commercial has very little voice over except when Des Lynam says the slogan. During the commercial there is no voice over or sound effects just rock music. One of the important features in all Lucoazde ads is the way the advesisers have understood the social values of the era. From stay-at-home mums to get-up-and-go lads the company has understood very well what the target audience aspire to. The Daley Thompson commercial was the first commercial for Lucozade that used an idol in it. Smith-Kline Beecham had piggy-backed on Daley Thompson to sell their product. This strategy worked extremely well for Smith-Kline Beecham as their sales went up ten-fold when they changed their image from a recovery drink to an energy drink. Piggy-Backing can also backfire on a company as they could choose someone to advertise their product and while the commercial is on the TV, they could do something that ruins their career and also the products reputation. Since the Daley Thompson commercial, it has become a soft drink where people drunk it not just as an energy drink but as a normal drink for when your thirsty. The new Lara Croft commercial cost i 12 million to make but they have made a huge profit from selling Lucozade and have made that money back. By using computer generated characters they cannot get caught doing anything wrong to damage the companies reputation as they are not real. Their first image as a recovery drink is still known to the people who saw it as it was powerful enough for people to remember. There are now many types of Lucozade. From the original glass bottle to the original flavour in a plastic bottle, Lucozade sport, Lucozade Lemon and many other types of flavours and packaging. With such a popularity of one drink, Lucozade will never stop being manufactured.

Shaolin Monks Fight Japanese Pirates

Shaolin Monks Fight Japanese Pirates Ordinarily, the life of a Buddhist monk involves meditation, contemplation, and simplicity. In mid-16th century China, however, the monks of Shaolin Temple were called upon to battle Japanese pirates who had been raiding the Chinese coastline for decades. How did the Shaolin monks end up acting as a paramilitary or police force? The Shaolin Monks By 1550, the Shaolin Temple had been in existence for approximately 1,000 years. The resident monks were famous throughout Ming China for their specialized and highly effective form of kung fu (gong fu). Thus, when ordinary Chinese imperial army and navy troops proved unable to stamp out the pirate menace, Nanjings Vice-Commissioner-in-Chief, Wan Biao, decided to deploy monastic fighters. He called upon the warrior-monks of three temples: Wutaishan in Shanxi Province, Funiu in Henan Province, and Shaolin. According to contemporary chronicler Zheng Ruoceng, some of the other monks challenged the leader of the Shaolin contingent, Tianyuan, who sought the leadership of the entire monastic force. In a scene reminiscent of countless Hong Kong films, the eighteen challengers chose eight from among themselves to attack Tianyuan. First, the eight men came at the Shaolin monk with bare hands, but he fended them all off. They then grabbed swords; Tianyuan responded by seizing the long iron bar that was used to lock the gate. Wielding the bar as a staff, he defeated all eight of the other monks simultaneously. They were forced to bow to Tianyuan, and acknowledge him as the proper leader of the monastic forces. With the question of leadership settled, the monks could turn their attention to their real adversary: the so-called Japanese pirates. The Japanese Pirates The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were tumultuous times in Japan. This was the Sengoku Period, a century and a half of warfare among competing daimyo when no central authority existed in the country. Such unsettled conditions made it hard for ordinary folks to make an honest living... but easy for them to turn to piracy. Ming China had problems of its own. Although the dynasty would hang on to power until 1644, by the mid-1500s it was beset by nomadic raiders from the north and west, as well as rampant brigandage along the coast. Here, too, piracy was an easy and relatively safe way to make a living. Thus, the so-called Japanese pirates, wako or woku, were actually a confederation of Japanese, Chinese, and even some Portuguese citizens who banded together. (The pejorative term wako literally means dwarf pirates.) The pirates raided for silks and metal goods, which could be sold in Japan for up to ten times their value in China. Scholars debate the precise ethnic makeup of the pirate crews, with some maintaining that no more than 10% were actually Japanese. Others point to the long list of clearly Japanese names among the pirate rolls. In any case, these motley international crews of seagoing peasants, fishermen, and adventurers wreaked havoc up and down the Chinese coast for more than 100 years. Calling Out the Monks Desperate to regain control of the lawless coast, Nanjing official Wan Biao mobilized the monks of Shaolin, Funiu, and Wutaishan. The monks fought the pirates in at least four battles. The first took place in the spring of 1553 on Mount Zhe, which overlooks the entrance to Hangzhou City via the Qiantang River. Although details are scarce, Zheng Ruoceng notes that this was a victory for the monastic forces. The second battle was the monks greatest victory: the Battle of Wengjiagang, which was fought in the Huangpu River Delta in July of 1553. On July 21, 120 monks met an approximately equal number of pirates in battle. The monks were victorious, and chased the remnants of the pirate band south for ten days, killing every last pirate. Monastic forces suffered only four casualties in the fighting. During the battle and mop-up operation, the Shaolin monks were noted for their ruthlessness. One monk used an iron staff to kill the wife of one of the pirates as she tried to escape the slaughter. Several dozen monks took part in two more battles in the Huangpu delta that year. The fourth battle was a grievous defeat, due to incompetent strategic planning by the army general in charge. After that fiasco, the monks of Shaolin Temple and the other monasteries seem to have lost interest in serving as paramilitary forces for the Emperor. Warrior-Monks: An Oxymoron? Although it seems quite odd that Buddhist monks from Shaolin and other temples would not only practice martial arts but actually march into battle and kill people, perhaps they felt the need to maintain their fierce reputation. After all, Shaolin was a very wealthy place. In the lawless atmosphere of late Ming China, it must have been very useful for the monks to be renowned as a deadly fighting force. Sources John Whitney Hall, The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Meir Shahar, Ming-Period Evidence of Shaolin Martial Practice, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 61:2 (Dec. 2001). Meir Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008).