Remixing Advertising Media for Gender Awareness


There’s no doubt that the Lego corporation is trying to make inroads with girls. Just look at the pink sets of pieces, and the themes that they are generating. And notice how the sets aimed at boys continue to be adventure-orientated, and mostly blue. This interesting site that I found called The HTML5 Gendered Lego Advertising Remix brings this difference to light in an interesting way. The site (which requires an upgraded browser) allows you to pull the audio from a boy or girl Lego set and put it beneath a video of a girl or boy Lego set.

What you notice is the way that music and voice is used, and color (of course), and theme. My youngest son loves Legos (as did his older brothers) but he is turned off by the girlie Lego sets. I’m not sure of the answer to how to best address gender by businesses, who after all are in the business of selling things.

The results from this remix site are pretty fascinating, I think, and provide a good insight for students to be thinking of the way they are targeted for advertising through design, theme, image and audio. I may need to try this activity with my students as part of our Digital Life unit. (Question for me: will our browsers allow it?)

Peace (from a boy),
Kevin

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *