Mini Research Project- Textual Analysis

Zoella’s Advert- Textual Analysis

As the Youtube community is beginning to grow dramatically in popularity, the stars of Youtube are beginning to become household names just like famous singers and film stars. One way that they are beginning to become more well known is because of advertisements for popular Youtube channels that are now being shown on primetime television. As well as the adverts being shown on television you will also find the adverts on the side of buses, billboards and on social networking sites. Everyone has access to at least one of these formats meaning that a vast mixed audience are becoming aware of the online Youtube community.

Zoella is one of the stars that has her own 30 second advert to promote her channel. Although the advert is only 30 seconds long you learn everything you need to know about her and her channel as it’s very fast pace and shows the key point of her life and what she has achieved. The advert starts with a blank white screen with Zoella and the Youtube logo written right in the middle. Only three colour, black, white and red, are used keeping it simple and attention grabbing. Over the top of this part of the advert you hear upbeat music and a voice over by Zoe herself. It was a good choice to use upbeat music as it reflects Zoe’s personality and the fact that she wants her channel to be a place for people to come if they want to feel supported and want feel comforted when they’re sad. The voice over music continue throughout the advert as Zoe begins to introduce herself and gives specific, straight to the point information about herself. With the small amount of information you find out that Zoe’s channel focuses on beauty, fashion and lifestyle and Youtube started off as a hobby and because of us, the viewers she has managed to achieve so much. The positivity of what she says is very inviting and she makes it clear that she is just a normal person who is very lucky, this is inspiring especially for a younger female audience as they may look at Zoe as a good role model who they could follow in the footsteps of.

The layout of the advert is very similar to the layout of a Youtube page, I think it was a good idea to do this because it reinforces that Zoe is an internet star, not a famous person from the television, also by showing the set up of a Youtube channel it offers people that are unaware of what Youtube is a chance to see what it looks like and how they may go about accessing it. The advert shows various clips from Zoe’s videos in the same format as you would see them if you were to go and watch them online. This is informative as you find out the average length of one of her videos, the punchy titles that tell you what her videos cover and you also see what her personality is like and as a young, attractive female she will looks like the sort of person that many young females aspire to be.

An editing technique that think is very modern and relevant to what the advertisement is trying to advertise is a transition used to switch to a different piece of footage. To get from the shot where you see Zoe speaking in the style of how her Youtube channel is set up, to a close up of her face, a cursor comes onto the screen and clicks on the ‘full screen’ button. With the click you hear a typical mouse clicking sound and this is the transition to to next part of the advert where you see some more close up clips of Zoe’s videos. The same transition is used again to go back to the Youtube channel layout where you see the ‘number of views’ section of one of Zoe’s videos increasing at an extremely fast pace. As the number is rising it zooms in closer, I think this is a good shot to create an impact because it draws the audience to focus on how quickly Zoe’s popularity is rising suggesting that her videos are great and worth watching. 

The final shot at the end of the video uses the same editing technique of the fast pace number increase to show the increase of Zoe’s subscribers. The creators of the advert may have wanted to emphasise how quickly Zoe’s popularity is increasing so found that this editing technique would be a quick way of showing it. The advert finally ends with the slogan ‘Youtube- Bringing out the best in me’ which is very positive and a strong statement. The slogan reflects upon the advert that you have just seen to make the audience realise that Youtube made Zoe become the BEST person she has ever been. This is a good slogan to enforce as many people that see the advert on television are unlikely to be viewers of online content therefore they may be ignorant about the communities online that also have negative connotations. The internet and social networking is often displayed in the media to be a dangerous place where people hide behind a screen as a way of victimising people. Zoe’s advert contradicts how the internet is usually publicised and shows that it is full of people, just like us, who share their lives with us in an easily accessible way that is growing in popularity. 

The connotations of happiness and positivity as displayed throughout the advert by using clips of Zoe where she is smiling, waving and laughing. Also clips where she is dressed in bright colours or filming in a bright and colourful area. It takes away the myth of the internet being a dark place which could introduce an older audience who have previously been against the internet to give it a go and see that the internet can also be used for good and Zoe is almost like a case study to show this.