Lara Croft situation

The two advertisements that I have chosen to compare are Lucozade and Red Bull. I have chosen these two advertisements due to the fact they are both energy drinks. Lucozade Firstly, I would like to talk about a Lucozade advert that featured on the television in 2001. This advert is centered around the computer game character Lara Croft. Lara is shown being chased by a pack of wolves in a typical Tomb Raider situation (Tomb Raider is a best selling game that came out on the playstation in March 1995) and runs out of ammunition for her handgun. She continues to run until she arrives at a ruined bridge. There is no way across, and the wolves are ready to pounce on her.
Lara is trapped. The in-game inventory comes up on the screen (the in-game inventory is a menu that comes up when activated on the playstation console), and Lara scrolls through various snack foods until she gets to Lucozade and drinks it. She skips all the other products as if she is disregarding them and the only thing that can save her is Lucozade. This creates the image that Lucozade will save you in times of crisis, will give you confidence and make you successful. The Lucozade seems to give her the mental and physical energy to save herself, for she now jumps off the bridge. The wolves pounce after her but also go off the bridge, falling to their death. However, Lara has caught hold of a small ledge under the bridge and just hauls herself back up again. She has outsmarted the wolves.
Lucozade has kept its male youth market by involving several features in this advertisement. Lara Croft; the computer generated character, is well known in the gaming world as being the number one sexiest character. So lucozade have used an attractive woman to promote this drink. The computer graphics style would also be appealing to young computer game players, which has become a hugely popular leisure activity.

Lucozade has now expanded its appeal to women as well, by having a female heroine, who would feature as the female icon or role model. There is a lot of women in this present day who feel strongly towards women independence. Lucozade have used this desire of independence and basically give the women what they want, which is basically a female heroine. Lara is chased by a pack of wolves. Wolves are already seen as fierce, however as it is based on an adventurous computer game, they have altered the features of the wolves to much evil characters. The wolf now possesses red eyes and the teeth have been exposed with saliva coming from the side of there mouths, creating a good versus evil theme. Lara is independent and confident (when she blows the wolves a kiss before jumping off the bridge) and she does not need a man to save her (again this stresses the woman independence) which would appeal to women.
Throughout the advert, Lara’s energy bar is displayed at the top of the screen, just like in the computer game. When Lara drinks the Lucozade the energy bar moves from almost empty to full, which shows how energizing Lucozade really is. Lara slams the Lucozade in front of the camera at the end of the advert and I feel she is saying that it is one of her most useful things in her Tomb Raiding adventures and she doesn’t know where she would be without it and is inviting you to try it too.