Advertising : Portraying And Stereotypes Of Women In Advertising

Jean Kilbourne is an advocate for women and is leading a movement to change the way women are viewed in advertising. She opens up the curtains to reveal the hard truth we choose to ignore or even are too obtuse to notice. Women are objectified, materialized, and over-sexualized in order to sell clothes, products, ideas and more. As a woman, I agree with the position Kilbourne presents throughout her documentary Killing Us Softly 4: The Advertising’s Image of Women (2010) and her TEDx Talk The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women (2014.) She demonstrates time and again that these advertisements are dangerous and lead to unrealistic expectations of women.

Old Spice is very blatant in the way they attract their customers. An obvious example is The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial. In this advertisement Old Spice envisions their audience to be anyone who is in a relationship or trying to be in relationship. The more obvious targeted audience is the female audience. To attract the female audience they put an attractive man in the commercials and try to make it seem that if their “man” uses old spice body washes their “man” will be like him.

The commercial shown in figure 1 is for a perfume called ‘the one gentleman’ which Matthew Mcconaughey a well-known actor did for Dolce & Gabbana, a trade mark for designer products. The commercial tells us that this is a body spray to use when one wants to be seen as a gentleman. In reality a gentleman is not a man who just uses this body spray, but a man is seen as a gentleman by certain attributes society sees as being acceptable. Commercials like these can really have an impact because the viewer wants to look like the person with the body spray, and themselves be perceived as a gentleman. The unspoken

The ad is in the colors of grey and white in what it looks to be an isolated bathroom or showers. The floors look dirty as if no one been there for a long time. In this ad there are three young adult women and three young adult men. It can be assumed by the ways these ladies and men were dressed it was summer. The ladies are dressed in white, one of them having a laced dress with a flower near the shoulder. The other lady is laying on the floor with a sleeveless blouse and along with mini skirt. The other lady is against the wall and is wearing very short pants and a blouse that is half see through. Two of the young men are only wearing white jeans without a shirt, the other man is wearing a white blazer over his shoulders, blue jeans and sneakers. Dolce & Gabbana are selling their summer clothes collection. At least that is what a person will expect just passing through the pages of a magazine. For another person that is looking at the subliminal message could find the ad as promoting violence against women.

Gender stereotype is defined as specified roles in the society on the basis of gender. For example, generally women work as nurses, teachers, care takers, when men work as doctors, lawyers, construction workers. Cleaning home is like women’s job, when the work outside home, like farm work, is men’s duty. Watching this ad in the way of gender stereotype, it shows the role of the women become essential in taking care of the children than the men. So Johnson & Johnson picturizes the woman in the ad, so more and more women are attracted towards the product because the women are ideal in this duty. In the ad, the all photos includes woman which shows that woman has responsibility to look after their babies, because they are expressive, submissive, emotional, soft and sweet. Expressiveness denotes the maintenance of harmony and the internal

There are bodily hygiene advertisements in almost every magazine, TV station, radio station, billboards, and even postal mail. Every one of them is different and is trying to send a different message to a certain group that the product would most likely appeal to. The 0ctober 2011 issue number 1141 of Rolling Stone magazine there is an ad for Old spice men’s soaps, cologne, and deodorant that is a very interesting to the college age kids and music enthusiast that would normally read it. Through the advertisements use of layout and models, Old Spice has effectively caught the eyes of the many people that would stumble across it.

Magazine advertising share a common message theme: SEX SELLS. Advertising uses sexual content such as sexual or erotic images, and words or phases to attract the attention of the consumer who then notice the product. This form of advertising has been used for centuries dating back to the 1800s. The famous tobacco company W. Dukes & Sons Tobacco, used a strategy to sell tobacco in 1885, by inserting trading cards of sexually provocative actresses into their tobacco packages 3 ( see image #1 4). W. Dukes & Sons became the leading tobacco companies by 1890. How about this slogan “To make your skin flawless” from Woodbury’s Facial Soap company. The soap company was near its end in the early 1900s. To boost their sales, they changed their advertising. They had previously used images of a doctor’s face on their soap wrappers and advertising. Instead, they incorporated images of romantic couples showing attractive, young beautiful women along with slogans as “A Skin You Love to Touch” 5 to increase their sales. This strategy was very effective. The advertisement contained a couple; a young beautiful woman looking straight ahead and a handsome man looking at her. The male model is holding her right hand with his left arm is wrapped around her, holding her close to him. This gives the viewer the idea that the two models are a couple. The slogan in the

I honestly believe that the main purpose of this ad was to get women back into the kitchen and clean “where they belong”. I think that Swiffer was trying to get people’s attention because if that woman was wearing anything other than that famous outfit, no one would have even thought twice about it. But then again, being an egalitarian, I honestly think that any woman can do it all. Work and take care of a home, regardless of an ad, it’s JUST AN AD. P&G obviously got the attention that they were seeking. They had feminists complaining and got them to remove the Rosie look-a-like from anywhere that they had her. The primary audience was feminists or women in particular or anyone who enjoys a clean home! Honestly, if someone wants a steam booster, regardless of an ad, someone will purchase a steam booster.

The commercial also tries to appeal to middle-class people as the spray is inexpensive and smells good. While, relating to the middle- class individuals it also seems to portray of regular-looking people. This therefore, makes the commercial look natural and realistic to the viewer, while attracting their attention. The framing of the image directs your attention to “Susan Glenn”, as if she was the only character in the commercial. The lighting around it predict her as if she was an angel, and no one was better than her. For example, in the ad she is seen floating across the street with firework sparks around her, like a light to a shadow. You can tell the love that he had for her, especially when he says, “not a girl, but the girl”. The bathroom scene at the end with the narrator, displays a feeling of sadness around it, as well him also being alone.

Gender role bias in advertisements has been so prevalent for so long that the untrained eye wouldn't even discern it. All the same, these biases, for the most part, put women in subordinate positions and men in dominant ones. This assumption on both the genders is unfair and demeaning. These ads portray women as subservient and play toys for men. Not only do the models depict an image nowhere near close to reality, but their bodies are scantily clad and what few clothes they are wearing are very revealing.

Race representation in advertisements is often anything but diverse, however as time moves forward and attitudes in society change there has been a considerable amount of progress with the inclusion of more than the typical white male or female. One of the most classic examples of the progress in representation of more than one race in advertisements is with the classic body products from Dove and their commercials seen on TV. Upon exploration of Dove’s older ads, the typical female portrayed is a White female with either brown or blonde hair, playfully cleaning her skin, often times she has a face blooming of satisfaction and happiness. The classic ad for Dove’s Pink soap released in 1958 not only seems to be selling the pink and fragrant soap but a

Upon a quick glance, the advertisement published in 2015 by Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa appears to be abundant in color, joyful and fairytale-like; at least when I first saw it a year ago. However, after reading about the different variations of objectification in advertisements I no longer see the ad as an innocent take on fairytales. Advertisements are meant to be geared to a public, or a specific public, in order to sell a product. Still, some ads showcase women as the product or at least a way to get people to purchase the product. Although any gender, culture, religion, or group can be victims of objectification in advertisements, women are mainly targeted.

There are a couple of groups that this type of ad seems to really connect with and sink in. The first being the young, the reckless and those longing for love. Then there are those who want to feel that way, again. An older person in their 70’s and has recently retired, sees this ad, days of their youth would flood back in. This image captures the present and the past for both parties.

The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most

The product line of Dove Pro-Age is being advertised in the commercial. It is also advertising the product as an anti-aging product gearing towards the elder target market. The salient features are the nude women who are presented in the ad and the text “too old to be