Analyzing Victoria's Secret Advertisement

In “The Fashion Industry: Free to be an Individual” by Hannah Berry, Hannah emphasizes how social media especially advertisements pressure females to use certain product to in order to be considered beautiful. She also acknowledges the current effort of advertisement today to more realistically depicts of women. In addition, these advertisements use the modern women look to advertise products to increase women self-esteem and to encourage women to be comfortable with one’s image.

Victoria’s Secret’s ad The Perfect ”Body” features ten young models each wearing a unique bra and panty set standing side by side. The target audience of the ad is Caucasian women ages 18 to 30 years old although the ad could be relevant to girls as young as 15 years old and as old as 40 years old. They are targeting them by featuring primarily young Caucasian women in their ad. While the ad appears to feature two non-Caucasian women, I believe this is a simple nod of inclusion as they are not representative of the diverse women in America. Both models have straightened hair and very European facial features.

When someone looks at an advertisement there is more that meets the eye than just pictures

Recently American Eagle’s lingerie brand, Aerie, completely changed their advertising campaign to AerieReal. The AerieReal campaign consists of only un-retouched and no Photoshopped models. Before the AerieReal campaign, Aerie used models that were retouched and Photoshopped to make the models appear skinner and “more attractive”. The AerieReal campaign’s focus is to defy what other lingerie brands, such as Victoria’s Secret, sell in their advertisements. Aerie is trying to challenge the message of true beauty is only if you are skinny by saying that “The real you is sexy”. Aerie is accomplishing this by changing their advertisements in the hopes that girls will grow up to be socialized with a more positive and inclusive message, defy gender roles associated with women, and lastly, confront stereotypes of white and colored women.

Since people are willing to spend as much money to buy the latest fashion trends/clothing materials advertised on a magazine cover, with two romantic couples especially using a lady as the main target, will people be willing to also buy the same magazine but this time featuring two old couples or the clothing material being advertised? No! Even if people can still afford the payment, they will still get rid of the magazine immediately because that’s not the reality they live in. Majority of us based our life on fantasy instead of facing the reality of life. We tends to be more wasteful and portrays the things that weren’t supposed to be. For example, using women as a figure or symbol of sexuality such as the one portrayed on the Blueberry London Magazine. My point in all this, is that when people look at themselves in the mirror, they always see themselves as minority and not majority, in essence that people don’t often look on the bright side of beauty but always look on the dark and ugly side of fantasy. This ad specifically talks about beauty and how it’s been portrayed in the

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.

At the top of this ad, the words “COVER GIRL” are printed in big size which makes it easy to spot. Under the Cover Girl, consumers can read Cover Girl’s famous slogan “Easy, Breezy, Beautiful” which is meant to send the message that Cover Girl products give them a natural beauty. The color of these logos usually matches the color of the product that they advertise. In this ad, Cover Girl uses the phrase “Insta-Gorgous” to introduce their new product; the ad catches the attention of the younger generation, who is obsessed with social networking, by linking the product to instagram. The add also encourages the viewers to use the product, take pictures and instagram them to #covergirl. The writing on the ad says “ A do-it-all foundation that’s insta-natural, insta-shine free, insta-lasting and insta-gorgeous”, which describes all the qualities that consumers look in a foundation. This is a foundation that gives you a natural beauty and lasts all day long. Cover Girl manipulates women into buying their products by using colorful ads that catch the consumers’ eyes and smart logos that give the consumers the necessary

Moreover, as Richins (1991) reports, women always make social comparisons between the advertising models and themselves. As a result, advertising images create negative affect and increases women’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Since those images are edited through the consistent usage of digital technology, these idealized images do not portray women in a healthy manner. Indeed, these enhanced images would give these young girls the impression that they need to be ‘perfect’, just like these ‘fake’ images. According to Reist in ABC’s Gruen Session (2010), ‘young women get the message that they need to be thin, hot and sexy just to be acceptable’ in this society. Therefore, by generating the wrong perception of real beauty, the responsibility is pushed to the marketers, as they portray women with this stereotypical body type as acceptable. In addition, as the brand, Dove’s tagline in its advertisement - What happened to the ‘real beauty’? (Reist, 2010), marketers need not market their products in manners portraying women as airheads. Consequently, marketers gave most consumers viewing the advertisement, the wrong impression that

Interestingly, neither of these advertisements show a lot of skin; however, the images of the women in each of the advertisements portray women in a subservient role by placing them lower than the advertisements product and having open and waiting mouths. Therefore, these two advertisements construct a reality where women are only thought of sexual objects that can be acted upon, rather than having their own sexual agency, and are thought of as lesser. I find it interesting that the Skyy Vodka advertisement chooses to have the women sucking on the cherries, due to the fact that cherries are a symbol of virginity or the act of losing one’s virginity (“popping the cherry”). This conflicting message of virginity and losing one’s virginity in the same advertisement reflects and supports societies good-girl/whore dichotomy. A similar message is constructed in the Burger King advertisement due to the choice of a pixie like white women who symbolizes a good girl performing what appears to be a sexual act (to a sandwich nevertheless) and subsequently falling into the whore status. Therefore, from these advertisements women receive the message that in order to be beautiful and feminine one must downplay their own agency, particularly sexual agency, and assume a subservient role. In which these advertisements reinforce the patriarchy through displaying women as lesser than men and lesser than food and

One will see a white female with pouting red lips and the very petite body that resembles a thirteen-year-old girl. The extremely artificial women and the heavily photo-shopped pictures in these ad’s create a norm and make those women who look differently, feel insecure of who they are and make them feel as if they are less of a woman, for example they tend to over represent the Caucasian, blonde with bright eyes, white complexion and a petite body. This is an unattainable beauty for most women, which has caused many to develop issues such as eating disorders, depression and the very much talked about these days, anorexia.

The famous actress and model Sofia Vergara is the model for this advertisement. With her gorgeous look and stunning hair she can attract any person going through a magazine. Her golden hair with golden eyes and eyebrows are what covers most of the advertisement and this shows the aim of the advertisement. Her white shirt, like the color of the shampoo bottle shows connection between her and the product. Her natural beauty with the classic smile captivates

     The appearance of these models is the primary concern of the ads and entails many different elements. Every model portrays a different characteristic through the pose they are in and the clothes that they wear. One ad depicts a sexy young woman who shows confidence by extending her arms out and exposing her flat stomach. Her hips are thrust to the left side, her long beautiful hair is gently blown back, and her facial expression and eye contact hint at sexual desire or acceptance of the viewer. Another female model also has her hips out to the left, but her hands express a different idea. While one hand is used to play with her hair, the other is up to her face with her pointer finger right below her bottom lip. Her hair partly covers her eyes and with her head slightly down, she comes off as shy but confidant. The confidence comes from her exposed stomach and direct eye contact that she makes with the viewer. These two women are somewhat opposite in how they come off which shows that Calvin Klein is trying to appeal to what different guys look for and appreciate in a woman.

A) The four advertisements I chose are all women’s clothing. The first pattern I noticed in the advertisements was that all four of them showcased just one woman by herself and the second pattern was that each woman had quite a bit of skin showing. In each of them they were doing something slightly different though. In the Bottega Veneta advertisement the woman is posing with her arm up and looking off at something out of the shot and her legs seem to be never ending and completely revealed. In the Ann Taylor advertisement the model is Kate Hudson and she is sitting down on a chair with her legs crossed and is leaning a bit forward and resting her head on her arm. The slit of her dress goes up very high and reveals most of her legs and a slightly deep cut around her neck revealing part of her chest as well as all of her right arm. Also this advertisement is specifically for the new little black dress line. In the Express advertisement girl seems to be walking with her hand on her neck while simultaneously swirling the bottom of her dress around from walking. Her arm is uncovered and you see a good amount of her legs and the movement of the dress draws your eyes to that. In the Levi’s advertisement the woman is facing away from the camera so we see her from behind. She is pulling up her Levi’s shorts, which draws the eyes to her bottom half.

The advertisement speaks to the reader in a soft, familiar, enticing language as though she (and it is a female) is alone in the room with you. Although the advertisement mentions as an aside that the product is also patented for men, we receive the strong impression that it is the female who has been targeted as prospective market. This is due to the picture used, as well as colors, words, and situation. The colors are mostly lilac consisting of soothing pink, cream and purple all feminine associated colors. The picture is of a seductive woman, vibrant with health, hair falling into eye, bra straps peeking out, who smiles flashing her pearl teach at you, appearing the picture of health.

When one looks at an image from Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret, or Versace, the first appeal comes from beautiful models. These individuals are normally jumping, laughing and representing every idealistic way of life by manifesting the idea of a blind promise. Unfortunately, these images are not only created with the intent of being manipulative, but also to resemble the present history involving societal roles. At the moment, Ads are able to capture the political ideologies or the social influences in order to represent the position of modern times. On the other hand, the Versace brand recently released a new campaign on Fall clothes bringing to light a different topic. At a quick glance, the Versace Advertisement depicts the everyday family of four. However, through John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the picture represents the hegemonic portrayal of male dominance, the suppressive forces of society on women, and the influence publicity has on the surveyed. Through this lens, one can understand the social relations and expectations publicity creates for individuals.