Commercial Advertising: 'Like A Girl'

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.

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.

Always “Like a Girl” commercial was not only a hit in the media world, but a hit to the hearts of many women across the nation. In this commercial Always attempts to reach out and inform Americans of the damage caused to a female’s confidence when they do finally hit that age in their lives where insecurities begin to exist. Positively using their credibility and reputation to target a worldwide issue among woman so that it gains enough awareness to hopefully get fixed. Women working their whole lives to break society’s doubt so that they aren’t classified under another demeaning stereotype when asked, “What does it mean to do something ‘Like a Girl?’’’.

The definition of true beauty continues to evolve as generations pass and new ones emerge. Ulta Beauty, a popular cosmetic store, sells products with the aim to make women feel confident in their skin. Their use of advertisements helps spread the word about new, improved product lines and reach out to potential buyers. Selling makeup is the obvious goal of a cosmetic store, but the kind of consumers they attract and how varies between different franchises. When a company displays their products in one shot instead of in a commercial, the task of conveying the message becomes harder. Ulta Beauty persuades women to purchase their products by pointing out buyers’ insecurities while still appearing to promote empowering feminist values.

For centuries, women have found it to be difficult to live up and be the standard “runaway model”. Women have the pressure to fit in to be considered beautiful since ads and media have distorted society in how they view and evaluate beauty. The false representation of models in the beauty commercials have made women want to replicate them even though they don’t know what’s behind the editing. Even though this is a huge matter, companies did not stand back but instead made more commercials that self-degrade women constantly, except one. The Dove Evolution Commercial- “Campaign for Real Beauty” focuses on the way they change women sending a strong message to women about beauty and what it really

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Ram’s advertisement immediately begins by utilizing logos and pathos to embolden women to fight against stereotypes. First, the commercial’s narration uses a series of repetitive rhetorical questions to inspire the audacious emotions of the audience. Ram repeats “have you ever thought” multiple times to capture the female viewer’s attention. This technique establishes an understanding and inviting tone that prepares the viewer for Ram’s overarching message. Next, allowing the viewer to ponder these rhetorical questions, Ram briefly pauses the narration. Following this pause, Ram articulates their message: “You can break a stereotype and throw it into a whole ‘nother gear. Because

The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.

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.

Always is a very popular company among young girls, adults and teenagers. This company specifies in selling feminine products such as pads, tampons, and basically anything that helps a woman during menstruation. About two years ago on June 26, 2014 Always filmed a commercial known as #Likeagirl, they needed a way to appeal to the next generation. This commercial was aimed towards younger girls who are starting to go through puberty and how a certain comment can bring them down. In the beginning of the commercial the director had a few people demonstrate how a girl runs, throws, and fights. The first people who were asked these questions were two teenage girls, male adult and a boy. When they were told to do such tasks they over exaggerated and mocked how girls are portrayed to be now a days, to them a girl can not run, throw or fight, they fling around their arms, play with their hair and giggle. Another group was asked the same exact questions, only this time they were young girls around 10 to 12 years old. When the girls did the same tasks as the other group, they did it with emotion there was no exaggeration involved they did it like any girl would like anyone would, they ran around the whole studio, punched the air with passion and threw an imaginary

The commercial “Princess Machine” aims at creating awareness of the new toy for girls and also changing society’s mentality about gender roles. The commercial starts off with three female children watching a princess show. However, contrary to normal expectations, they looked bored to death and found no interest in the program. Then the girls divert their attention into trying to change the channel, but went about it in a unique way. Series of items had been placed strategically in order to trigger a chain reaction that would eventually help change the channel. The commercial uses three girls from different races – white, black, Asian- to indicate that girls all over the world are capable of taking on new experiences. It also reveals to society

Women are loyal to brands who deliver what they promise and examples of such brands who gained women’s attention according to Kraft’s observations are Apple, Volvo and Whole Foods. Apple production is easy to use and of high quality as mentioned in their messages, Volvo in order to gain female audience’s attention developed easy to load trunks and Whole Foods provide their customers with delightful atmosphere, high-quality sales personnel, and high-quality foods.

Society is slowly acknowledging that women are more than capable of being great and that there is not much of a difference between men and women. In the Under Armour commercial titled “Protect this House,” the advertisers use powerful visual elements to convey the idea that femininity means being strong, independent, driven, focused, confident, persistence, intense, and fearless. This definition is achieved through the use of power in their

In the age of feminism, women and girls realize they are not receiving equal treatment when compared to males. Women of society realize that being a woman does not mean you are weaker or inferior to males. On the contrary, women are typically intellectual and are perfectly capable of being leaders, just like their male counterparts. One advertiser took a stance on the subject of how society treats girls about being the gender they are by coining: “Like a Girl”. Judy John, the mastermind for the commercial, “#Like a Girl”, for Always (Kauffman, 2015) sends a more substantial message to the public. The commercial starts with women saying how “like a girl” is derogatory. It ends with little girls displaying how, when told how to “run like a girl” is running as fast as you can, and to “throw like a girl” is to throw with all of your strength (Kauffman, 2015). Judy John was not afraid to talk about a controversial topic. As a feminist myself, it warmed my heart to see a message expanding to a wider audience to start talk about how girls are treated in society. Judy John is known internationally for the awards she has won as the CEO of Leo Burnett, Toronto (Judy, 2015). Judy’s thought provoking advertisements are due to her creativity, career path,

Moore and Rosenthal (2003) note that women are self-conscious during their menstrual cycle depending on the social context they find themselves, and this may have intricate emotional and behavioral responses. Fingerson (2006) provides a similar view but on teenage girls suggesting that they tend to wear buggy clothes that hide the shape of their bodies and prevent the showcase of any bulge associated with a pad use. The Kotex Ad, however, send a strong cultural message that women should not fear what they want. The image on the ad is of a western women in skinny jeans and stilettos. The accompanying words state “Slip on stilettos. Rock your skinniest jeans” – a message meant for today’s young women who follow the mainstream culture. It is worth noting that the women’s fashion presently consists of skinny jeans and stilettos – so the message on the Ad bolsters this type of fashion