Comparing the Advertising of Different Companies of a Non-Gender Specific Product

Since the emergence of advertising in American culture one thing that has remained constant is the visible truth that men and women are portrayed differently. In consideration to the evolution of man kind gender roles have evolved immensely throughout time, although advertisements have not kept up with this process of evolution. Companies to this day use their tactics and skills to reach out to specific genders such as pretty fonts with a stylish message, while advertisements towards men portray the character as strong and intimidating. The typical viewer can easily spot the difference in the portrayal of genders. Men are portrayed this way because the viewers look up to these characters, they want to be

Commercials are used as an entertainment method, in which is used to attract and keep the attention of viewers and make them more susceptible to persuasion. Advertising is a critical marketing tactic in which marketers use to distinguish products in a chaotic market. Furthermore, to increase the effectiveness of advertising for a product, the advertising message should be unique and meaningful. Companies have tried to use many ideas to create diversity for advertisements and commercials. A positive correlation is also found between the degrees of how well an advertisement is liked with the brand advertised. The blog "Looking for Prince Charming” by a blogger named Piñata Princess, gave the pros and cons about the use of sex in advertising. The pros that the writer had was that sex is appealing, exciting, and something that the world desires. The pros of using sex to sell a product is that it is a very interesting way to convince people to buy a product. The cons were that using sex to sell anything can turn people away from buying a product by only remembering the model rather than the product. Another problem with using sex in advertisements is that it can be distracting and people may not even notice what is trying to be sold. These ads that use sex to attract customers also objectify women and men and this is one way they can become disagreeable. A consumer’s interpretation of an advertisement are more likely to assume a range of

There are a different number of methods in which a precise conceptual message can be distributed. Often, a more over the top and overbearing approach is utilized to grab an audience’s attention and sell a product. While some people perform such pretentious messages with little tact, there are people out there who are intelligent and creative enough to present a rich message in an overstated manner that will shock people into challenging the certainty of the message and ultimately bringing attention and business to the company advertising. The overwhelming photograph advertisement for Dolce and Gabbana portrays extreme male dominance as well as objectifying women as a whole. It promotes women accepting this role as if it is a gender normality in today’s society. Sexualization is a huge controversy in the advertising industry. Sexualization explains how ads portray women being dominated by men in the images with violent and abusive connotations. Most of humanity is completely blind to the sexism that occurs daily in the world around them. Sexism is a large issue for today’s society. Being seen in a workplace, at home, in schools, and especially in the media, the Dolce and Gabbana advertisement proves to be an image explaining typical gender roles in culture today.

Steve Craig, in his article Men’s Men and Women’s Women especially define how different sexes in advertisement can influence a particular audience towards a product; one stereotypical method he describes is “Men’s Women” (Craig).One such ad using sex appeal, and a basic structure of “Men’s Women” to bring in customer was made by BMW in 2008 to sell their used cars. BMW, which is a world-renowned company known for its performance heavy automobiles, targets a male audience by comparing a gorgeous woman to their cars.This ad by BMW, who no doubt make amazing cars, degrade women through its message, and it enforces Steve Craig’s “Men’s women” tactic, but this ad also goes a step further and displays the ever-present patriarchy in advertisement overtly.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

The Gender Marketing of Toys: An Analysis of Color and Type of Toy on the Disney Store Website

In the beginning of the semester, we were given ¬¬¬¬a short answer assignment that focused on how advertising and media shape contemporary concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality in our society. The assignment was to choose an advertisement from a magazine, newspaper, or an internet source that has at least one person in it. The advertisement we chose was suppose to be an image that catches your eye.

Gender Stereotyping is generalizing attributes or characteristics on roles for boys and girls, especially through children’s advertisements. In America the difference between boys and girls advertisements is quite noticeable and something that should be recognized as a problem. Companies create ads and labels that have their products categorized by gender and shades of colors. This has caused a division in the behavior of girls and boys, and the expectations society expects from each gender. By companies following gender norms, they don’t even recognize those who identify with non-binary genders. This stereotyping digs a bigger whole against gender equality and acceptance, but companies can make a difference in their behavior. A difference that will allow children to see toys, as just toys, and people as equals. No labels on who can play with what or express themselves. Companies should strive to have their commercials and labels to include both genders in the ad, like the country Sweden who has started to stray away from gender norms in their ads. The solution to gender stereotyping in children’s advertisements is to educate the companies on the type of impact they are having on a child’s self-expression and identity, through studies and examination of past commercials, ads, labels, and toys.

Furthermore, Gender as a representative kind of culture stereotypes, it strongly influences people’s perspective of others, especially when lots information has been limited, for example, in the advertisement, the audience only have a few minutes to engage with it and it normally has no time to explain the issue of gender itself. In other words, when people meet new friends at the first time, they always make a precision of that person based on their characteristics, especially visual features. For instance, if a man seems full of muscle and powerful, then he will be defined as masculinity. Therefore, advertising often is critiqued as controversial of gender because it mainly expresses ideas and values visually, and gender is the most popular

Stereotypes in commercials are still present today, however, the presence of sexism has dramatically decreased over time. Companies create two versions of one product, with as little variation between the two, except for the obvious gender separation and attempt to market it using a range of tech Two prime examples of these are 'Barbie' dolls and 'Rexona' ads. Both commercials targeting two different genders, the differences are almost too obvious. These commercials use a combination of colours and music to influence and attract the attention of the target genders, however, colours and music are only two of many techniques that are used. 'Rexona' is primarily targeting a male sporty audience, whereas 'Barbie' ads target a younger and feminine

Moreover, some advertisements in the magazines showed that the perception of women in society changed, but its limitations were clearly revealed. We can see that only men were no longer target of advertising, but women were also subject to advertising as customers. Women were appeared in accessory advertisements like diamond, and cigarette commercials also featured women, emphasizing that it was no longer just for men. For instance, advertisement of Kent put female models in the commercials with the intention to show that their cigarettes were for everyone, regardless of gender. It stated, “Kent… the one cigarette for everyone who smokes.” Furthermore, some commercials presented women to show that they were a family product such as Chevrolet which appeared a couple in its car. There were many other advertisements that appear female models, but if we

Today the media has a way of defining masculinity and femininity through advertisements. Different advertisements have different ways of defining masculinity and femininity. In an Emporio Armani Diamonds Fragrance advertisement, it advertises vivid visual elements to convey the idea that masculinity means being, desirable, handsome, over-confident, powerful and extremely wealthy. The definition of the Emporio Diamond add is achieved through the uses of stunning models, facial expressions, body language and the setting.

Throughout the history of advertising, women have often been used as a tool to sell products. Depending on who the target audience is for will change the way a woman is exploited in order to sell the product, for example in adverts mainly targeted at a heterosexual male audience, a women will be typically represented as a sexual object. And despite the changing perception of women within society following an acceptance amongst Western culture of feminism, women still continue to be used in printed advertisements as an object of desire rather than an equal human being. As Gill (2008, p.9) argues “today, the body is portrayed in advertising and many other parts of the media as the primary source of women’s capital.” Before this shifting in Westernised views, women were mainly represented as housewives, who needed to buy the advertised product in order to become the perfect, ideal housewife. I will look at three printed advertisements from various points in contemporary history and analyse their varying depiction of women using sociological theory. The three advertisements I have chosen to use are as follows:

Tom Ford’s advertisement for Menswear utilizes the power of media to make a social critique of stereotypical gender construction. The main purpose of an advertisement is to appeal to a certain type of audience and satisfy to what captures the eye of a particular view. In this advertisement, it is the male gaze that the creators of the ad are trying to essentially gratify. Little nuances such as the posture of the couple represents a slight change of gender roles and inherently questions who actually is in power in the advertisement. For example, the woman has her hand on her hip with her head tilt back. The hand on the hip can represent a dominant stance filled with control and independence. The

In the marketer’s eyes, in order to attract people’s attention on what they want is to first segregate the commercial in to which type of person the product is going to be sold to, then break it down in an obvious way – showing major differences in the general public’s interests, sorting ‘the consumer’ down to a more focused group of people; as if one were looking past a continuous stream of red squares, then notice’s a blue square, he or she will notice the blue square standing out from the red squares; the blue square being the advertisement that fits to that person’s personality. For example if there was a commercial for a truck produced by a typical American organization, the advertisement shows masculinity and manliness in extensive ways, with mud, heavy weights, and other things. With a Victoria’s Secret advertisement, the milieu is very sensual and scandalous, showing light colors such as pink or white, all while having a soft, fluffy tone to it. There is no escape in gender roles and profiling when it comes to marketing; people who want to sell their product will use the most effective means necessary, no matter if it is morally sound or not . If companies were to have general broadened commercials, then summarize a product and ends up not narrowing down to specific consumer needs, then in most cases it would not interest the customer and could quite possibly render the purpose utterly useless.