Men Vs. Women in Advertisements Essay

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be for a certain age, race, and sometimes even a certain gender. Pop culture has influenced the minority groups and shed light to women 's rights or so it was thought. 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 a particular gender. What is interesting is it shows a false image of the opposite sex to the audience being portrayed toward their preferences. It is the image the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell their products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows commercials brings gender norms that produce the ideas of what a man’s man and a woman’s woman which is why he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Contemporary visual media contributes to the social construction of gender in that the way that men and women are portrayed in advertising is vastly different.

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.

For example, State Farm’s, “Dropping Dimes”, commercial uses basketball players and the rap genre, to apply to men by using the masculine sport of basketball, and the masculine version of music, rap. The advertisement starts out by showing Kevin Love and Damian Lillard in expensive golden jewelry, Damien Lillard then starts rapping about all the dimes they are dropping, the commercial then shows the two NBA stars in an expensive boat in a sea of dimes, and then it finishes by showing all the money they have saved because they use State Farm. This advertisement uses the need for attention, which is the need to be looked at, by putting Kevin Love and Damian Lillard in a bunch of expensive jewelry, and riding around in a sea of dimes. This commercial also uses the need for prominence, the need to be admired or respected, by showing that you can have expensive jewelry and a nice boat because you have saved so much money using State

There are many different products developed that are designed to help people alter their bodies in some way. Some of these products are tanning lotions/sprays, body sprays/lotions of odor, shavers, nail cutters, trimmers, acme medicine, wrinkle lotions, different types of make-up, hair dyes, hair straighteners and curlers, anti-aging creams, and many other different things. The advertisements for these different products preach all different kinds of messages to men and women alike. Women’s products and commercials typically promise men will want them, they will look 10 years younger, they will lose as much weight as they want without really doing anything, and that they will look like the models they use in the commercials. Some of the gender messages that are being sent by these advertisements

A quite common misconception of advertising is that only women are sexually objectified to sell a product, when in most cases men are just as sexually glorified. Men are shown in an array of different types of ads such as ones for cologne, razors, alcohol, etcetera. Depending on the product being sold there is a very distinguishable type of man being shown. Classy men in suits, manly guys with large muscles and excessive facial hair, or men surrounded by varying amounts of beautiful women. These three general types of males are depicted this way because that is generally how most men strive to be.

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.

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.

When men and women are displayed in an ad to represent a product; the male has more power than the women. He will be muscular and she will be very

Advertisers have been using masculinity and femininity to sell since the early 1900’s and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. This is a controversial topic and has been heavily discussed within recent years.

In Craig's article, the author explores how advertising views men and women as separate consumer markets and appeals to both of them at separate times. Gender roles are heavily influential when creating commericials for each respective market. Craig details this through an analysis of beer ads

For instance, when you look at commercials or ads for tools or so-called man food, all you see is half naked women promoting the product. One specific example is energy drink commercials. Many energy drink commercials have girls dressed in bathing suits (or other skimpy clothes) running around, dancing, or doing some kind of activity to somewhat show how these energy drinks work. And although these women are performing some kind of energy using activity, it is there sex drive that attracts men to these products and what makes them so popular. Like Taflinger says, men consider her beautiful because, to a man, beautiful and sexually attractive are virtually synonymous. Therefore, it is easy for advertisers to get a man?s attention by using women?s bodies and associate getting the woman with buying the product. The advertiser is playing on his instinctive rather than intellectual view of the world, thus the ad spends no time discussing her qualifications for sexual desire and her mere existence is enough (Taflinger). Moreover, most men are aware that women are less concerned with mere anatomy, since they are looking for more, thus advertising can show the woman and sell the product on the basis of ?women want this product in a man. Get the product, get the woman? (Taflinger).

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.

Representations of men in media have a different approach—they tend to focus on strength, power, physique, independence, etc… The first ad portrays a clearly athletic, strong, male individual. His expression is one of determination and focus—He’s not going to let anyone get in his way. He is aggressive, and overflowing with testosterone. It is unclear what the product is, something to do with athletic performance. The next image is fitted with the caption “Always A Champion”, making it simple to realize this ad is all about the male ego. This man has a very intimidating expression, one of strength and—almost anger. His positioning shows off his clearly muscular arms and his aura is almost overpowering. In both images, the idea that a true man should be strong, aggressive, etc… is presented. For any normal male individual viewing this ad, he would feel like that is what he should be—if he was a “real man”.

Research from the past generally agree that the impression of gender role is strongly formed in advertising. (Matthes, Prieler, and Adam, 2016) Observations includes the gender of background voice, the age group of men and women appear in advertisement, the category of product that represented by men and women, and the difference of setting place of the main character between men and women. (Matthes, Prieler, and Adam, 2016)