Men's Men and Women's Women

Advertising is a complicated form of marketing, it’s almost like an art form. One must be acutely aware of their audience and what captures their attention, otherwise the advertisement will fall flat. There is a myriad of different ways to lure consumers into buying a product; for example, the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) managed through a series of advertisements to convince individuals of the importance in getting a vaccination for the influenza virus. It was applied using multiple techniques, namely the methods of universal appeal and association. These techniques helped the CDC to effectively promotes the flu vaccine and get their message across to a wide range of people.

Advertising has come a long way in terms of advancement with the enlightenment of the new technological age we live in now. In James Twitchell’s essay “What We Are to Advertisers,” the author explains that mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes. Generally, the use of stereotypical profiling in our society not only exists in regards to race, social class, personality type, and gender but also holds a special meaning in advertising circles as well. To advertisers, stereotyping has become an effective means to pitch their products according to the personality profiles they have concocted for us and are most times eerily accurate. For instance, according to advertisers, the daytime

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.

When people see or hear advertisements, whether it be in a magazine or on television, many do not stop to consider or analyze the techniques that go into making the advertisement effective. For instance, the Center for Disease Control has a campaign that has the purpose of promoting the influenza vaccination. If you examine the campaign closely, it becomes clear that the advertising campaign targets a diverse audience of all ages, genders, and races who could all benefit from getting an influenza vaccination. In this advertisement campaign, the Center for Disease Control effectively promotes the benefits of getting an influenza vaccination to a targeted audience using numerous persuasive techniques such as association and universal appeal.

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

Typical, typical, typical - the word stated previously has become almost synonymous with United State culture. Typical has become a “typical” word and certainly has become a harsh and heavy one in today’s society and culture. We use typical objects and devices, we do typical activities, and we watch typical phenomena. Our society today seems to lack creativity and is stuck in a rut of sameness and stereotypes. Steven Craig writes, in his published essay Men’s Men and Women’s Women, about exactly how and why American culture has become “typical” in regards to the television commercial industry. He brings to light the gender roles and stereotypes these commercials are promoting and the new American culture they are fostering. Craig’s main purpose is to highlight the conundrums seen on an American’s television, more specifically commercials, as they promote trite gender roles and are “created to appeal, respectively, to male and female consumers” (Craig 182). Craig is concise with his argument and addresses his audience directly. Craig’s tone is critical yet contemplative at the same time. Craig is able to appeal to an audience because he is able to relate to an important part of American culture: television. With his tone, a reader is able to feel more relaxed as there is not a certain “call to action” produced by Craig. Craig even begins his essay by talking about beer, for example, “Men and women both drink beer. But you wouldn’t guess that from the television ads that pitch

It’s difficult to envision a world where idealized female imagery is not plastered everywhere, but our present circumstance is a relatively new occurrence. Before the mass media existed, our ideas of beauty were restricted to our own communities. Until the introduction of photography in 1839, people were not exposed to real-life images of faces and bodies. Most people did not even own mirrors. Today, however, we are more obsessed with our appearance than ever before. But the concern about appearance is quite normal and understandable given society’s standards. According to Jane Kilborne, “Every period of history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the

However, for the woman, the sense of women’s self is on the perceived physical attractiveness. For example, in today’s media, people focus on the body image,

The researcher at Johns Hopkins predicted that the Budweiser spot would be a winner after conducting a two-year analysis of 108 Super Bowl commercials. In a paper that will be published in the Fall 2014 issue of The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Quesenberry and research partner Michael Coolsen focused on brands’ use of specific strategies to sell products, such as featuring cute animals or sexy celebrities. But they also coded the commercials for plot development. They found that, regardless of the content of the ad, the structure of that content predicted its success.

In terms of conventional western femininity, the model has been groomed and presented to us as the epitome of expected femininity, a standard that women should aspire to become and a guideline for what a man should look for in a woman. Altogether, her appearance has time and thought out into it, which is often a pushed rule onto women in that their appearance becomes their most important aspect. Also, the lack of space the model takes is indicative of the dainty stereotype that women are small and unable to complete most tasks without help, this also presents a toxic guideline for men; that they are expected to take care of a woman and that she is helpless instead of equal division between tasks, careers and daily functioning. The strength of the image and its portrayal of femininity is backed up by the near complete lack of masculine traits being

In this essay, Sontag compares how society views men and women before and shows the differences between them. She describes how it is every women’s duty to keep up their appearances. She says, "It is also a duty. It is her work. If a woman does real work-and even if she has clambered up to a leading position in politics, law, medicine, business,or whatever-she is always under pressure to confess that she still works at being attractive"(p.161).

In order to attract a specific demographic, advertisement companies employ diverse methods of persuasion. Corporations such as Wendy’s hire advertisement agencies for their expertise in how to attract target audiences to their products. Wendy’s advertisement campaign for ‘Where’s the Beef?’ integrates a few different methods of persuasion; credibility, similarity with the target, and likeability. Wendy’s is trying to entice the 16-40 age demographic of Americans. By incorporating these methods of persuasion to attract the aforementioned target age demographic, Wendy’s is anticipating to attract new customers, consequently increasing profitability.

On television and in movies, women are often portrayed as the love interest for the main male character or the succubus that tries to gain the main character’s love through temptation. Most the women depicted in the romances are white, thin, and busty. Often the attractive female lead has a best friend who is deemed overweight and never receives any romantic interactions. The only goal the female character has is to gain the attention of the main character. In other movies and television shows when the female character is not considered attractive, she must go through a complete makeover before her love interest even notices her. Once the makeover is complete, the girl’s love interest is completely stupefied with her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. This plot device leads

The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following

The success of these advertisements must be measured. Marketers often conduct surveys and questionnaires to pull information about their products from the marketplace. Information gathered like this for a specific purpose is known as primary research. Marketers can draw a lot of valuable knowledge from primary research. Such as images and ideas consumers associate with certain brands, a concept known as brand image. Primary research also evaluates levels consumer satisfaction. Following a product purchase, the buyer experience either satisfaction with their decision or cognitive dissonance, when one regrets their recent purchase. This regret often corresponds with the amount of involvement and thought put into a purchase. As a consumer, you most likely think less about buying a bag of Cheetos versus buying a new IPod. When it comes to Cheetos you know what you’re getting, not much variation involved. However, an iPod offers multiple opportunities for customization and upgrades that the consumer must carefully consider relative to the price they are willing to pay. In this sense, buying Cheetos requires far less consumer purchase involvement then the purchase of a new iPod. All of these factors contribute to the overall satisfaction associated with a product. The results of conducted primary research help marketers decipher elements of their advertising strategy that need tweaking.