Television and Media - Social Messages in a Coca-Cola TV Commercial

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.

When it comes to the topic of commercials, most of us readily agree that commercials are irritating. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the purpose of the commercial. Whereas some are convinced that commercials are meaningless, others maintain that commercials tell a story. Effective commercials are repetitive and illustrate a story. Marketers use rhetoric marketing, the art of persuasive speaking and writing, when persuading an audience to buy a product. Rhetoric marketing is especially effective through the illustration of a story. It is effective because the marketer is able to relate to the consumer with a story or message. Advertisers also use the appeals of logic, credibility, and emotions to intrigue interest in a company. Coca-Cola’s advertisement, “Falling,” depicts the product as a confidence building companion suitable for young love through a series of logical and emotional appeals that visibly promotes the brand’s credibility.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, depicts the way the females are shown in advertisements. She discusses how advertisement sell concepts of normalcy and what it means to be a “male” and a “female.” One of her main arguments focuses on how women aspire to achieve the physical perfection that is portrayed in advertisements but this perfection is actually artificially created through Photoshop and other editing tools. Women in advertisements are often objectified as weak, skinny, and beautiful while men are often portrayed as bigger and stronger. Advertisements utilize the setting, the position of the people in the advertisements, and the products to appeal to the unconscious aspect

Throughout the years the representation of women in advertising has evolved. In the 1940’s and 1950’s adverts mainly focused on portraying females as the helper, mother, wife, social being, and sex object. There was an assumption that a woman’s main desire was to make her husband happy; that while she was the buyer, he was really the main consumer, as the wife cooked, cleaned and looked after the children, which ultimately benefitted him. Even though these ads were targeting female consumers, they were often-and still are- created using the ‘male gaze’ theory. British film theorist Laura Mulvey states that the majority of Western visual culture follows the male gaze, where the gaze is not referring to a specific ‘look’ in the image, but rather to the viewer who is assumed to be a male (Mulvey, 1999). Mulvey says that even women look with a

In her article “Advertisements R Us,” Melissa Rubin notes that Coke’s message in the ad she analyzes is that “Coke will refresh and unite working America” (249). Her evidence for this is based on several things—for instance, right in the middle of ad sits a large Coke machine and the bottom of the ad explicitly states, “A welcome host to workers—Inviting you to the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca-Cola” (249). She concludes her article with the insight that “Coke ads helped shape the American identity,” pointing to the underlying message of the ad that Coke can provide the carefree, joyful life it never fails to portray in its ads to everyone who takes a sip (250).

Picture a long, stressful day where an avalanche of work completely exhausted your energy. The only thing worth looking forward to is coming home to relax while tuning into your favorite television show. In between the show, a commercial comes on to propose an energy drink built to help overcome those prolonged and demanding days at work. Advertisers are known for creating the most influential and effective way to launch their products to the general public. In the article “Men’s Men and Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig suggests that advertisements rely on stereotypes in order to manipulate consumers. Likewise James Twitchell, author of “What We are to Advertisers” strengthens Craig's reasoning by discussing the methods of persuasion that capture their respective audience’s attention to create a good commercial and sell a product. Both authors focus on the different techniques used by the advertising industry. Through their supporting demographic and psychographic evidence, they utilize advertising to show a strong correlation between each other. By using subtitles both authors explain the distinctive stereotypic profiles that are formed just from advertisers constantly examining the target audiences in order to create a connection with the product and the consumer. Twitchell reinforces Craig's position by introducing the different types of profiles advertisers target and be recognizing the effects of the method pathos and logos has

Coca-Cola has been around for 125 years with the same logo, taste, and design. Making it one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola’s “Mean Joe Greene” commercial was an iconic Super Bowl XIV commercial in 1980. In this commercial, their goal was to persuade the audience that a bottle of coke can bring happiness and a smile. By choosing a notorious football icon, Mean Joe Greene, to play the mean guy was a great choice. Mean Joe Greene is a hall of fame defensive end football player from the 1970’s. He was known for his temper and cruelty on the field. Thus, the name Mean Joe Greene. He was an excellent football player which is why people loved and still love him till this day. By using all three rhetorical concepts, logos (appealing to reasoning), pathos (appealing to emotion), and ethos (appealing to credibility), Coke creates a motto that persuades its audience to “Have a Coke and a Smile”.

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

Upon a quick glance, the advertisement published in 2015 by Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa appears to be abundant in color, joyful and fairytale-like; at least when I first saw it a year ago. However, after reading about the different variations of objectification in advertisements I no longer see the ad as an innocent take on fairytales. Advertisements are meant to be geared to a public, or a specific public, in order to sell a product. Still, some ads showcase women as the product or at least a way to get people to purchase the product. Although any gender, culture, religion, or group can be victims of objectification in advertisements, women are mainly targeted.

The commercial also incorporated a presentation of the country's varying sprawling landscapes and metropolitan areas, along with Americans of different ethnicities, races, and families partaking in real life activities. With these elements: a patriotic song, playing on emotion, and an invocation of profound imagery, we see several of the tactics mentioned in both articles tackled in Coke's commercial. So why did Coca Cola receive such monumental uproar, if it made use of some of the fifteen basic appeals that make ads effective?

Throughout the course of this essay a rhetorical analysis will be performed over the subject of the popular soft drink, Coca Cola. Here we will take a look at two documents, both advertisement images, both from Coca Cola, separated by over 40 years. This sweet drink took the world by storm starting in the 1890’s and has been a household name since. With hundreds of thousands of soft drinks all over the world, Coca Cola is just another in a bucket, except with a different set of tactics toward drawing in their consumers.

The intended purpose of this commercial advertisement is to try and encourage the audience to drink the product Diet Coke. Connecting, a readily available soda beverage to a popular, well- known singer is a powerful tool used by Coca-Cola. The advertisement persuades the audience to drink diet coke by including kittens and Taylor Swift, both objects that a large population finds appealing. Not only does the advertisement attract new customers, but it encourages

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most