The Meaning of Images in Mass Media Advertising

Advertisements are everywhere; no matter where you are there will be many different advertisements surrounding you. You see them on billboards, you hear them on the radio and Pandora, you are surrounded by them in shopping malls, etc. Have you ever wondered who created advertisements? I always asked myself that question because I was surprised by how many different advertisements there are. It was until I read “The Language of Advertising” by Charles A. O’Neill that I found the answer to my question. O’Neill believes that advertising language mirrors the fears, quirks, and aspiration of the society that creates it. I agree with O’Neill because advertisements are affected by society; if advertisements had nothing to do with society there would be no point in advertising objects.

Advertisements are everywhere, combining images and words together to create a message to sell a product. The initial impression is that the advertisers are just trying to sell their products, but there often seems to be an underlying message. It is often heard that “sex sells.” So, many advertisers will use beautiful women and men in their advertisements to try to market a product. The hope is that “sex will sell,” and people will go out and buy what the ads are selling. There are many advertisements and commercials that use this approach. Prime examples of this are the advertisements for Orbit Gum and A Diamond is Forever. Also, the commercials for Levi jeans use sex to promote the sale of their brand. As a way to

For the longest time now, advertising has played a huge role in how we identify ourselves in the United States with the American culture, and how others identify themselves with all the cultures of the rest of the world as well. It guides us in making everyday decisions, such as what items we definitely need to invest our money on, how to dress in-vogue, and what mindset we should have to prosper the most. Although advertising does help make life easier for most, at the same time it has negative affects on the people of society as well. Advertisement discreetly manipulates the beliefs, morals, and values of our culture, and it does so in a way that most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happened. In order to reach our main goal of

Advertisements are all over the place. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that you can escape them. They all have their target audience who they have specifically designed the ad for. And of course they are selling their product. This is a multi billion dollar industry and the advertiser’s study all the ways that they can attract the person’s attention. One way that is used the most and is in some ways very controversial is use of sex to sell products

Watch any amount of television throughout the day and at some point a sexually charged commercial advertisement will be aired. The commercial could show to barely dressed, large breasted, beautiful women fighting in a public location about whether or not the beer is "great tasting or less filling". Another commercial will hint that using their body spray will lead to attracting not only one women but an entire room full of women. Not to worry, the advertising agencies have not forgotten about giving the ladies some commercial eye candy as well. Remember the commercial about the office full of women employees drinking there diet soda while staring out the window at the shirtless,

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

     We live in a fast paced society that is ruled by mass media. Every day we are bombarded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us like a slide show. These ideas and images are embedded in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and subliminally, and target them with their product. They allude to the fact that in order to be like the people in this advertisement you must use their product. This is not a new approach, nor is it unique to this generation, but never has it been as widely used as it is today. There is an old saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' and what better way to tell someone about a product

People are so used to seeing ads that they have become immune to them, so advertisers blatantly use sex to sell their products. Most people, immune to ads, won’t even think about the deeper meaning behind an ad. They will notice the product, but because the product is in a sexual situation, they will associate that featured product with sex. The problem with this advertising is that it, more often than not, uses women in compromising situations where the man has power over the woman. Some of these ads she presents as evidence are extremely violent and aggressive. One ad she mentions is three guys blatantly attacking a woman and it’s advertising women’s jeans. I agree with Kilbourne when she states, “Male violence is subtly encouraged by ads that

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

People see thousands of ads each year. It may seem like the company who designed and create this ad just put whatever looked best and would draw the viewer's attention but the use of word and images on ads go much deeper. For example this ad was found while shopping for shoes online. This ad shows a persons holding a cigarette, this persons hand is shaped as a gun but what the ad wants to readers attention to go to would be not the hand in the front but the shadow in the back, the shadow is a hand but instead of holding a cigarette, the hand is holding a gun. This shadow is meant to represent the reality of what a cigarette can do for a person's health.

Advertising is everywhere, but does it affect us as much as advertisers might like? I find myself pondering if it was the commercials between my favorite TV show and the ads in my favorite magazine that encouraged me to buy Kotex feminine hygiene products. Or was it my own wants governing me to purchase. According to Jib Fowles’ article “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, “There is no evidence that advertising can get people to do things contrary to their own self-interests” (567). Although this discovery hasn’t stopped American businesses from spending billions of dollars annually on advertising. With this in mind, Kotex hasn’t needed to change their appeals too much, their products are a necessity for women, but obviously with their good

Advertising in a mass consumer society such as America is a very competitive industry. Advertising companies continually come up with new and more creative techniques of increasing sale. Advertising companies decide which group of people would be more attracted to a specific product and link that product to the feelings of excitement and anxiety of the targeted customers. The ads are carefully crafted bundles of images, frequently designed to associate the product with feelings of pleasure stemming from deep-seated fantasies and anxieties (Craig 197). For example, usually advertisements of beer and cars demonstrate masculine men, loners and free of

In Chapter Seven of Practices of Looking, we start to explore in the ideas of advertising, consumer cultures and desire. Everyday, we are faced with advertisements through newspapers, magazines, TV, movies, billboards, public transportation such as buses and taxis, clothing, the internet, etc. Logos, such as signs, or anything that resemble a brand, are everywhere, they are on clothing, household items, electronics, cars, etc. Consumers are always showing off their brands and advertisements and we are used to seeing those brands and advertisements in an everyday setting. In modern media, advertisers are pressured to always change the ways they show off and get the attention to consumers, old and new. Advertisers also used present figures who were glamorous. Advertisements set up a certain relationship between the product and its meaning to sell the products and the hidden meaning we link to each of the products. Advertisements use the language of conversion. Advertisers try to create a customer relationship to the brand to try to form them as familiar, necessary, and also likeable.

This ad is multidimensional in the way that it demeans women. The first layer is equating the women with inanimate objects. The women are being scaled down to the size of beer bottles as though they were barbie dolls, meant to be played with and molded by the hands of the viewer. The model lays with her legs spread and her chest pushed out in a hypersexualized submissive pose. She looks up at the viewer with a coy smile. Ads like these are meant to sell to an adult male audience. They are made by men with the intention of making money and the understanding that if you offer a typical American male the idea of sex with a physically attractive woman and equate that to a product, he will buy almost anything. This type of imagery also affects how women feel that they should act. Viewing images of women as sex objects in these submissive poses causes women to feel that they are only valuable if they fit the ideals put in place by the heterosexual male gaze.

Advertisements play such a power role in the media area. Advertisements don’t just sell products, they are now showing a way of life, they sell values, they sell body image- the ideal body. We are said to be exposed to an esitamted ‘range from around 250 per day on the conservative side, to 3000 and above’ [1] of adverts. They are now showings us what to strive for within our looks and what we wear. Our hair colour and style and it seems apparent that all