What Catches Your Attention?

In “The Fashion Industry: Free to be an Individual” by Hannah Berry, Hannah emphasizes how social media especially advertisements pressure females to use certain product to in order to be considered beautiful. She also acknowledges the current effort of advertisement today to more realistically depicts of women. In addition, these advertisements use the modern women look to advertise products to increase women self-esteem and to encourage women to be comfortable with one’s image.

Billy Collins wants us to realize that advertisement can grab the audience’s attention by assuming the audience’s need. The poem, Victoria’s Secret by Billy Collins, is about a man looking at the catalog, which have women that are wearing lingerie on the pages. In the second verse of the poem, he describes the model that looks at him over her bare shoulder and cannot hide the shadow of annoyance in her brow. He is receiving a feeling that the model is saying you have interrupted me…Now please leave me alone. The advertisement is grabbing the man’s attention by using the model’s facial expression, which lead to curiosity for the man. We know that the man is curious about the model’s facial expression because he analyzes the model’s facial expression.

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

What captures the attention of people when they view an advertisement, commercial or poster? Is it the colors, a captivating phrase or the people pictured? While these are some of the elements often employed in advertising, we can look deeper and analyze the types of appeals that are utilized to draw attention to certain advertisements. The persuasive methods used can be classified into three modes. These modes are pathos, logos, and ethos. Pathos makes an appeal to emotions, logos appeals to logic or reason and ethos makes an appeal of character or credibility. Each appeal can give support to the message that is being promoted.

Magazine advertising share a common message theme: SEX SELLS. Advertising uses sexual content such as sexual or erotic images, and words or phases to attract the attention of the consumer who then notice the product. This form of advertising has been used for centuries dating back to the 1800s. The famous tobacco company W. Dukes & Sons Tobacco, used a strategy to sell tobacco in 1885, by inserting trading cards of sexually provocative actresses into their tobacco packages 3 ( see image #1 4). W. Dukes & Sons became the leading tobacco companies by 1890. How about this slogan “To make your skin flawless” from Woodbury’s Facial Soap company. The soap company was near its end in the early 1900s. To boost their sales, they changed their advertising. They had previously used images of a doctor’s face on their soap wrappers and advertising. Instead, they incorporated images of romantic couples showing attractive, young beautiful women along with slogans as “A Skin You Love to Touch” 5 to increase their sales. This strategy was very effective. The advertisement contained a couple; a young beautiful woman looking straight ahead and a handsome man looking at her. The male model is holding her right hand with his left arm is wrapped around her, holding her close to him. This gives the viewer the idea that the two models are a couple. The slogan in the

It’s simple, striking, and exceptionally clever. How is this appealing you ask? Well if you are sophisticated and beautiful woman, you want this product. The simplicity of this ad is what gives it so much character. According to A Meeting of Minds, “Connecting objects through color or space conveys association among the ideas behind the objects” (Dobyns, 321). This ad compares a black stiletto heel, which can be associated with sex appeal, beauty, elegance, and power, to the slim mascara brush. This comparison causes the audience to subliminally associate those desirable traits with the mascara. Due to the exceptional contrast in the picture, the viewer’s eye is not distracted. It immediately focuses on the two objects present the stiletto and the brush. This extreme contrast of black and white can flood the viewer’s mind with a variety of associative polarities such as night and day or good and bad. Because the heel and the mascara are depicted in black gives the notion that black is dark, sexy, provocative, and smooth, which is what a high profile woman wants. She wants to catch attention, be recognized, and lusted after. Hence, a woman viewing this elegant ad will want this product because the simplicity of it will allow her to mind to associate desirable characteristics to the make-up.

When someone looks at an advertisement there is more that meets the eye than just pictures

At the top of this ad, the words “COVER GIRL” are printed in big size which makes it easy to spot. Under the Cover Girl, consumers can read Cover Girl’s famous slogan “Easy, Breezy, Beautiful” which is meant to send the message that Cover Girl products give them a natural beauty. The color of these logos usually matches the color of the product that they advertise. In this ad, Cover Girl uses the phrase “Insta-Gorgous” to introduce their new product; the ad catches the attention of the younger generation, who is obsessed with social networking, by linking the product to instagram. The add also encourages the viewers to use the product, take pictures and instagram them to #covergirl. The writing on the ad says “ A do-it-all foundation that’s insta-natural, insta-shine free, insta-lasting and insta-gorgeous”, which describes all the qualities that consumers look in a foundation. This is a foundation that gives you a natural beauty and lasts all day long. Cover Girl manipulates women into buying their products by using colorful ads that catch the consumers’ eyes and smart logos that give the consumers the necessary

The settings of the advertisement, which are a business building, a restaurant, and a street, clearly represent the three different classes of the upper- class, the middle-class and the lower-class. Additionally, women's different types of clothing also represent the different classes. The girl in the business office has worn a well-groomed suit, which suggests that she belongs to the upper-class. Women in the street have worn jeans, which suggests that they belong to the lower-class. The advertainment also sells some messages to the dominant elite with the product. The first message being communicated is that women are products that are meant to be consumed and when a product is bought, women come with the product. The main character in the advertisement has worn a jean and has opened its buttons, which suggests that he is a lower-class person. After he chews the Clorets gum, which is a high-end product, he is considered an upper- class person who attracts all the girls wherever he goes. Women are attracted to him just because of the fresh air created by the gum and before consumption, he could not attract women. Therefore, it is the gum that attracts women, not the guy. The second message of the dominant elite that is communicated to the audience is that women should sell their body to the men. All women in the commercial try different sexy poses in front of the man in the advertisement to attract him. The woman in the

Today’s world is dominated by the great influence of advertising media, which often depicts the objectification of women. The film Killing Us Softly 3, discusses how influential the negative portrayal and misrepresentation of women is throughout advertising media. The Versace advertisement I have chosen to analyze displays a slim, scantily clothed woman of color guarded by a shirtless, muscular man. Based on concepts from the film and the course’s text, it is clear that this advertisement sets a particular feminine beauty standard and, nonetheless, illustrates women as solely being sexual objects of men, having little to no power. This fashion ad influences the way women view their physical appearance, along with their position and function in society.

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.

We've all seen and read many advertisements and we usually find them appealing and very persuasive. However the question is, what are they really advertising? Women are usually used for many different advertisements, not only are they used for women's clothing but also for other materials and objects. These are the ads that we look at each and every day. In, “Killing Us Softly” by Jean Kilbourne, she introduces her problem with how women are being used to advertise products. She shows us ads that she has seen where women are being used to advertise a company’s product. While our women are being used, dehumanized, and sexualized in our society, we’re going on with our life like it’s normal.

The visual representations are useful in the product advertisement in the business sector. They are important as they help in attracting customers to purchase a specific product after seeing the display. Once the customers or the consumers see the visual attractive nature of the product, they tend to develop an interest in it. As a result, they, in turn, decide to purchase the product due to the influence of the visual rhetoric notion. The visual rhetoric employs the use of visual images that are persuasive in constructing an argument or a meaning. Such visual images are used in the advertisement by companies when producing products to manipulate their esteem consumers so that they can purchase the product being advertised. The aim of the essay is to analyze the ways in which visual rhetoric is used in the print advertisements to capture the attention of the customers. The analysis will rely on the use of eye gaze, model and model techniques for cosmetics as a print advertisement.

Every day we all pass hundreds of different advertisements. Advertisements are viewed in magazines, on the internet, on billboards, on display in stores, and even on the TV. These ads are used to gain attention and business to the company’s products. Businesses try to produce the most vibrant, eye catching, and even the most member able advertisements. Unconsciously we are lured to these ads and wanting the product. But what ad do most consumers lean towards? Ads can have a variety of techniques to sell similar products, like bright colors, excitement, serious topics, and empowerment.

In order to capture our attention, the company first creates an appealing visual to draw us in. In the Revlon advertisement, the face of an attractive Argentinian male dominates the page. He holds a seductive pose, staring directly at the viewer while simultaneously winking; this creates a feeling of intimacy with the viewer. A white woman’s hands are then carefully placed in his hair and his mouth; she is playfully touching him while he gently bites her finger. The use of a white female and Argentinian male conveys the idea that women find men of “color” more attractive and masculine. The woman is hidden in the image, consumed by a black background. This gives us the freedom to imagine her as anyone, including ourselves. If we buy this product and use it, we will attract the attention of men and be more flirtatious. Her nails are then strategically painted a bright pastel green and she is wearing an enormous flashy ring to highlight the nail polish as well as bring