The first ad she presents features a baby in the back seat of a car, while the carseat, which the baby is supposed to sit in, is filled with sports gear, implying that the gear is more important than the child. Instead of being concerned with the safety of the infant, the driver decides that his gear takes priority. Ads also objectify people, especially women. Out of the eleven ads that are included in Kilbourne’s essay, six of them uses women to promote their product, ranging from a cheap Butterfinger to precious jewelry. One particular ad shows a man gazing passionately at a woman whose face is obstructed by a car magazine.
It is obvious that media plays a significant role in our society. It affects every aspect of our lives - political, social, and cultural. In the various works including articles, lectures and films, Jean Kilbourne presents an insightful and critical analysis of advertising and its profound negative effect on all of us. She states that, “Advertisement creates a worldview that is based upon cynicism, dissatisfaction and craving” (p. 75). She discusses the issue in a very objective and impartial manner, “The advertisers aren’t evil.
Longaker and Walker identify how dehumanization effects emotion by discussing, “The Nazi pogrom, Jews were often made to do disgusting things—scrub toilets, relieve themselves publicly—to make them seem less than human and more deserving of cruel treatment and even mass extermination” (212). Similarly, advertisements can dehumanize individuals, like women, by portraying them in grotesque situations or environments. As a result, a society lessens respect for these individuals and creates a mentality that fosters abuse. Kilbourne tries to illuminate this issue by presenting various advertisements that are suggestive of women, and elaborates on the effects these advertisements have on society. For instance, alcohol companies tend to target women with advertisements like, “A chilling newspaper ad for a bar in Georgetown features a close-up of a cocktail and the headline, ‘If your date won’t listen to reason, try a Velvet Hammer’”
Nowadays, not only in the advertisement industry, but everything has sexy appealing and everywhere. For example, on television, the internet, magazines and poster. In the article, “ master of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising” Jack Solomon agreed, “ Sex never fails as attention-getter, and in a particularly competitive, and expensive era for American marketing, advertisers like to bet on sure thing” (172). The aspect of advertising can be anything and there are no limits.
In “What We Are to Advertisers” and “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” both Twitchell and Craig reveal how advertisers utilize stereotypes to manipulate and persuade consumers into purchasing their products. Companies label their audience and advertise to them accordingly. Using reliable sources such as Stanford Research Institute, companies are able to use the data to their advantage to help market their products to a specific demographic. Craig and Twitchell give examples of this ploy in action by revealing how companies use “positioning” to advertise the same product to two demographics to earn more profit. Craig delves more into the advertisers ' plan by exposing the science behind commercials.
In Advertisements R Us by Melissa Rubin, she analyzes how advertisements appeal to its audience and how it reflects our society. Rubin describes a specific Coca-Cola ad from the 1950’s that contains a “Sprite Boy”, a large -Cola Coca vending machine, a variety of men, ranging from the working class to members of the army, and the occasional female. She states that this advertisement was very stereotypical of society during that decade and targeted the same demographic: white, working-class males- the same demographic that the Coca-Cola factories employed.
Consequently, she would likely challenge Cox’s description of the role that women played as the subject of advertisements in the 1920s as nothing more than objects whose sole purpose is to be beautiful. She would be more prone to state that instead of this harsh and objectifying image set forth in Cox’s narrative, women as subjects in advertisements during this time period were “the visual representation of a modern cultural consciousness that defined the 1920s” (Rabinovitch-Fox, 374). This is a very drastic contrast to what has been the narrative thus far regarding women’s status in society through the lens of the advertising companies. These companies have either been demeaning them as nothing more than housewives by pandering to that notion in their radio programming or outright objectifying women completely when they make them the subject of an
Priscilla Avila Professor Karn English 1A March 9 2023 "Still, nearly half (48%) of businesses worldwide rely on the power of loyal customers to spread the word about their products or services. " - Grace Kim, https://tinyurl.com/92f4mfx4 A form of marketing called word of mouth is forceful and brief. It relies on audiences or consumers that will carry their review of a brand or products into their daily conversations. Whether their input is negative or positive, it leaves an impression on a potential customer.
Advertisements: Exposed When viewing advertisements, commercials, and marketing techniques in the sense of a rhetorical perspective, rhetorical strategies such as logos, pathos, and ethos heavily influence the way society decides what products they want to purchase. By using these strategies, the advertisement portrayal based on statistics, factual evidence, and emotional involvement give a sense of need and want for that product. Advertisements also make use of social norms to display various expectations among gender roles along with providing differentiation among tasks that are deemed with femininity or masculinity. Therefore, it is of the advertisers and marketing team of that product that initially have the ideas that influence
Notions such as “sex sells” are not necessary true, for the observers recognize the damaging images in which women are portrayed. Advertisements that depict possessive and violent men toward women are should not be selling. For example, “no”does not mean “convince me”, when taken otherwise may lead to sexual abuse. Despite that both genders can be objectified, it is women who are more at risk due to the already established idea that women are more vulnerable.
Can advertisements really cause violence in people’s lives? Jean Kilbourne’s “Two ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” talks about how advertising and violence against women can cause women to be seen as objects. The author discusses how pornography has developed and is now part of social media, which glorifies its violence that permeates society encourages men to act towards women without respect. Kilbourne uses logical and emotional appeals as well as ethical arguments to effectively convince readers to ignore specific advertising techniques. Jean Kilbourne author has spent most of her professional life teaching and lecturing about the world of advertising.
Do companies create consumer demand or simply try to meet customers’ needs? I believe advertising shapes as well as mirrors society. A case in point, advertisements can shape society's perception of ‘beauty." For instance, in magazines and movies, quite often young girls strive to look-like and emulate the digitally enhanced images of women in magazines. As such, some critics argue that advertising abuses its influence on children and teenagers in particular, amongst others.
GENDER & ITS ROLE IN ADVERTISING Nowadays, in society, the role of male and female have changed dramatically, as opposed to the prominent roles in history. Today women are changing to break out of the mold that which our society has placed her in. This is cannot be when it comes to role representation in the different advertisements. Nowadays different organization from medium to large are spending millions of dollars on developing their marketing strategies. They spent countless hours to study their target audience to study them so that they can attract them a better way to their competitors.
However, none were more sexist and stereotypical than the ads of the late 1940s and early 1950s, where patriarchal ideals were at the height of their popularity. Even though the advertisements contained both images and words to persuade consumers, oftentimes the artwork was all that was needed to demonstrate and convey the widely held misogynist views of women by the corporate world and the consumers who consumed
Indecent representation of women does not only mean sexualizing women but also representing women in any way that degrades them. In the 19th century products were advertised only on radio, newspapers and pamphlets. There were ads which showed women in an indecent light but not as much, and as openly, as when advertisements were started on television. For example, In the 1950s, Chase & Sanborn, a coffee brand, published an advertisement which showed a man sitting on a chair with a lady lying face down in his lap. His hand is in a position which shows that he is about to spank her and the
