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Role of advertisement in business
Theories of persuasion in advertising
How advertisements influence society
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The purpose of an advertisement is to persuade customers that their product is the best one out there, so that more people will feel the need to buy it, but sometimes people are offended by the content in the advertisement. A good advertisement will have a set target audience, is memorable, and doesn’t confuse the consumer on what the product is that is being sold. Advertisements are interpreted differently depending on the person. Some advertisements are controversial; therefore, they are sometimes pulled from the media. Things that make advertisements controversial is comments on sexual orientation, religion, race, and people’s social status. When an advertisement receives too much negative feedback, it tends to get pulled from the media. After Dolce and Gabbana received too much negative feedback from the public, they pulled their advertisement. Though on the surface this advertisement is selling nice clothing on very good looking people, the underlying meaning is selling the sexist idea that men are above and more dominant over woman. There are four white males who are all very muscular, with nice arms and abs and one white female with dark hair and her makeup done and red lipstick. The female is very skinny and pale white. They are all on a …show more content…
As stated by Jib Fowles, “The fundamental need [to dominate] is the craving to be powerful (121-122).” Everyone likes feeling powerful, and if one is the man in this advertisement, they are definitely the most powerful person in the picture. The man that is on top of the woman is the most dominate person in the picture, and all the other men are watching him while he holds this woman down. All the attention is on the man that is on top of the woman, therefore, he is the dominant one in this advertisement. Along with dominance comes attention. This ad puts the spotlight on the man that’s restraining the woman. All the other men have their eyes on
It’s clear that those advertisements try to make an impact on our buying decisions. We can even say they manipulate viewers by targeting specific group of people or categorizing them so they could have a feeling this product is intended for them or what he or she represents. For instance, they use gender stereotypes. Advertises make use of men and woman appearance or behavior for the sake of making the message memorable. Therefore, most effective and common method is to represent a woman as a sexual object. They are linked with home environment where being a housewife or a mother is a perfect job for the. In other hand men are used more as work done representations. They are associated with power, leadership and efficiency. Those stereotypes make the consumer categorize themselves and reveals the mainstream idea of social status each gender needs to be to fit in and what products they are necessary to have to be part of that
Michael Jordan has star power that bridges age, race, and socioeconomic class. Nike understands this aspect of the popular superstar and decided to give him his own clothing line named Jumpman23. It is the most popular form of sports apparel available and the white logo that adorns each article of apparel is known worldwide. Michael Jordan is arguably the most loved and respected athlete of this generation, thus the ad for this company depicted in ESPN The Magazine takes advantage of his immense popularity. In an attempt to expand the companies influence Jumpman23 uses professional baseball player Derrick Jeter to send its message and promote its apparel. In the essay “Absolution for Sale,” Charity Miller writes, “We live in a world of images. Among the most persuasive and insistent of these images are those directed at us by advertising. These images often do more then simply try to persuade us to buy a particular product or use a particular service. More subtly, they influence us by appealing to our desires or exploiting our emotions.” The image of Jeter training alone in a gym clothed head to toe in Michael Jordan’s clothing line combine with a poem above describing his intentions. This scene portrays the hard work and dedication that will eventually lead to success as things an athlete of any level should expect while wearing the clothing. Michael Jordan takes advantage of his legend on the basketball court and his appeal worldwide to create a line of apparel that demands the same work ethic from those who wear it. Its success is in Jumpman23’s ability to interest buyers no matter what age, race, or sport.
Advertisements are everywhere. Rosewarne reveals that “In both a workplace and a public space setting audiences are held captive to such images; and both sets of images work to masculinise space in a way that makes women feel excluded” (Rosewarne 314). Take beer advertisements as an example of this. Beer advertisements have been utilizing the female body to draw the interest of males for centuries. This materialization of women has been verified to not only have a discouraging effect on women, but an unfavorable effect on civilization. The purpose of these posters is to allure the male 's eyes to the model’s body and therefore to the beer planted in the background. These ads strive to make you subconsciously affiliate a charming woman with a bottle of beer. In theory, these posters should make a guy imagine that if he purchases a bottle of their beer, that one way or another there would be a model to go with it. This is unreasonable of course because a pretty woman does not emerge out of nowhere every time someone has a beer. In my opinion, advertisements like these portray women as sex symbols. The advertisers attempts to link their product with the female body, does not encourage women, but rather has an accidental effect of lower self esteem and confidence in women. Rosewarne summarizes the her stand on sexual harassment in public ads by
Advertising sends gender messages to both men and women. Advertising tells women how they should look and act, and it tells men to expect women to look and act that particular
In Jib Fowles analysis of advertising he states, “An advertisement communicates by making use of a specifically selected image (of a supine female, say, or a curly-haired child, or a celebrity) which is designed to stimulate “subrational impulses and desires ” (75). Fowles quote applies to Tom Ford’s 2012 advertisement. Ford’s advertisements, portray women as sex icons. In his advertisement, there’s a woman who has dramatic makeup and is looking directly at the camera to show attraction. She’s posing while there’s a man behind her to represent protection and dominance. Meanwhile, men always have to have a masculine identity while women have to simply be beautiful. This is a mainstream issue that devalues women, encourages sexual harassment, and advertises violence against women.
Is advertising the ultimate means to inform and help us in our everyday decision-making or is it just an excessively powerful form of mass deception used by companies to persuade their prospects and customers to buy products and services they do not need? Consumers in the global village are exposed to increasing number of advertisement messages and spending for advertisements is increasing accordingly.
Advertisers use whatever they can to attract the reader. From a sexual appealing look to a word. One of the most helpful approaches is sex of course which can capture anyone's attention. The ad for Opium perfume depicts a young brunet that has nicely shaped body and wears nothing but golden slippers, necklace and bracelet. Model is laying down seeming like she is enjoying herself and maybe experiencing orgasm. Again in Dolce & Gabbana ad, we see man and woman having passionate foreplay; with one hand he is pulling her bra strap down while with other touching her breast and she is taking her panties off. In this ad, the naked female body and idea of sex is used to get the image of their product into the reader's memory. "Newsweek wrote: The strategy is that, while the consumer studies the picture, the designer's name melts into the brain. And a big part of the message that was melting in was sexual." (Streitmatter, pp. 123) Anyhow, both ads use sexual attention to grab reader's attention. This is exactly what Calvin Klein had intended he wanted to "make sure, first and foremost, that anyone who was thumbing through the pages of a magazine would stop and look at the ads.
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 than with all one thousand words, that all fit on one page. Take for example this ad for Hennessy cognac found in Cosmopolitan, which is a high, priced French liquor. This ad is claiming in more ways than one that Hennessy is an upscale cognac and is 'appropriately complex' as well as high-class liquor. There are numerous subliminal connotations contingent to this statement.
There are many companies that use sex appeal in their ads today. For instance Victoria Secrets is one of the top sellers in lingerie. They show skin in every one of their ads. All of their models put on the sex appeal for all commercials and magazines. That is what helps them sell. Women look at those ads and see those girls floating on clouds like angels and feel they could feel the same if they wore that purple bra or red underwear. By showing these girls constantly looking sexy in their ads make women feel sexy just wearing them. That is the whole point of using sex in your ads. It?s amazing what a little skin can do. "In advertising, sex sells. But only if you're selling sex (Richards).
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
The product featured in this add is a pill shaped blue tooth speaker, it does not have gender restrictions socially or functionally, and yet, the company only really targets straight males. They have excluded large pieces of society, and though it may have sold well among the targeted demographic, they missed the rest of the populace. The song they associated their ad with is widely known for is dehumanizing and objectifications of women, and regardless, they still decided to use it, and faced very little criticism about it. Other media or companies may have seen the lack of reaction to the ad and possibly attempted very similar publicity which further ads to the already over whelming about of sexualization in media. When companies continue to do that, they tell the people that take in the media that this is okay, that it is normal to treat women like objects. Media is so accessible and constant that these floods of images and messages are constantly being thrown at people, and it only takes so long before they may apart to believe
Advertising, in my opinion, is a method of getting the word out about a particular item to be sold, a particular place to visit, or a particular service that can be provided. Advertising is everywhere around us. Basically, it is someone trying to sell something. Consider a person wearing clothing with some sort of logo available for everyone to see. Consider a company that is describing their product or service in detail. They will use words that will catch the attention of most consumers. Perhaps, they will use words that will appeal to a specific customer base. The advertisement must be enticing enough for the consumer to purchase the item or service that is offered.
The ad I included is from 1957. Magazine advertisements have dramatically changed since then. Ads then and now have very different approaches and messages. The advertisement is for Van Heusen's ties, but their advertising approach is odd. The 1957 ad shows the woman as being inferior to the man--who they allude has charge and control over her. Now, this would be very controversial, especially in western civilizations. Society tends to be more progressive now. People fight and urge to show that women and men are equal, one gender is not superior than the other. An advertisement for the same product would use a different approach. When advertising fashion products nowadays, we tend to include more diversity—though they are not as diverse as many wish. Advertisements