When beginning my search for TV advertisements that feature women, I had little to no trouble finding commercials that displayed female-empowering messages. It’s evident today that there are numerous companies and brands jumping on board to using feminism in order to help sell products and gain attraction towards their products. We can see throughout the years of advertising and television commercials that feminism has grown increasingly popular to use as a means of activism. Although companies don’t have to do this, it’s clear that they want to. But the question is, are these companies genuinely interested in feminism or are they just doing it for the profit? The article “Faux Activism in Recent Female-Empowering Advertising” by Alyssa Baxter …show more content…
suggests that the answer is the later, that companies do this in order to make a profit and termed this as faux activism. But aren’t these companies overstepping their boundaries with such acts? Like the study in Baxter’s article, I’ve decided to review and analyze not only commercials exhibiting female-empowering undertones, but also commercials with submissive undertones. The advertisements I found that featured women using an empowering undertone were those by CoverGirl, Under Armour, Aerie, Dove, Ram trucks and Verizon. On the other hand, there were advertisements where women were depicted using submissive undertones such as those by Beats by Dre, Carl’s Jr., Victoria Secrets and Miller Lite. To start, we’ll consider a breakdown of each commercial analysis for those using an empowerment undertone.
As the article states, an empowerment undertone is typically seen when women are portrayed in a position of power, breaking traditional gender norms or highlighting women’s natural beauty. When analyzing each advertisement, I compare similarities on how the study in the article analyzed their commercials such as stating how each commercial displayed one or more elements of the empowering undertone. After analyzing each commercial, I’ll then talk about similarities and differences with the information provided in the article as related to these female-empowering advertisements. Afterwards, I’ll proceed with the same process but for the submissive undertone advertisements instead.
With CoverGirl’s “#GirlsCan” advertisement, it depicts well-known women such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen Latifah encouraging women to go after their dreams, even when others try to hold them back. This commercial ultimately sends a message to get rid of what girls can’t do and replace it with what girls can do, overall empowering women to strive for what they want to do in life and challenging individuals who don’t believe in them. This ad helps to disregard society’s perception of what girls can’t do and helps to strengthen women’s capability of attaining their
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goals. Next, I looked at Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” advertisement which helps in a breakthrough of Under Armour’s well-known reputation as holding more of a traditional masculine perspective to now holding a feminist perspective as well when representing Misty Copeland, a ballet soloist, for going after her dream even after being rejected for ‘having the wrong body for ballet.’ I feel this advertisement does a wonderful job in eliminating the traditional societal perspective and norms for what’s feminine and what’s masculine, overall supporting gender equality and portraying women as powerful and strong. The third advertisement, Aerie’s “#Aerie Real, Real Talk with Amber” helps to increase women’s confidence in their natural beauty and show off their comfort in their own skin. This campaign helps in portraying models like Amber from Aerie and actress Emma Roberts with no touch ups when being on camera, overall showing off their natural selves. This can be seen as helping with women’s confidence, natural beauty and encouraging women, especially young women, to just be themselves overall feeling comfortable in their own skin. Next, we have Dove’s advertisement on their “#SpeakBeautiful” campaign. This commercial’s goal is to get women to stop talking negatively about themselves and start talking positively by using the #SpeakBeautiful on Twitter and having women say something they love about their body or themselves. This commercial specifically helps in boosting women’s confidence about their natural beauty and feeling comfortable in their own skin. I, then, analyzed Ram’s “Courage Inside” advertisement which draws the audience’s attention toward women’s inspiration and challenging society’s gender norms. This commercial touches upon inspiring and empowering women not to be afraid, overall positively motivating women. This sends a powerful message to women about not thinking that they could never do something but instead to break the stereotype that society holds for them and have the courage to do so. Finally, the last female-empowering advertisement I looked over was Verizon’s “Inspire Her Mind.” This commercial specifically aims at women’s capability of going after whatever dream job they want to pursue, even if it’s in the science and math field. In accordance to the article, this advertisement does a great job in breaking through traditional gender norms and going against the stereotype that women can’t or shouldn’t pursue any STEM jobs. Instead, this advertisement encourages and inspires women to go for such jobs. In accordance to the article’s use of coding into the category of empowerment undertone, the above advertisements all help to display a mixture of establishing women into a position of power, breaking through society’s perspectives and traditional gender norms, as well as highlighting women’s natural beauty. Baxter touches upon the idea of cause marketing, where a brand latches onto a cause, which helps the brand in selling their products because consumers are more likely to switch to companies that are connected to a good cause, such as what the above female-empowerment advertisements did. Therefore, brands like CoverGirl, Under Armour, Aerie, Dove, Ram and Verizon may align themselves with the cause of feminism in order to sell more of their products, improve their standings and build more employee loyalty like the article states. Yet, who is to say that these companies aren’t actually genuine in their approach to feminism? As Baxter has already proven, some companies, such as the brand Dove, will use feminism as a case of activism in selling their products while using opposing messages in their male-targeted brands.
Yet, what about the other companies or brands? This article states “ad-her-tising may be nothing more than a trend that gets individuals to buy products” (Baxter, 2015). The word ‘may’ is powerful enough to note that some companies might actually want to change the world and use feminism in their advertisements in order to do so. For example, Ellen DeGeneres, who is featured in the CoverGirl female-empowerment commercial, is well-known for her talk show where she inspires women today as well as inspiring the LGBT community to be confident in themselves and to not be afraid to speak out. So that brings me to reiterate the question, what about the companies that weren’t analyzed in this study? Are they sincere in their campaigns? Or are they like the brands studied in the article, where they use feminism strictly as a means to profit
from? It would, obviously, be beneficial in today’s industry and society to hop on board to this feminism bandwagon that companies are increasingly doing. So, in a sense I do agree with the article that companies are partly using feminism in order to sell their products. Considering the popularity it brings, it would bring more attention and attraction to the brands, therefore resulting in more products being sold. Yet, this article fails to elaborate on the fact that advertising such a cause like feminism also helps to bring a greater awareness to topic of feminism today. Also, these commercials do not technically do it in a negative light, but rather portray it in a positive light through the empowerment undertone. These brands, such as the ones mentioned earlier, portray females as strong, independent, confident and smart. Last time I checked, those are all good qualities to desire and obtain. Baxter mentions that companies may be taking advantage of the cause of feminism. But if critics are questioning this, then they should also question companies supporting other causes as well, not just those supporting feminism. I personally feel that these are the brands’ way of talking about a cause that needs increased awareness, while also benefiting from the cause with an increase in their own profit. Audiences don’t just see the one advertisement on feminism, but rather they see different advertisements from the same brand that doesn’t just focus on the cause. For example, Ram doesn’t just do advertisements on feminism, but they do other ads on specials that they may have to offer for their trucks during a specific season. I feel that this simple fact could give these brands a fighting chance to claim that it’s not just all about the profit from the cause alone, but it’s about both the cause and profit individually. Bottom line, it’s just a bonus that these brands get to profit while supporting a great cause. Personally, I think Baxter needs to take into account more of the awareness that these advertisements can establish globally and think of the positive impact that the advertisements I discussed above could have on young women today. For example, the Dove commercial mentions the statistic on how women negatively portray themselves on twitter, but the fact that it takes one positive comment to turn it all around. That’s what these advertisements are doing and helping to achieve, is changing the perspective that society holds for women. Campaigns and commercials that support female-empowerment could do wonders in boosting females’ confidence, overall creating psychological benefits such as reducing eating disorders, depression or anxiety that women may feel about their bodies or simply pursuing their dreams. Not only that, but the fact that these advertisements can get a lot of attention not only on Television but also by expanding their awareness to social media sites such as using Dove and Aerie’s hashtags for Twitter and Instagram. Even if companies profit from it, there are positive outcomes for using feminism as a means of activism in advertisements.
This is another commercial where we can directly see how the advertisers are overlooking gender stereotypes, by it being ranked number one it proves that when gender stereotypes and gender bias are not incorporated the advertisement becomes effective and
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
I have examined and analyzed the COVERGIRL™ NatureLuxe advertisement that uses common feminine stereotypes. In this advertisement, COVERGIRL™, which runs in Seventeen magazines, targets women through their choices of colors, fonts, and images used. Certain stereotypes are used; such as, those who are more feminine tend to prefer lighter, happier colors, such as pink. Also, the use of a celebrity, who many young women look to as an icon, assists in the advertisement of the COVERGIRL™ product. COVERGIRL™, more than likely, is able to successfully market their lip-gloss product in the United States by using common gender stereotypes to show femininity and how those, mainly women, should be presented in today’s society.
We focused our research on the gender of the individuals in the commercials, the wording used to sell the products being marketed, the colors shown in the commercials, how each gender was depicted in the commercials, and what their roles
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
Friday night, as I watched television I evaluated commercial content in relation to the target of women and what message advertisements send to women of all ages. In one hour I saw twenty-four commercials, eleven were targeted at women and every single one had something to do with either the appearance or beauty of women or a domestic focus. These commercials touted products to enhance beauty or lose weight with the underlying message of "improved self-esteem". I have always blamed the media, or more broadly, cultural attitudes for the problems young girls and women face with low self-image and often find myself citing Barbie dolls and the overwhelmingly pink aisles at the toys-r-us as a root cause of the marginalization of women's roles. Peggy Orenstein refers to this as the "politics of the external", a term which, at first, I had a difficult time accepting. Is this not a major implication when discussing a society that promotes female self-censorship and devalued intellectual potential? After reading "Schoolgirls" I came to understand exactly what Orenstein meant and she convinced me that "the internal need not, and indeed should not, be ignored". Although it may not be well documented it is indeed established that although "women's lib" has come a very long way since we received the right to vote there are still social implications that can only confuse women's' identity and self-image. Peggy Orenstein's book has indeed caused me to look deeper into the internal issues affecting self-esteem that women face beginning with adolescence.
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously over the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between the 1900’s and 1920’s, did the roles of women change dramatically here in the United States.
Our world has progressed an enormous amount in the past few centuries. And even today, in our modern era, we are bigger and smarter, but our thinking has not changed. Women have been restricted from many opportunitIes in the past. We as women are still being criticised and objectified, which is disgraceful and sickening because we are constantly told “close your legs when you sit” or “don’t do that it’s not lady-like”. This is portrayed in advertising that basically makes a mockery of our freedom. And we ask ourselves, where did the idea of sexism and gender inequality emerge from? Religion. It is the root of sexism and gender inequality which has been practiced for over two thousand years. It is presented through the use of advertising,
The objectification of women is a huge issue in society and is often led by advertising. However many men still believe that the adverts depicting women in a sexual and often passive posture are not very offensive but rather very funny or sexy. However how would they feel if it were their daughter or sister being advertised throughout the world as a sex object?
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983:
These days it seems as though advertisements aimed towards men purposely exploit women. The more male oriented the product, the more skin the woman advertising it must show. The advertisement industry has one motto in mind when advertising products and that is to bring in revenue by any means necessary. There must be a woman involved and she has to keep her clothes to a minimal. In today’s society the imagery of an advertisement speaks louder than the words or products being displayed. Especially when the advertisements are targeting men and women, it’s almost impossible to tell if a product is being sold or if sex is being sold. Tom Ford advertisement toward men will often have a half-dressed woman endorsing the product and an advertisement toward a woman will be more on the tasteful high-fashion side.
Advertising surrounds the world every second of the day. This form of influence has had the power to influence how society views gender roles ever since men and women began to appear in advertisements. Through the exposure to many different gender portrayals in advertising, gender roles become developed by society. This stems from how men and women are depicted, which forms stereotypes regarding the individual roles of men and women. People often shift their definition of an ideal image towards what they see in advertisements. From this, they tend to make comparisons between themselves and the advertisement models. Advertisements tend to be brief, but impactful. The different portrayals of men and women in advertising show that advertisements
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising has a negative effect on women's body image, health, and self-esteem.
In order to successfully grasp women’s attention, they shifted their branding and narrative process to targeting “feminine sensitivity” in order to gain a better appeal to women. In 1990, Nike executives created a team of employees together with Wieden and Kennedy, Nike’s advertising agency and revolutionised its strategy by focusing on the issues that “really matter to women”. What they did was shifting the way they appeal to women’s bodily consciousness through guilt to presenting the products not as commodity, but as concepts; the brand as experience and lifestyle. In the case of Nike’s advertisement, it referred to the “empathy/dialogue” campaign. By doing this, Nike “addressed athletics as a personal experience of growth rather than a path to glory and physical power” (Lucas 152) and eventually managed to corner the women’s market. Later in the late 1990s which is the rise of second-wave feminism, the movement sought to liberate women from constraining gender roles and gender discrimination of the patriarchal culture in which they lived and also railed for images, especially in advertising, that portrayed women as more than housewives and positioned them as equals to men. This is because “feminists had identified advertising as one of the key sites for the production of sexist imagery. Throughout the subsequent decades women voiced their anger about being treated like objects to be visually consumed.” (Gill 83) Hence, marketers have acknowledged that simply empathise with women is not enough and as a result, according to Cole and Hribar, Nike had to transform its image to a “good public citizen” (347-369). Nike’s co-founder, Bill Knight, specifies that he wants Nike to be thought of as a company with a “soul that recognises the value in human beings” and this idea of kindness gave birth the ad campaign “If you let me play”. The ad campaign