Jib Fowles Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals

Since the beginning of media and advertising, marketers have been using subtle tactics in order to pull in the consumers. In Jib Fowles essay, “Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals”, he discusses the 15 appeals that advertisers use in order to engage the consumer’s interest into buying their products. These different advertising appeals are targeted towards a set audience. Some of the target audiences being male, female, elder, or teenager. However, in some cases, the Carls Junior ad I’m analyzing has multiple audiences. Which is the male and female audience. The male audience is more geared towards the sex appeal in the ad, and the female audience is geared towards the longing for attention and to be accepted and wanted. Jib Fowles essay about 15 appeals of advertising helps distinguish which appeals Carls Juniors

effectively illustrates. Which are: the need for attention, physiological need, and sex appeal.
The first of Fowles 15 appeals that I notice in this ad is the need for attention. According to Fowles, this is the need to be looked at and the desire to be noticed. This lust for attention can relate to a message that innocently tells women that this is the way you’re supposed to look, skinner, prettier, and more sex appealing. Typically, the models used will be tall and skinny but will never look like the average woman. Images such as these that portray the “perfect body” and the “prefect image” can drive women or a young girls insecurities and lower their satisfaction of their own attractiveness. Many companies market off of the average woman’s insecurities, however the media in general recreate the average woman’s and young girl’s uncertainties and self-doubt. For as long as we know the center of beauty, the perfect image of woman is the white lady with blue eyes and blonde hair. This image is now used as a default in media advertisement. Companies use tactics such as “you can look this way too if you do…etc.” or “they will want you more if you…etc.” For example, seeing a thin woman eating a huge burger has the female viewer thinking that maybe if this woman is eating this burger and can still be portrayed as attractive and thin, then maybe if I eat it I’ll still be able to have her body or be wanted by men.
The second of Fowles 15 appeals that I notice in this ad is the need for sex. Sex appeal is the selling point exaggerated in this Carls Junior ad. Sex is used in this advertisement as a seductive or erotic image to draw interest to a hamburger. Being that this may help increase profit margins for the purpose of selling, it has no absolute connection to the profit being advertised which is simply a burger. Sex tends to be much more appealing in media advertisement because people listen better with their eyes. In this ad specifically if you were to cover up the burger, it would look exactly like a Victories secret advertisement! With the way she’s posing you may need to ask what is being sold. The selling of sex is more of an enticing way of teasing rather than the full blown image of sex. My assumption would be, the company doesn’t want sex to be its primary advertising point but it does give a subliminal sense of sexual desire. The woman must have only been in the picture to draw in the consumer’s interest and to make the ad look more attractive. On top of the burger, there’s a quote in bold letters that says “She’ll tell you size doesn’t matter, she’s lying”, this catchy but yet provocative and raunchy catch phrase is one that tries to appeal to men because it’s commonly known. The slogan pertains to the size of the burger but subconsciously uses a subliminal way to strike the female perspective on male sexual masculinity depiction.
The third of Fowles 15 appeals that I notice in this ad is the desire for the physiological need of hunger.

The burgers is magnified to the point of where it can capture the consumer’s eyes. Fowles describes images of such to be “primary and primitive” and being an emotional appeal which attempts to find its way into the mind of the viewers (Fowles 76). The burgers position is placed in a way to where it becomes the primitive object that captures the consumer’s interest. Also, in the ad there is a contrast of colors that help bring depth to the burger such as the black background to make the burger seem as if it’s right in front of your face. The contrast of the over exaggerated colors of the burger ingredients (bright green lettuce, bright red tomatoes, and orange burger buns) help to make the burger stand out. These warm colors in particular help to activate your taste buds, appetite, and patience. The feeling this ads tries to depict is there is an urgency in having this burger now. One great thing about colors is that it appeals to everyone, No matter what culture, gender, or age. Everyone can be a victim or fall vulnerable to these

advertisements.
By understanding the different methods or different appeals Jim Fowels described in his essay “15 Appeals of Advertising” the assumption that these tactics of appealing to an audience can help achieve a high level of success of marketing the product. Carls Junior media advertisement uses sex appeal, the need for attention, and the physiological need of hunger as a strategy to connect to the viewer’s emotions with direct and subliminal approaches. It’s unlikely that the ad was created to specifically sell sex, however it does show a relation between desire and hunger. It establishes the want for the product in the consumer’s life and convincing the audience that the burgers at Carls Junior are not only bigger and women who eat them are attractive, they generally push the idea of what women should look like.