Gender stereotypes and roles have long been an issue within society. Today, people believe that gender stereotypes no longer exist, however, these preconceptions of desired gender attributes and roles strongly remain. Old Spice, a company producing men’s hygienic products, is known for its comedic advertising campaigns, focusing on references to traditionally desired masculine characteristics. Using gender stereotypes, they connect with the audience’s emotions and desires through humor and sex appeal, in order to convince them to buy Old Spice body wash. The Old Spice ad, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” represents a clear demonstration of gender stereotypes, roles and the resulting issues of sexism and inequality in society, with an …show more content…
By sexualizing the advertisements, Old Spice has successfully found a way to appeal to the younger, modern generation of males, while also appealing to the desires of the female audience. Looking at the target audience of this ad, I feel it appeals to the emotional needs of women by giving them an ideal image of what a “real man” should look and smell like. For example, the man in the ad directly addresses the ladies in a sexy, self-confident voice, asking them to compare their man to him. The ad makes women want a fit, attractive man like the one in the ad, who will get them “two tickets to that thing they love” or give them expensive diamonds. All of these cues relate to gender stereotypes and masculine ideals that are linked to a woman’s satisfaction and desires. Thus, women are more likely to purchase Old Spice Body Wash for their man, in hopes that it will make them similar to the hyper masculine figure in the …show more content…
The man in the Old Spice ad represents male gender roles in society compared to female gender roles. Throughout the ad, it is implied that a “real man” works and provides things like money and diamonds for his female partner while the “ladies” he continuously refers to represent the female gendered role in the home. From an early age in traditional societies, many boys are taught to stray from displaying “feminine” characteristics as it was deemed less permissible and “beneath them” by society. This idea is reinforced in the advertisement when the man states, “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady”. Traditionally, society has enforced the notion of masculinity to prepare men for their role in the family and at work. Although traditional role expectations were narrower for boys than for girls, women were generally restricted to the household and cooking while men were expected to have a valued role in the workforce as the “breadwinner”. The advertisement also touches on this by implying that women are dependent on men to provide them with things like diamonds and tickets to their favorite show. In this sense, the ad implicitly portrays sexism and gender inequality that exist in society as women are stereotyped into roles that
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.
Though Old Spice targets and appeals to females, they do sell men’s hygiene products, thus, also attracting males and running an ad campaign that males can enjoy. The constant lack of shirts is just enough sexual appeal to catch the audiences’ attention, without driving them away. The caricature of the perfect man, easily enacting a variety of roles, is entertaining for females and males. Additionally, the commercial uses quick transitions and repetition to keep the audiences’ attention and to reinforce the association of Old Spice with the ideal man. Old Spice sells their image as representing the perfect man, and hey if you can’t be him, well you can at least smell like him.
In the old spice commercial, the brand is showing that men are just brainless robots and the women are just hyper-sexual individuals. The setting of the commercial is in a nightclub where women are dress in provocative clothes that come off like they are looking for sexual intention from the men. Men are
Sex sells a common phrase which turns out to be very truthful and also the title of Rodger Streitmatter's book, Sex Sells! The Medias Journey from Repression to Obsession. It seems like no other human act drives "buying behavior" as much as sex appeal does. Therefore advertisers manipulate this human drive and than offer their products as a path of love, beauty and desirability which is their main purpose of advertising. In other words the main purpose of advertising is to sell products and what advertisers must do to get people to buy these products is to make products desirable to the chosen target consumers. The pioneering of bringing prurience to advertising was Calvin Klein, starting with women's jeans going then to men's underwear and ending up with perfume for both sexes at the end. Perfume advertising is a large contributor to sex appeal. In both ads for Opium and Dolce & Gabbana perfumes advertisers use sexual seduction and influence to sell their product. They use sex appeal to grab our attention and play with our fears and desires and they manipulate us by fulfilling our erotic fantasies and dreams.
Old Spice’s script has you believe they are addressing a female viewer; however, the product is not one that a woman would go about purchasing, and the ad was shown during the Superbowl, which has a predominately male viewership. The ad is attempting to give the male viewers and alternate perspective of things. Instead of addressing the men specifically, the ad causes the men to imagine what thoughts may frequently cross the mind of their female partners or other women they may commonly interact with. For example, the line “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady,” implants the fear into the male viewer’s mind that he may not smell masculine enough to appeal to his ideal woman. He now worries that she may indeed think he smells like a lady. However, if the viewer were to use Old Spice, the advertisement, through its final line of “Smell like a man, man,” assures him that he would no longer have to worry about how he smells; he would smell like a
The two concepts that I am going to talk about are the master trait and women as a minority group. According to our textbook, the master trait is defined as cutting across all other identities in life. We are always female or male at the end of the day. In the Tide commercial, as viewers we see how separate men are to women. A once enjoyable party turns into a charade that depicts women as happy go lucky to do house work. Although the master trait is something that is a normality to our society, when we solely view someone as male or female, we impose gender stereotypes that shouldn 't continue to exist. We see the negative connotations of gender enforced stereotypes when it comes to the Old Spice commercial. The glamorized depiction of the man makes it seem like the fairy tale we dreamed of is achievable just by using Old Spice. The second concept of women being a minority group comes into play in both commercials because women are on the back burner for both. Yes, the Tide commercial depicted the happenings of Kelly Ripa’s dinner party but as a whole women were still the minority because of the oppressed overtones within. In the Old Spice commercial, women play an invisible role because we aren’t seen at all in the commercial but it is more geared to us. Since we are “less stronger” than men, we need to get someone who all around suits us according to the
The Old Spice Campaign that I chose is a one-sided message is the communications in which only positive attributes or benefits of a product or service are presented. The message in the ad is one-sided because it is only mentioning the positive aspects of the deodorant, it does not have any negative aspects on the ad. Old Spice advertisements always has a male presence, and it is usually a famous person. They usually have different types of male celebrities ranging from actors to athletes. Old Spice uses the humor appeal to get their message across to their target market. In their advertisements there is always something that stands out to appeal to the consumers. With this campaign it centers on the Old Spice Man answering questions from the viewers, and doing different activities, being different places and having costumes on. The ending of the commercial always has a surprise ending leaving the viewer astonished. The campaign appeals to the humor appeal because it uses humor, but not too much so that consumers can pay attention to the product that is being advertised. On the Old Spice YouTube channel for the commercial in the description box it says “We’re not saying this body wash will make your man smell like a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are sure insinuating it”, which is appealing to humor because you know that your man is not going to smell like it, but are suggesting that they would
In Gender Advertisements, Goffman analysed the ways in which popular media constructs masculinity and femininity through looking at more than 500 advertisements. Goffman’s studies showed a clear contrast in the ways in which both men and women are presented to society. Generally, women held lower gazes whilst men looked straight on; men were strong in their grip whilst women were lighter and more delicate; women were more melodramatic whilst men were stoic and controlled etc. Overall, Goffman argued that the relationship between men and women was presented as a parent-child relationship – men are powerful whilst women represent subordination (Goffman,
"Don't worry darling, you didn't burn the beer" (Schiltz Beer) ; "You mean a woman can open it"(Del Monte 1953), “Christmas Morning: She'll be happier with a Hoover"(Hoover Company). These quotes from vintage ads of the 1950’s and 60's give clear proof of the existence of sexism. Most American’s are very well aware and acquainted with the conflict residing with advertisements that are sexist toward women. As we know women were and still are expected to fill the role of a childbearing machine, twenty-four hour mother and wife, household maintainer and cook for the family. In the present time in society women are still expected to fill the roles previously mentioned and are now being portrayed as extremely attractive sex symbols by the media. What about men? Are they not victims of stereotypical advertisements as well?
In conclusion, we can see how everything presented in an advertisement can actually have an impact in the people. Although the company’s target was to sell their product, their way of transmitting the message to the people also fortifies the stereotype. Thus, the media today does abuse the power of stereotyping in order to gain a favorable reputation. Everything they present in the ad, from symbolism to the lifestyle of the characters, race, age and gender, has an effect on strengthening the stereotype. In this case, women are perceived as emotionally drained, weak and incapable, although now a days that characterization is trying to be broken because women are much more than that and can actually get to achieve greater things.
The Paco Rabanne Invictus fragrance for men advert, published in 2013, seems to portray how a modern male should appear: strong, muscular, and heavily tattooed while women are perceived as relationship-oriented, and eye-candies: a lightweight drapery hides their private parts whilst revealing their forms. Thus, it reinforces gender stereotypes. As Buying Into Sexy points out sex sells, and people tend to be heavily exposed to adds as well as “music videos that feature plenty of sexual innuendo”. That is why humongous corporations “(create) a certain environment of images that we grow up in and that we become used to (in order to) shape what we know and what we understand about the world”, states Justin Lewis in Mickey Mouse Monopoly. So, how is the ideology of masculinity represented throughout this ad? The warrior-esque man is physically desirable, and irresistible to women. Even though the audiences are aware of the existed hyperbole, they might focus on the experienced feelings of smelling good.
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
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
In our current society, advertising is approached in different ways when trying to appeal to more of a male or female audience. Companies who use marketing and advertising for the end goal of selling products tend to aim their advertisements to the gender that is most likely to buy the products (Gender Matters). Unilever is a company that sells multiple brands and different types of product; however, two brands that they sell, dove and axe, take opposite approaches when it comes to advertising and this has been seen as a controversial issue with different portrayals of women (Said et al.). Dove has started the campaign that promotes real beauty and the main goal of this campaign is to help women all around the world realize their true beauty
The photograph of the young lady supposedly “blowing” a long sandwich with the word “BLOW” written under it is what attracts males. You could even indicate that the only things that males truly wish for in life are sex, food and women. Clearly this advertisement has combined all three elements into one single advertisement. Women are often used as sex objects to attract a man’s attention. This is quite dangerous in today’s society because of the lack of females who actually appreciate themselves for who they are and what they look like. Whenever, women see advertisements portraying them as objects, some women begin to assume that they should use sex to be accepted and feel comfortable. While on the other hand, many women may feel disrespected. It is not just the images or what is being sold that take part in a woman's mindset but the philosophy of what these ads are doing. Men love to lust over very attractive females while somewhat considering what is actually being advertised. Society today has women thinking that being submissive, promiscuous and provocative is the only way for guys to stare at them and want them. Young female viewers are led to think that those types of characteristics are perfectly fine and accepted therefore, leaving them wanting to be considered a “sex