Socialization And The Power Of Advertising Jean Kilbourne Summary

Socialization and the Power of Advertising is an article written by Jean Kilbourne about the influence of advertising. In it, she focuses on the impact advertising has on people, especially young people, to buy. In her film, Killing Us Softly 4, Kilbourne changes gears and talks about advertising’s image of women. In both the article and the film, the message is the same: advertising seeps in to our environment and influences us, whether we realize it or not.

Like the article and film suggest, advertising is very integrated into our culture. Advertisements appear on television, the radio, magazines, newspapers, the internet, billboards, trucks, and even movies. In the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character “befriends” Wilson, a Wilson volleyball.

That is considered product placement, a form of advertising. Kilbourne says that we cannot escape advertising, and I agree. It’s everywhere and you can’t truly ignore it. You may not consciously pay attention to it, but we are impacted anyway.
The unintended effects of advertising are immeasurable. Ads sells much more than the product itself. Our identities are created by brands. This includes brands such as clothing brands, the make of your car, and other household items. More and more often advertisements are telling us who we are and should be. This is not always a good thing.
Jean Kilbourne really hits on this topic in Killing Us Softly 4. She argues that advertisements sell values, images, and concepts of love, sexuality, success, and normalcy. She goes on to say that advertisements say that the most important thing about women is how they look. This makes women spend time, energy, and money and looking perfect, and then feeling ashamed when they fail. However, it is impossible to look perfect, because not even the models of the advertisements look like that. They are airbrushing, applying makeup, and photoshopping the women to help sell the “ideal woman” image. They are given bigger boobs, get their waistlines slimmed, and are cleared of any blemishes.
When it comes to children, they are heavily targeted in advertisements.

One reason for this is because kids are easily influenced, and advertisers see it as a way to establish brand loyalty at an early age. I remember as a kid seeing really cool Coca-Cola advertisements. For some reason, I don’t remember Pepsi ads, so I always preferred Coke over Pepsi. This is good for the advertisers, because once a kid is loyal to a specific brand, they will most likely stick with that brand for their entire lives. For the kids, however, it’s not always a good thing. Exposure to so many advertisements can’t be good for them. In some cases, like the image of women in advertisements, it will change a person’s impression of certain things.

Jean Kilbourne is passionate about an array of topics when it comes to advertising, but her message is clear: we cannot escape advertisements and they are influencing our minds. Socialization and the Power of Advertising illustrates this using children and consumerism. Killing Us Softly 4’s main example is women. Either way, advertisements are negatively impacting us and, as Kilbourne points out, it’s getting worse. Whatever the solution is, we have to put an end to the experience of being immersed in an advertising

culture.