Sociology Observation of Two Advertisements

This observation assignment has been very interesting, in that it has made me more aware of advertisements. The two that I chose are Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ) and Vogue, both from September 2014. The ads that I chose are a representative cross-section of the typical ads you would find in these magazines.

We will start with Vogue. In Vogue #1, (an ad for Ruddenberry of London) there seems to be outdoor party of some sort going on. There is a man pouring tea with a fake smile. There's another male on seated on a horse, next to a younger female wearing a Mardi Gras mask. At the bottom is a young girl wearing the kind of wig that Thomas Jefferson wore. Most of the characters seem to be younger middle-age characters, and they would seem to be rather wealthy. I can't really make a guess at the occupations, but the guy pouring tea looks like a lawyer of some sort. They seem to have placed the one child character to the bottom of the page, perhaps indicative of the importance of children in this society portrayed. It's also intriguing to note that although we can see the full face of one and almost two more male characters, there are no women showed with their full face: either their head is turned, or their wearing a mask. It would seem that the men are the more important of the sexes in this ad. This ad is meant to play towards the wealthier crowd, and it is probably meant to make one think of England. There are no other races portrayed in here except for Caucasian, so Ruddenberry is betting on the white crowd to buy their clothes.

Vogue #2 (an ad for Kenar, once more a clothing company) portrays the "perfect" family from the 1950's. They all have fake smiles, and this picture of the model family is one ...

... middle of paper ...

...e a musician and the rest of the character's occupations are not clearly defined. This ad is designed to make people feel uncool, so that they go out and buy this fragrance to feel cool. Jazz is very cool right now, and this ad shows that jazzy people wear this fragrance. The two characters in the foreground confused me. They don't seem to fit with the rest of the ad.

From these six ads that I've selected, it's obvious that the two magazines I chose were primarily marketed for white consumers. Unless an ad is overly offensive or stereotypical, I don't think many people would get too upset looking at ads. The majority of my two magazines were ads, and most of those were one model standing there, looking beautiful. These ads were a little more interesting, and this observation will cause me to never look at magazine advertising the same again.