The advertising industry is blanketed in the use of gender in advertising. The use of gender in some campaigns though has many social implications that can have negative affects on consumers.  Advertising campaigns seem to be rooted in advertising in an almost obsessive way with gender.  The way that they use it to advertise every product is absurd by showing things like a man drinking a certain kind of beer and being popular and having women all over him, or sexualizing a product in a way that does not even connect with the product.  The way advertiser use gender is damaging and projects an idea of what should be ideal in men and women.  Gender is brought into advertisements in many different through the imagery, the language, and subtext. Consumers purchase goods in which they identify with and the way that advertisers are creating an image of what is idea is causing social ideologies to be affected in society.  Looking at how gender is used in advertising will help to show the ways that an ad can transformed so that there is less use of gender in advertisements in a damaging way.  Showing what gendered aspects of advertisements poorly affect consumers and what the motivations behind them are can help to change the current climate of ads that focus unrealistic situations, over sexualization, objectification and stereotyping.  Gender in advertisement is not always done with obvious things, sometimes it is done with very subtle things such as color to show intended gender of audience for the product.  Breaking down an advertising campaign to understand how it is gendered will allow for it to be looked at and understood to a fuller potential.

 

      The main way advertisements are gendered is through stereotyping of men and women.  Stereotyping is a way for advertisers to try to connect with the audience that their product is intended for because of the intention of meeting blanket ideals for a specific group.  Stereotyping is a tool that is used when attempting to get a message across to a certain audience, but it can be offensive and even damaging to individuals.  Stereotyping is done in numerous ways such as role portrayals, beauty stereotypes, decorative, and sexual stereotypes.  These types of stereotyping reinforce social norms, unhealthy behavior, and sexist ideologies in society with only the intention of bringing attention to a product.  Stereotyping gender is so prevalent in advertising that is goes almost unnoticed to the average passive consumer. 

 

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: “It’s a girl.”” – Shirley Chisholm

 

      Stereotyping in advertisements in many cases shows limited social roles and encourages keeping these limited social roles as societal norms.  One example of this in an advertisement would be in Google’s Gmail inboxes commercial, which shows their new way of dividing up your emails by type.  In the ad they are showing very stereotypical activities that women would participate in such as knitting, manicure and pedicures, shoe shopping, and getting ready for a date.  Advertising still clings to the societal norms for women because of the things that they can draw on from stereotyping the gender for their own purposes.  Not only is the content of the ad gendered and stereotyped for women but also the initial message can be argued to controversial.  The commercial is opened with “Inboxes can be overwhelming.”, before being walked through the inbox full of stereotypical emails. The subtext that can be understood from this commercial is that women need some type of handholding or incentive to use technology. Social roles are used in advertising all the time, typically because of audience selection, however these depictions continue to feed further stereotypes. 

 

      The way that external beauty is used in advertising is another way that gender

is conveyed in advertising.  There are three ways that advertisements use external

beauty, objectification, marginalization, and body image.  Objectification is one of

the widest used and most damaging tactics used in advertising.  There is a laundry

list of offenders from technology companies to fast food chains.  In most cases

objectification is directed a women in advertisement because of the extensive use

of women as “objects” in commercials.  One example of this would be an

advertisement that Axe body spray made in 2012 depicting a headless set of

breast.  This commercial is the epitome of objectification not only because of the

depiction of the main woman in the advertisement, but also because of the tagline

at the end that does not even leave the question of objectification.  “Hair. It’s what

girls see first.”, the subtext to this tagline is supposed to allow the consumer to

infer that breast are the first thing that men see when comparing the two in the advertisement.  Objectification happens in all kinds of way in advertisements and in all modes of advertisements.  Whenever there is a person who has no connection to the product, but is meant to be a “decorative” piece for the advertisement they are being objectified. One print example of this is the advertisement that Giselle Bundchen did for the California Milk Processing Board, better know as Got Milk?, where she is simply the decorative piece behind the meaning of the advertisement.  Marginalization is another tactic that is used often in advertising.  Marginalization of women in advertisements can range from being “arm candy” to simply being the “goal” for another character to attain.  One excellent example is any of the Dos Equis commercials. In these commercials beautiful women who are half his age, who never say a word in any of the commercials, typically surround “the most interesting man in the world.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

       

 

      Body image is another way tactic that advertiser use when marketing products to consumers.  Body image can come into play in multiple ways, the main way being through idealistic actors and actresses or models being used in the advertisements. Seeing advertisement after advertisement of thin or buff models can start to cause perception problems for individuals, whether that is towards themselves or towards expectations for others.  One of the best examples of using body image for advertising is with the Victoria’s Secret “Perfect Body” campaign, which depicts Victoria’s Secrets angels with “The Perfect Body” written across them.  This was intended to be for the new “body” collection that they have however the subtext that was intended and was inferred was not about the actual product, but the women that were marketing it. Body image is also used when

advertising to men as well by depicting men that are in excellent shape

or ideal.  Most of the time the body images used of men is used to promote

hypermasculinity in the commercial, which is notorious in cologne

advertisements.  One example of this would be Dolce & Gabbana

advertisement showing a fit model with absolutely no connection to the

cologne, not holding it or anything. 

 

      The motivations for advertisers to use gendered advertising are solely

for their benefit and have no real benefit for the consumer.  By using

gendered advertisements it makes their jobs easier to grab the attention of

the audience they are trying to reach, whether that is fifteen-year-old boys or fifty-year-old women.  Advertisers intended affects using gendered stereotyped and portrayals of men and women are to be able to market their products in a way that they believe will help to promote it.  One of the main reasons behind using gender stereotypes in advertising is that they are able to set the stage quickly. They use stereotypes because of the familiarity that they have with consumers, which allows them to establish the product with the consumer.  It helps them to set a scene without having to add much information to the advertisement.  Stereotypes are also used because of congruity with a product.  This is where the social roles come in to play because of the types of product in which they are promoting can be framed in certain model or scene.  Again because of the familiarity that goes along with using stereotypes about gender roles advertisers are able to frame products and situations. Another reason they use gendered aspects to their advertisements is because beautiful things are appealing.  There is a belief that if someone who is beautiful is using or displaying a product that the favorability towards that person will be transferred to the product.  There is also the belief that if the advertisement features more beautiful people then it will be more memorable because it will be more favorable to the consumer, especially for beauty products because people will think it will actually be worth purchasing.  One of the main reasons there are gendered aspects used in advertising is because of the ideology that sex sells.  The idea that sex sells is the driving force behind many of the motivations to use things like oversexualization, marginalization, objectification, and ideals of external beauty. Advertisers use sexual imagery to catch attention of the consumers intended for the advertisement with hopes that it makes them intrigued with the product that is set within the framing of the sexualized ad.

 

      Socializing consumers through commercials that are gendered and sexualized continuously can affect social ideologies of society and hinder social change. The affects that advertisements have on consumer perceptions of the world around them are significant and continued gendered advertisement can be damaging. The largest group that is affected is children, mostly because of how impressionable they are.  Advertisements can shape the way children view relationships with things, masculinity, femininity, gender roles, and social structures.  Some of these messages can be damaging to children because they promote things like sexism, hypermasculinty, and unhealthy practices and imagery. The largest advertisements have on consumers is how they perceive gender roles and gender identity through what they see.  When someone takes in an advertisement they are taking in information about the situation, so by viewing something that may define a gender or role that a gender has in society that are learning what they may believe others expect in society.  Advertisements teach people what personality traits they should have and how they should act, then connect them to their product in some way to make the consumer believe that they need it in order to fit that mold.

 

      Changing the way that advertising is done is important because of the way that it can manipulate consumers’ ideologies.  Creating advertisements that are less gendered by not using idealistic individuals to represent, promoting sexism, and attempting to balance gender roles is important to help promote healthier ideologies.  Not promoting societal roles and identities that are unrealistic can help to create change in gender inequality and help allow gender identity for individuals to be less cut and dry and reduce ideals like hypermasculinity and objectification.