The purpose of advertising is simple; to sell a
product. The way this is done has changed greatly over just the past decade, as
more and more advertisements are being incorporated in the media in ways so
that we do not even know they are trying to sell us something. Viral, guerilla,
and experiential marketing is what makes up the current landscape of
advertising in America. Most of the ads we see in our daily life have been
tailored to appeal to just us with the use of cookies. For example, if I Google
a book on my work computer I’ll then start to see ads for it on my phone.
Advertising has made a massive switch from the television and print ads that
were the lifeblood of the 20th century and the early 2000’s. Most of
what we see on our screens has been carefully crafted by algorithms to match
our preferences, if I don’t want to see sexist, racist, content I can avoid it.
But the damage done to the self esteem of millions of individuals due to
advertising has left its mark on society. From the 30 million individuals with
eating disorders to the everyday brainwashing that happens when you are taught
there is only one way to be attractive and if you don’t live up to that you
will never find love. So many of the messages that advertisers sell are
dangerous and bring damage to the lives of real people. Solutions to these
problems often seem shady, and although more companies are trying the gimmick
of appealing to socially conscious millennials, it often starts to feel like
they’re trying to trick us. And that’s because they are.
In order to understand the impact of advertising
it is essential to understand the power structures it involves. Advertising is
an industry built around what bell hooks calls “imperialist white supremacist
capitalist patriarchy.” It is an industry built by white men to sell things to
the people they oppress. Capitalist societies are driven by consumption and
profit, and they are the ones making sure that keeps happening. I firmly
believe that information is power, there would be no information, no news, no entrainment,
without the money sold through advertising. As Jean Kilbourne says in Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, “advertising
is the foundation and economic lifeblood of the mass media. The primary purpose
of the mass media is to deliver an audience to advertisers” (121). It is a bit
of a chicken or the egg scenario when it comes to advertising and mass media,
but ultimately in a world automated by money, you cannot have one without the
other.
Advertisers are selling the world as they see it,
so we have been programmed to think like heterosexual white men when making
purchases. What product can I use to earn their affection and interest? Advertising
tells us what to aspire to, what will make us happy, what will satisfy our
desires. The history of advertising begins with the male gaze, but as women
grew to have more spending power in their homes, more advertisements were
directed at them, but were still informed by the male perspective. In Conclusion: Body Messages and Body Meanings
by Maggie Wykes and Barrie Gunther, they state “We only know who we are through
language, yet for women language represents them according to the interests of
those who “represent” rather than according to women themselves.” The images
and ideals being sold to women were a representation of patriarchal values and
are often not in line with how women have wanted to be treated or seen. Progress
has undoubtedly been made from the era of 1950’s advertisements such as these
that clearly establish deeply rooted misogyny, and a clear hatred for women by
infantilizing them, and literally showing them as something to walk all over.
(Source)
But advertising both informs and reflects popular
culture. The ideals shown above didn’t come out of nowhere, but seeing them in
between the pages of a magazine tells the audience that this is normal, that
this should not be questioned. Knowing the painstaking work and thought that
goes into each word of copy and the images used, the advertisers clearly
thought these were universal ideas that both men and women would understand and
were convincing enough to make someone want to buy a product.
In todays world it has become the latest craze to
target the elusive millennial by attaching a product to a social cause. This alternative style for advertising is without
question better for society and the self-esteem of young people than the advertisements
shown above. But is there such a thing as moral or ethical advertising? In the
famous 1971, “I’d Like to
Buy the World a Coke” the idea being sold is that drinking coke brings you
closer to other people and that if you care about peace and love then Coca-Cola
is the drink for you! This is a very nice idea but is also, to put it
succinctly, is bullshit. Drinking coke doesn’t bring world peace. It’s a nice idea
to support companies who have ideals that are inline with your own, but no
matter how many advertisements might try to show you otherwise, they are still
selling a lifestyle and an image. And many companies don’t live up to the brand
they are trying to market in their own corporate practices. In this coke commercial they are trying to
market to the huge slice of the population that was made up of young, socially
conscious, peace loving men and women. The current wave of socially conscious
advertising can be seen in this Axe Body Spray “Find Your Magic”
commercial. The message here is that
you’re uniqueness as an individual is what will get you laid but Axe products
gives you that extra something. It is amazing to see a formally hyper-masculine
product being associated with a wide variety of different types of men that
don’t fall in line with the stereotypical image we have come accustomed to of
“cool guys”. But at the end of the day they are still just selling a bad
smelling body spray that for years was the epitome of 21st century
sexist advertising as you can see here. Even these Bodyform ads for pads and tampons
“Blood” is trying to
sell an image of badass women to the growing number of girls who consider
themselves to be feminists.
The issue with millennials is that we are more
skeptical of corporations and advertising than any generation that has come
before us. We seek authenticity and honesty with the products we purchase and
advertisers know that. We are still getting duped but this time on a much more
intricate and manipulative level than with the advertisements of our
childhoods. As much as advertisements seem better than they used to be in terms
of their social messages, for so many women and men the damage has already been
done. We still have been informed by a society that sees women as objects to be
modified and distorted to fit into the western, white ideal of beauty. We are taught to think that if I just have that
face wash, or if I just buy my clothes from that store, I’ll be beautiful. I
will have worth. Jean Kilbourne accurately surmises “The spectator of the
commercial imagines herself transformed by the product into an object of envy
for others—an envy which will justify her loving herself. The commercial image
steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price
of the product” (123). We are sold self-love and that is criminal. No product
or purchase can ever do the job of teaching a man or woman to love themselves
and it is high-time we stop praising the adds of Dove or other “heart warming”
advertisements that sell us a phony version of self esteem. In Lindsay King
Miller’s article Here’s What Bothers Me
About the New Dove Ad, she says “It’s about creating an association between
a brand name and a form of surface-level faux-empowerment so that women will
feel like buying Dove soap is a triumph for their self-esteem instead of simply
a triumph for capitalism.” And this truly encapsulates what advertisers are
trying to do to our generation. They need our purchasing power in order to make
money, so by concealing this under the guise of empowerment, advertisers are
still able to control and manipulate us.
Sources
Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, Jean Kilbourne
Here’s
What Bothers Me About the New Dove Ad, Lindsay King Miller
Conclusion:
Body Messages and Body Meanings, Maggie Wykes/Barrie Gunter
