The Effects of Advertisements on Women - Essay Example

The Effects of Advertisements to Women 0 Introduction In every corner of the world, people are greeted with information in different forms. This information often comes as text in newspapers or magazines, radio, television, and even in the Internet. One source of information from these media is advertisement. Advertising is one tool used by businesses and organizations to promote and boost their product, service, or their company itself. The platforms of advertising are vast, and these different advertisements also have the specific target audience or market. Nonetheless, the audience or market greatly depends on the type of product, service, or promotion being used. In a more specific term, the paper will critically analyze the effects of advertisement to the female or women audience relative to the use of sex, female models, women as sex objects and the superwoman. 2.0 Advertising Before examining the effects of advertisements to the female audience, it is important to have an overview on what is advertising. In brief, advertising is the tool used to promote a product or a service to the intended market or audience. Advertisements are used to draw the attention of the consumers and prospect market and highlight the importance or the characteristics of the product or service. In the earlier years of advertising, barbershops used strips of red, white, and blue to advertise their services. However, due to the enhancement of technology, many had used every medium platform to advertise. Today, advertising has many forms which come from print to multimedia, and down to social networking websites (Petley 4). 3.0 Gender Role in Advertising In relation to the term gender role, it is defined as the norms of a certain culture that is associated with the male and female. Therefore, in order for advertisements to be effective in a certain culture, advertisers must learn the past, the origin, and the current gender roles of the target audience. In certain societies, men and women have lesser differences; however, there are also societies where the masculine values are considered higher than the feminine values. Nonetheless, according to McArthur and Resk, in most of the cultures, gender roles differ in six major aspects, which include credibility, role, location, persuasive arguments, rewards and product type (qtd. in Ifezue 15). Credibility differs among men and women in most cultures because men are considered more authoritative than women. This can be supplemented by independent roles that man portrays, while women portray roles that are dependent on their relationships with other people. Due to the authority of men, they are mostly seen in working environments, while women are mostly portrayed as mothers at home. In addition, men are considered as persuasive in their arguments compared to women with regard to constructing arguments; however, women gain more rewards and approval from people around them. Lastly, most of the advertised products for women consider men in authority (Ifezue 15). 4.0 Difference in Advertisement Perception between Men and Women The difference among men and women does not only include gender roles, but they also differ on the manner of perceiving the products that are advertised. In relation to the details of a certain product or brand being endorsed, men do not give particular attention to the details. For example, men are not easily convinced or bothered with the nutritional value of a food or meal being advertised. In most cases, men usually consider a product that is appealing to their appetites and is capable of fulfilling their basic needs. In contrary, women portray roles which need affirmation from the opposite sex or from the people around them; therefore, women are more detailed when considering products. For instance, women look into the details, such as calories and nutritional facts of food and beverages being advertised or endorsed, because they consider their health rather than sufficing their basic needs. This is also because women are more valued by their physical looks and appearance (Ifezue 14). 5.0 Does Sex Sells on Women? Since women are the focus of this paper, it is essential to analyze the effects of the different advertising methods currently employed to the female or women audiences. In any given brand, product or service, it can be seen that most of the advertisements use sex in order to attract the attention of the audience. With this, the prevailing question remains if sex does really sell to female audience. On the contrary, many have considered that sex is mostly represented in advertisements as unjustified or unnecessary (Dahl, Sengupta, and Vohs 219). Furthermore, according to Dahl, Sengupta, and Vohs, women have an instinctive negative reaction when viewing, hearing, or reading advertisements that contain explicit sexual messages (220-221). On the other hand, if the advertisement employs gift positioning, the female audience considers the advertisement as slightly acceptable. Gift positioning is the act of using the product or service as a gift from a man to a woman in an advertisement that employs sex. The attitude and impression of women in a sex-oriented advertisement improve with this type of tactic because it infers that there is a relationship between the man and the woman, which could be an inherent cause for sex. In addition, according to the study conducted by Hultin and Lundh, most of the female respondents had concluded that most of the advertisements use too much sexual content or sexual appeal (37). According to the female respondents, the excessive use of sex in advertisements often times implies discrimination on women due to the inherent portrayal of women as sexual objects. However, this occurs only when viewing advertisements that are not done professionally and creatively, which then result to change in the buying behaviors of women. 6.0 Women, Body and Advertisements Nowadays, the approach of advertisements mostly anchors on the elaborate display of thin women. Many criticize this manner of advertising, but most of the advertising agencies, along with products and services, believe that a skinny model sells more than a fat model. However, this depiction does not only increase sales, as what most of the media people conclude, but it also causes anxiety on women on having the similar body arrayed on advertisements. This type of anxiety is more possible to occur on adult women who are working. Aside from these groups of women, those women who are also entering adulthood suffer from body-focused anxiety (Halliwell and Dittmar 119-120). In line with this, a study conducted by McGahan, the female respondents were given two advertisements of jeans which had a skinny and a heavier female model (9-10). The results showed that 78% of the participants, who were 18 to 25 years old, chose the advertisement with the skinny model. Furthermore, the participants were asked if they were already satisfied with their body, and most of the participants in the same age bracket answered that they wanted to change some parts of their physical appearance. Most of the participants wanted to be skinnier, have a prettier face, flawless skin, and other physical attributes seen as perfect from the models. With these results, it can be concluded that female models in advertisements affect the self image of women in a negative manner. Nonetheless, most of the women still choose to view or read advertisements with skinny models. Aside from the skinny body build of the women, airbrushing also comes in next, which makes women more unattainable (McGahan 13). In addition, women have also used the female models in advertisements as their standard of beauty. A study was conducted in Kuala Lumpur and the results showed that female respondents used the female models in advertisements as their basis of beauty. Aside from the physical attributes, the female respondents also associated the models to youthfulness. Furthermore, as women read the advertisements in the magazines, they are influenced by the advertisements to try the product in order to maintain their youthfulness and radiance. The influence of advertisements to the respondents who are from Kuala Lumpur is that they need to use the cosmetic products being endorsed in order to attain or maintain their younger-looking skin (Riji 42-43). 7.0 Women as Sex Objects The female figure has long been considered as an attraction in advertisements, especially in print media. Aside from this, advertisements also represent women with having lesser power over men. In a study conducted by Stankiewicz and Rosselli, with the use of advertisements in magazines, it was concluded that at least one-half of the magazines used in the study depicted women as sex objects (584). In this case, men’s magazines objectified women higher compared to entertainment and business magazines. Next in the results are the fashion magazines, which almost 63.39% of the advertisements had used women as sex objects. With these results on hand, it was concluded that the display of women in the advertisements of these magazines had brought continuous judgment to the physical attributes of women. The judgment then allows the reader, both male and female, to value a woman in relation to her physical appearance. Due to this manner of projection, women are prone to being sexually or violently attacked by men. Aside from this, both male and female audiences were seen to associate violence to sex (Stankiewicz and Rosselli 587). 8.0 The Modern Female in Advertising In the past decades, there had been a shift in the roles of women in the family, not only in the United States, but even in the third world countries. Women had slowly changed their roles from housewives to corporate or career women. In line with this change, advertisers had assumed that women are capable of doing jobs at the same time. These jobs include caring for the children at home while having a corporate job in order to earn for a living. This perception had brought to the media the superwoman image of a mother or a female. However, according to Jaffe and Berger, this type of portrayal in advertisements does not have a positive effect on the female audience. It has been found out that the working mothers preferred advertisements which depicted the egalitarian image of the female. The egalitarian image was portrayed by a wife and husband sharing household chores where the couples also had corporate jobs. This portrayal of the female figure with the helping hand of the husband was preferred by the female target market in relation to the food product being advertised. 9.0 Analysis Gender roles in the culture or society where the female target markets are positioned play a vital role on how advertisements affect the said audience. In a universal perspective, or in most of the current culture and society, women are still considered as having lesser authority compared to men, dependent and are less persuasive. With these differences in gender roles, the male and female also differ in their manner of perceiving advertisements. Females or women are more detailed than men and are vainer or more health conscious compared to men. In terms of advertisement preferences, sex does not always sell to the female audiences. Most of the time, the initial reaction of the female audience is negative and sometimes is accompanied by disgust. However, when the sexually oriented advertisements inject the role of commitment between the male and the female model, the perception of the female audiences shift and they eventually accept the advertisements. This occurs when the product is considered as a gift to the female, and when the advertisement is tastefully done. It can be inferred that the change of perception by the female audience is not only because of the presence of the gift and commitment in the advertisements, but it could also be because it has been acceptable by most of the liberal thinking of women. In this case, sex can already happen or occur even prior to marriage as long as there is love and commitment among the couples. Beauty and image represented by skinny models in the advertisements cause body-focused anxiety on female audiences. For this reason, many suffer from low self-esteem because they cannot attain the body and the fair skin depicted by the model in the advertisements. Most of the female audiences of this type of advertisements also prefer to change a part of their physical appearance cosmetically in order to attain the standard of beauty they have in mind. It was also surprising that this manner of thinking happens to women between 18 to 25 years old, or those who are in early adulthood. They use the female models as their basis for beauty. This may be the case because during these ages, women are already fully grown and mature that their body already has a specific structure compared to teenagers who are still growing and still exhibiting physical and emotional changes. Also, during these stages, women are already capable of earning for a living; therefore, they can already decide on where to spend their earnings. In choosing products, women also prefer products endorsed by skinny female models. This occurs frequently on clothing or apparels and on beauty or cosmetic products that emphasize on having a youthful, flawless, and glowing skin. Furthermore, one of the stereotypical images of a woman in an advertisement is being a sex object. This had caused a lot of research and discussions; however, many are still using this type of advertising strategy. This type of objectification in promotional campaigns usually occurs on both male and female magazines. This type of female physical projection had injected in the society or the viewers of the advertisements that women must be gauged in relation to their physical appearance. This type of objectification had also contributed to the health problems that are being experienced by women just to achieve the physical figure judged as beautiful by the public. Aside from this, the objectification of women in advertisements as sex objects had also contributed to the rise of sexual abuse in any given society and culture. This objectification also brings women into the weak light, which causes physical abuse. Nonetheless, advertisements have also portrayed women in a positive light as a superwoman who can do anything at the same time. However, this projection does not bring a positive impact on the women. Women prefer that the wife and husband work for a living, while both of them also share the workload at home. This can also be acceptable in order for the women to gain equality within the premises of the home because both the husband and the wife bring in money for the family. 10.0 Conclusion It is essential for advertisers, especially products and services that are directed to female consumers, to consider the effects of the advertisements to the consumers and the prospect buyers. This is vital in order to gain optimum use of the advertisement and in order for the product to be saleable. Aside from this, it is essential for the producers to continuously research on their target market and evaluate the effectiveness of the advertisements in order to avoid negative implications. This must be done because most of the advertisements in any medium use tactics that have the negative implications to the female audience. Works Cited Dahl, Darren, W., Jaideep Sengupta, and Kathleen D. Vohs. “Sex in Advertising: Gender Differences and the Role of Relationship Commitment.” Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. 36 (2009): 215-231. Print Halliwell, Emma and Helga Dittmar. “Does Size Matter? The Impact of Model’s Body Size on Women’s Body Focused Anxiety and Advertising Effectiveness.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 23.1 (2004): 104-122. Print. Hultin, Marcus and Erik Lundh. “Sex in Advertising: How it Influences Young Men and Women.” MA thesis Lulea Tekniska University, 2004. Print. Ifezue, Alexander, N. “What Makes an Effective Advertising for a Man or a Woman?” J Communication 1.1 (2010): 13-18. Print. Jaffe, Lynn, J. and Paul D. Berger. “The Effect of Modern Female Sex Role Portrayals on Advertising Effectiveness.” Journal of Advertising Research (1994): n. pag. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. McGahan, Cassandra. “The Effect Skinny Models in Advertising have on Young Women’s Body Image.” Brooklyn Journal 2 (2010): 1-16. Print. Petley, Julian. Advertising. London: Hodder wayland, 2002. Print. Riji, Haliza Mohd. “Beauty or Health? A Personal View.” Academy of family Physicians of Malaysia 1.1 (2006): 42-44. Print Stankiewicz, Julie M. and Francine Rosselli. “Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Advertisements.” Sex Roles 58 (2008): 579-589. Print. Read More