Critical Marketing Thinking: Advertising Gender Images of Women - Research Paper Example

? Critical Marketing Thinking Marketing & Society MKT09103 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 0Introduction 3 2.0Literature Review 3 Discussion of key themes and theories 4 Critical Analysis 6 Analytical Summary of Literature Review 8 3.0Methodology 8 4.0Findings and Discussion 9 What is advertising for? 9 What is stereotyping? 10 How ads stereotype women and men? 11 Relative size 11 Feminine touch 11 Function ranking 11 Reutilisation and subordination 11 Licensed withdrawal 12 Images in advertising 12 5.0Conclusions 14 Bibliography 15 Appendices 17 Appendix 1 17 Appendix 2 17 Appendix 3 18 Appendix 4 18 Appendix 5 19 Appendix 6 20 Appendix 7 20 Appendix 8 21 Appendix 9 21 1.0 Introduction Marketing is an important aspect within businesses and organizations. Marketing refers to the management process within firms whereby goods and services move from concept or theories to consumers. In other words marketing is a process of coordinating the four main aspects of a firm’s operations: product, price, place, and the effective promotional strategies. Marketing functions assists organizations to develop effective products in line with the requirements of consumers besides identifying the right pricing, distribution, and promotional strategies. One of the most effective ways of achieving objectives of marketing is advertising. Advertising is one of the corporate communication forms used by organizations or firms to encourage, persuade, or influence the audience towards their products. Advertising in most cases creates a perception on the products or services of an organization. Through advertisements firms are able to reach out to consumers. Nonetheless, there have been serious debates on how advertisements as form of corporate communication affect gender. Taking a view on the women, advertising has had different perceptions on women. Despite the numerous research studies on advertising gender images of women have spurred so much debates and interest, there is need to conduct a more in-depth analysis on the same. This qualitative research study aims to identify whether advertising gender images of women reinforces or challenges female gender stereotypes. The research uses literature review to create an in-depth analysis of the topic. Methodology chapter provides an overview of how the research study was conducted whilst the findings and discussion provide understanding of the obtained data. Lastly, a concluding remark provides a summary of the main points within the study. 2.0 Literature Review The marketing and particularly the presence of consumption appeared in England in the era of post civil war. The consumption behaviours in England did benefit from the free wage labour force to produce commodities (Bocock, 1993). The important cultural heritage of Puritanism was a powerful part of the cultures of England, Scotland and Wales in addition to a selection of similar cultures that was transferred to North America and Australasia. British Puritanism has exhibited some values that viewed spending money on clothes for men and children as luxury; this has extended to not spending money on expensive meals. However, British values to some extent have encouraged spending money on building houses and furnishing them without paying much detail to decorations. These values were not influenced by the economic factors, although there were noticeable economic deficiencies during the periods of economic depression and the Second World War (Bocock, 1993) mentions. This spending culture was different to the less protestant cultures of countries such as France, Italy and Spain, where they have encouraged spending on items such as fashionable clothing, jewellery, eating and drinking well at home and in restaurants. These differences date back to the sixteenth century. This culture was unlike spending culture in the less Protestant cultures of countries like France, Italy and Spain, which have encouraged spending on items such as fashion apparel, jewellery, eating and drinking well at home and in restaurants. Bocock (1993) adds that these differences can be traced back to the sixteenth century. Consumers during modern period were known as groups whose habits of consumption had a central role played by their lives, by providing means of marking off themselves social status groups. This process also helped to give them a sense of social identity. These consumer groups began to emerge in the late nineteenth century in the United States and Western Europe industry developed capitalism. Catterall et al, (1999) explain in the management issues, that currently managers are under great pressures to manage under circumstances of uncertainty and complex conditions to maintain competitive advantage, in addition to economic, globalisation pressures, and technological change. The aforementioned conditions are collectively known as the postmodern conditions, flexibilism, and late capitalism. These conditions are recognised by ambiguity, multiplicity, inefficiency, and quick change; they require various ways of expert knowledge, which can be embedded in the marketing and management curriculum. This essay hopes to briefly search and examine selected literatures available around the area of critical marketing to obtain a general understanding of the history and theory, to guide the thinking and understanding throughout the marketing and society module. Discussion of key themes and theories Catterall et. al. (1999) illustrated in the marketing intelligence and planning journal, that critical marketing is normally limited in its coverage to academic journals and that it doesn’t make it beyond the academics segment. Catterall et. al. (1999) also showed that the current marketing researches suggest that marketing has lost touch with the practice of marketing and practitioners of marketing. Marketing within the business school curriculum is suffering to make a stand, and the other alternative to marketing curriculum is the research and publishing strategies to cover a wider audience base, with a view to implement a research based teaching in marketing. Piercy (2002) suggests that marketing academics are subtle concerned about the development of marketing studies, but their priorities are concentrated somewhere else. Piercy (2002) also affirms that for the marketing studies to develop it require marketing practitioners, researchers or students who are willing to challenge the status quo and the current practices. Piercy (2002) further explains that executive priorities in marketing academic research has hardly changed in the past 25 years, also most of the academic research has not changed or met the different organisations strategic objectives. Critical marketing as described by Catterall et. al. (1999) is viewed as not only aiming to critique the bad marketing practices but also to find ways to transform the marketing practices. There are also views that suggest that critical marketing is limited in its scope to classrooms only and not able to explore real life situations as it’s based on theories which are similar to what happened in the management education. Therefore, the aim of Catterall et al (1999) was to find the possible ways to engage academics and students to explore the critical marketing curriculum and to introduce that into classrooms as well. The idea is that engaging the students and teachers as they are consumers, managers, and employers, and by learning from their experiences. When speaking about critical thinking, this automatically signals that the literature or the evidence of the studied subject should be scrutinised and the underlying assumptions examined critically (Catterall et al., 1999). Some views by marketing academics suggest that the marketing studies should be more academic so that it solves marketing issues by equipping the marketing manager with a variety of methods that helps them solve marketing management problems. Catterall et al, (1999) criticized the illustration that the marketing curriculum lacks intervention in areas such as; moral, political, and social issues as argued by critical marketing critiques. Saren (2007) shows that modern marketing practices needs to be viewed and studied as consumers experience it, therefore calling for a modern ways to explain marketing and change the old ways of thinking, so by examining and including social and cultural aspects which concerned about the consumer in marketing education, and also by studying how do consumers, organisations, and society establish marketing. To rethink the old ideas of marketing Saren et. al. (2007) proposed two possibilities, namely; relationship marketing and critical marketing. When looking at the relationship marketing, the most important relationship marketing is the relationship between organisations and customers, organisations come to think of their customers as prime helpers as they provide the organisations with the necessary support, therefore the relationship needs to be managed closely to create and maintain value for both customers and organisations through the relationship (Saren et. al., 2007). Undeniably, the relationship marketing involves other stakeholders within the business environment and not limited to only organisation – customer relationship. This view has changed the old concept of viewing organisations through profit maximisation and through transactional nature of buying and selling. Therefore, enriching the lasting relationship between buyers and sellers is of great importance, as the relationship can further explain the behaviour of marketing and market development. This was more commonly known as the interaction approach by the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing group (IMP) (Saren et. al., 2007). The interaction approach is one of the important ways to implement the relationship between the various business stakeholders, as it has been established by researchers and managers. The second strand of possibility examined by Saren et. al. (2007) is the critical marketing, which concentrates in areas other than the traditional marketing theories and practices. It’s viewed that marketing is different and behind in terms of critical theories compared to other management disciplines. One of the theories is the consumer centred approach which studies consumer behaviour to help in understanding what marketing means to consumers. Researchers have established that the human body is where all consumptions occur, through signs and messages that are sensed by the body. Consumers’ consumption of items such as “clothing, perfumery, cosmetics, tattoos, piercing, surgical and dental enhancement” as illustrated by Saren et. al. (2007) is a way of using the body to consume these products so as to maintain personal and social identity. Consumers’ identity can influence the decisions they make about food and health products amongst other consumables. Critical Analysis Consumer behaviours in the area of body modifications have been the interests of researchers; Saren et. al. (2007) submits, who are hoping to understand the behaviour and the interaction between consumers and their role in producing and consuming of identities widely visible. This demonstrates that treating marketing as an academic entity, should take into account these various elements and theories exhibited by consumer behaviour as illustrated above. It should be wide in its approach and concept, and covering areas other than conventional marketing practices, therefore, introducing critical marketing will help in this approach by examining relevance and its impact. Tadajewski (2010) suggests that marketing amongst other management disciplines is the least critical, judging from the various literature that is published in this area, that suggest being critical in marketing can be obtained by looking into the literature that examines several methods, such as; critical research, systematic review of marketing theory and practices, and focusing on how to be critical and what marketers should be critical of. The history of critical marketing showed by Tadajewski (2010) suggests that marketing makes a purpose in the society which helps to perform an uneven distribution of income, this view has been criticised by critics that marketing does not attain to the consumers objectives, and therefore, advertising is used to change consumer’s values. These marketing theories illustrated here resembles to an extent the Frankfurt school type of critique, which mentions the Neo-Marxist ideology and social theory, that to an extent is concerned about the social aspect of marketing. It further mentions the importance of recognised critical theory that involves all known ideologies to give a holistic view of critical marketing theory and practices as further explained by Tadajewski (2010). Furthermore, Tadajewski (2010) also illustrates that there are a lot of awareness given to the area of possessions that a humans owned, in appose to the connection and the progress that people might have and work towards achieving between each other in addition to the connection and the responsibility that humans have with regards to the environment. Many critical academics have to some extend criticized the task that marketing and advertising in general play in marking humans or more specifically consumers individualism and conversely the importance of marketing and advertising in sending messages to consumers. Critical theory and analysis are widely known as agents that help nourish the social aspects of consumers as well as certainty and intentions. But, there are also questions around the way that advertising and marketing uses and utilises knowledge to obtain consumers buy in. As Firat (2009) shows, academics also are aware of the role that science and technology play in enlightening consumers and liberating them from becoming deprived of materialism. This observation is a suggestion of the Marxian ideology and theory that people can only free themselves after fulfilling essential economic prosperity, as long as that people are not disadvantaged by being secondary elements to the economy. Analytical Summary of Literature Review The literature searched in the previous sections has painted a general picture on the theory and practices of marketing and in particular critical marketing. It is clear that the history spans back to the neo-Marxist era and the ideology of the Frankfurt school evolved around the time. Academics are divided when it comes to critical marketing and the ideas that come with it. Some academics think that to better understand and implement marketing it is vital that academic researchers should engage in further discussions and to explore further the theory, the other party suggests that academics are often forgetting the idea behind critical marketing and reckon that the objectives of critical marketing should be revisited as well as social and cultural aspects of marketing. The new school of marketing suggests that marketing practices and advertising by organisations have demonstrated high influence on consumer’s behaviour, and have studied further the affect of the body on consumption as consumers use the body to consume products such as; clothing and perfumery to maintain personal and social identity. When it comes to rethinking old ways of marketing Saren et. al. (2007) proposed two possibilities that can be employed to tackle marketing, these are; relationship marketing which is the relationship between the organisation and consumers (as they are the main helpers of businesses), and the relationship also between organisations and other entities within the business such as the organisation suppliers. The second part is the critical marketing. It is understood that the research in the area of consumption by Bocock (1993) has concentrated mainly on Europe, North America and Australasia, but this is a limited view, as the African cotenant wasn’t taken into account, and perhaps it would have showed interesting patterns of consumption. Other areas that its felt forgotten in the literature are the cultural differences, society differences, and religion and what it imposes on particular types of consumer behaviours. 3.0 Methodology Understanding the impact of advertising gender images of women in this research study has been enabled through qualitative data. Perspectives of consumers in respect to marketing can only be understood from the perspective of qualitative data. Qualitative research methodology was therefore employed in order to obtain information or data regarding the objective of the topic. Interviews were carried out on specific view of consumers on the advertised gender images on women. Given that the research study aimed at finding answers to regarding women, the qualitative research study, the participants were mainly women. Women were interviewed on their perceptions regarding to advertisements of gender images. Various images were identified (appendices) and shown to the women. Their perceptions on each image were noted down and a conclusion reached in respect to how advertisements of gender images affect the women consumers. Images of both sexes were used in order to establish the main objective of this research. 4.0 Findings and Discussion What is advertising for? Advertising is a form of corporate communication used by firms to reach out to consumers in respect to their products with images of “good looking” people. Advertisement gives a product a meaning. For example in alcohol it is possible to change flavoured pink bottle of Bacardi thereby making one to feel young and beautiful. In this case advertisements create an image, without advertisement it is just a bottle. The language used in advertising is moving a true positive experience. Advertisements play with our minds and make us think if we purchase a certain product we will look just like the girls on the advertisement. Many magazines and also TV advertisements use women as their main selling point. Looking at the perfume advertisements such as Gucci, they use women showing their body and driving motorbikes but do we question ourselves what has that got to do with the perfume? There can be many advantages and disadvantages to TV advertisements. For example one advantage of advertisement is we are aware of many different products which are available for us but on the other hand most of the advertising are trying to make us think we will look better by owing a certain product such as Pantene shampoo they try to make us think if we use that shampoo we will have the same hair as the girl in the advertisement (Appendix 1). This is one of the common advertisements which we see every day in the media. “The consumer is right in his belief that advertised brands are better. The better brands have more incentive to advertise than the poorer brands. Simply put it pays to advertise winners rather than losers. In consequence, the amount of advertising gives consumers a clue as to which brands are winners and which brands are losers”. (Nelson 197b, 590) As consumers we watch TV which can lead to many ideas and sometime advertisements can take control of the human mind .This kind of behaviour is very common in all ages .Advertisements reach a larger target market most people have TVs. It has a strong influence example compare flyers and TV advertisements they both are advertising tools but yet consumers tend to perceive that in a certain company is more successful when they advertise on TV. Advertisements can give a positive impact for example such as Dove. Dove use different people of all sizes and races that attract more consumers. In addition, Dove do not use the “celebrate status” to catch consumers eye, but everyone has their own mind some might fall for certain advertisements and some rather follow their mind and not fall for the marketing industry. Advertising use images to catch consumers eyes they tend to target particular groups such as young teens to market their product. Advertisements play a big role in our life’s they make us who we are, when purchase a product we don’t just purchase goods we also get the service lifestyle and success and gives us an image how the society perceive us. For Example, those who feel old and got grey hair can purchase hair dye and feel young again. In this case, the old can feel more successful and fit in the society. Advertisements can change the way we think and how men and women should behave. What is stereotyping? Advertising play a big role in stereotyping, they communicate to the society through language and symbols, as we grow up we get mix messages about how male and female should behave. We all believed once in our life’s pink is for women and blue is for men that’s what advertisements want the consumers to believe (Keepsafestaycool.com, 2008). Many advertisements make women look like a sex object and the men to look muscular. Historically, looking at advertisement world it has always been stereotyping women out for long decade. For example, the phrase “Dumb Blonde” illustrates idea of stereotyping caused by advertisements. If we look at the food company McCain Home fries (Visit4ads.com). They tend to stereotype women cooking in the kitchen. Most of their advertisement are always about women, because the product there trying to sell is fast food so they try to stereotype as they think women should be the ones in the kitchen not men (Appendix 2). On the other hand if we look at companies such as McEwan’s beer brand .they show men always holding beer relaxing, watching a game of football. They stereotype by giving a message out to the society stating men just relax and women tend to do all the work. See (appendix 3). How ads stereotype women and men? If we look at the advertisement .We always see the difference in body language in men and women, and how companies tend to stereotype women using them as object. Relative size Men are always shown taller than the woman as that gives them more control. There height is the most important aspect as that shows whose boss (appendix 4). There height gives them authority, you will never see women been the taller taking in charge in any sort of advertisements. This illustrates how the society look at women and how they should behave and that man are always in charge. Feminine touch If we look at perfume advertisements such as Gucci (Perfume.org, 2012).Women tend to cradle an object (Appendix 5). This picture shows women touch is very gentle, they tend to touch and men are shown as they don’t touch and they tend to grasp and manipulate things. Function ranking If we look at Mr Muscle advertisement, it shows a geeky man cleaning but in reality would we see that. We can argue and ask are advertisements making trouble we can argue and say it may or it just shows what happens in reality. Family men are over protective and active with family kids in this advertisement shows the man is cleaning and helping his family. But in reality we wouldn’t see a man cleaning we should see the women in kitchen (Appendix 6) (Geraldhome.dr-maul.com). Reutilisation and subordination If we look at the common advertisements such as perfume, clothing company’s .Women are on the floor or beds. In many advertisements women are always treated as children. They tend to do the child poses or even dress like children. We would not see men on the floor nor even do the bashful knee bend pose that most women do in TV advertisement. As consumers we don’t question ourselves what has these body language got to do with the product we are purchasing (Appendix 7). This picture was from the perfume brand Marc Jacobs. It shows a young girl who is used to advertise the product, but however this picture had many complaints from the society and was banned (Lifestyleyahoo.com, 2011). “An advertisement for Marc Jacobs perfume featuring actress Dakota Fanning has been banned for sexualising a child’ according to the Advertising Standards Authority”. The picture created a worry for parents who had young teens. This picture was giving the wrong message out to men as this young girl was only the age of 17 and was used as an object in a sexual way to sell a perfume. Licensed withdrawal When we look at many advertisements women are more emotional to men for example women’s body language is very different to men they tend to stare in the distance ,or even use their hand to cover their mouth as on the other hand men don’t tend to do such things like that. In advertisement’s women experience “Glee” more than men (Appendix 8). All these above are how advertisements make women look to sell their products, therefore women are used more in a sexual way and men tend to have more power over women. If we look in the real world we don’t see this kind of behaviour. Images in advertising Women are used in a sexual way in many advertisements; most ads show women in short dresses, half necked outfits. Women are used in such ways which we would not do in or normal day to day life. Most of the women are skinny tall blonde and with perfect skin (Caringonline.com, 2010). We watch TV in our daily day to day life hence seeing the TV commercials with skinny models. Therefore, most TV advertisements implying that you have to be thin to be pretty. Statistics show that 7% of 318 children are sure to get an eating disorder before they reach their teens. Women’s body are turned into various things especially during advertisements. For instance, through breast enlargement many companies advertise stating the bigger the breast the better. In Appendix 8, the slogan used in this brand is “I can’t cook, who cares”. This is giving a message to the young girl if you have big breast then you will be successful. Statistics show 114% breast enlargement is over 2million a year, (killing us softly 4 Video) therefore this shows that advertising is getting through to the human minds and there way of selling products is working. .Women are more to been seen as a subject to an object these days .You would not see larger women on ads always skinny young girls who are air brushed to have the most beautiful skin. They make them so perfect that as a society we think perfect does exists ,but in reality we all are different and there is no such thing as having the perfect body or even face is there way of marketing and selling there product to make money. From my research I have conducted I have learnt women are used as a sex image for brands to sell their products. The roles of women in ads are stereotypical and limiting. The roles always show women cleaning, caring for children or making meals for their husbands. Stereotyping can have a negative and positive impact to the society; therefore it can be very misleading to the society. Stereotyping show that consumers are the same, but in fact, they are different. Women are used to advertise everything these days, such as men’s underwear, Mobile phones etc. Advertisements show a message if you are not beautiful you have no success. You see ads everywhere buses, TV, Aeroplanes and most places where we go in our daily life. Ads sell value, images, love and success. By attending the lecture I did not think in depth how women are betrayed in the advertising world and how there are shown as objects to sell their products. By studying this module I feel shocked. I did not look at the ads the way I look at them now. Ads manipulate our minds I felt as I watched ads which had a clear message of women been used as sex objects but I did not think that, and now I have and I have a strong view and would like to study more to learn more depth of the advertising world as a society we need to change our views how we stereotype groups and individuals .It’s how we perceive people. There needs to be more education more awareness. Brands need to use normal women and all sizes so everyone feels accepted the way there are. When as a society we look at ads we just think wow she’s beautiful wish I was like her, but in reality she is fake airbrushed (Appendix 9). In this picture the celebrity Beyonce was skin lightened. “Of course, black and Asian parents work hard to give their children a positive self-image and confidence in their appearance, despite the cultural forces stacked against them. ‘But when black celebrities appear to deny their heritage by trying to make themselves look white, I despair for the youngsters who see those images.' (Mail online) 2008 Stereotyping push women in to one category but in reality every woman is different. Advertising is misleading and unfair on women. It can cause many conflicts in the society some men might want their women to be just like the girl on TV so they feel more successful. Ads make us believe what they want us to believe we need to question ourselves are we supporting them or supporting our women who are used as sex objects. 5.0 Conclusions There is no doubt that marketing is an important aspect within businesses and organizations given that it is a process that enables firms to more goods and services from concept to consumers. One of the forms of marketing, which is also a tool of corporate communication, is advertising. Advertising is a form of corporate communication used by firms to reach out to consumers in respect to their products with images of “good looking” people. Advertisement gives a product a meaning. In addition, advertisements create different perceptions on consumers. For instance, advertisements involving gender images have great impact on the perception of various consumers. Women are the most affected parties in respect to advertisements of gender images. Women are affected in various ways through advertising gender images. For instance, there is increased stereotyping and negative perceptions as confirmed by the research study. Bibliography Bocock, R., 1993, Consumption: Key Ideas, Routledge, London Caringonline.com, 2010, We live in a thin obsessed world where skinny models are idolized and 60% of high-school girls want to lose weight, [Online] [Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Catterall, M., MacLaran, P., & Stevens, L., 1999, ‘Critical Marketing in the classroom: possibilities and challenges,’ Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol., 17, No., 7, Pp. 344-353 Erikson (2012), Mail online. [Online][Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Fuat, F. A., 2009, ‘Beyond Critical Marketing,’ Journal of Marketing Management, Vol., 25 No., 7-8, Pp., 831-834 Geraldhome.dr-maul.com, Loves the job you hate, [Online] [Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Keepsafestaycool.com, 2008, What are Gender Roles and Stereotypes? [Online][Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Lifestyle.yahoo.com, 2011, Marc Jacobs perfume ad featuring Dakota Fanning banned in the UK. [Online][Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Perfume.org, 2012, Sexy Chris Evans fronts Gucci Guilty ad. [Online][Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] Piercy, N. F., 2002, ‘Research in marketing: teasing with trivia or risking relevance?’ European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36, No., 3, Pp. 350-363. Saren, M. 2007, ‘Marketing is everything: the view from the street,’ Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 25, No., 1, Pp. 11-16 Saren, M., et. al., 2007, Critical Marketing: Defining the Field. Butterworth-Heinemann, London. Tadajewski, M., 2010, Towards a History of Critical Marketing Studies,’ Journal of Marketing Management, Vol., 26, No. 9-10, Pp. 773-824 Visit4ads.com, McCain Potato Products - McCain Homefries Rooftops, [Online] [Accessed 29 Nov. 2012] < http://www.visit4ads.com/advert/McCain-Homefries-Rooftops-McCain-Potato-Products/57478> Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Appendix 6 Appendix 7 Appendix 8 Appendix 9 Read More