Advertising, you've come a long way baby, really?

Advertising is a method to get people to believe that something whether it is a specific product or an idea that once they have it and use it will be beneficial to those particular groups of people.  There are many forms of advertising but the objective or the bottom line is the same is that it is an attempt to get people to buy into your thing or your ideas whether they need it or not.  It is simply a way for business and politicians to make the masses to spend their money and get the masses to vote for them, by any means necessary. 

Kenwood magazine ad

            

In traditional advertising “corporations, industries, and government agencies sometimes use advertising as bureaucratic propaganda, just as national governments use psychological warfare or religious cults use proselytization.” (Cortese 51) That is pretty scary considered what governments are capable of doing and how much control they have over mass media even though America claims to have a democratic government and its people lives in a free democratic society, but do we really or are the American people under some sort of control and censorship from corporations and from the US government?  

            According to Jean Kilborne, author, film maker and renown for work in image of woman in advertising said that “advertising is an over $130 billion a year industry and affects all of us throughout our lives.  We are each exposed to over 1500 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society. The average adult will spend one and one-half years of his/her life watching television commercials.”  (Kilborne 121) Our lives are constantly being bombarded with advertisements and advertising anywhere and wherever we go. Whatever the medium may be, advertisers will find new ways to place ads in anywhere and everywhere they can find space.  And most if not all of these advertisements and the contents in the advertisements itself are controlled by a male dominant industry, even though the products are produced for female, there still are not enough women voices in those boardroom meetings to have any bearing on how those ads are to be produced and or distributed. 

Calvin Klein perfume ad

            It is widely known that in the world of advertising that sex sells, and sexism is rampant in the industry even when since the beginning of advertising.  The advertisers have a great deal of say about images to control and identify gender identity to ensure the right gender get their attention and properly persuaded.  These images play a great role in ads especially with female and how they perceived themselves and are portrayed to persuade the women to buy into the goods and services.  Kilborne said “advertising creates a mythical, WASP-oriented world in which on one is ever ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled either physically or mentally (unless you count housewives who talk to little men in toilet bowls)… [And] women are shown almost exclusively as housewives or sex objects.”  (Kilborne 122)  When the ad industry said sex sells, as it was mentioned in Gloria Steinem’s article, Sex, Lies and Advertising that “in Chicago, the big attraction is Marilyn Chambers, who followed Linda Lovelace of Deep Throat fame as Chuck Traynor’s captive and/or employee. VCRs are being demonstrated with her porn videos.” (Steinem 115) 

Calvin Klein clothing ad

            As for other sexism in the ad industry, images of women in ads today “is not human; rather, she is a form or hollow shell representing a female figure.  Accepted attractiveness is her only attribute.  She is slender, typically tall and long legged. Women are constantly held to this unrealistic standard of beauty.”  (Cortese 54) This dilemma makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for today’s average women to achieve or obtain causing many young girls to do horrible things to their body like purging, eating disorders caused by extreme dieting which leads to anorexia and possible substance abuse.  Kilborne said “adolescents are particularly vulnerable, however, because they are new and inexperienced consumers and are the prime targets of many advertisements.  They are in the process of learning their values and roles and developing their self-concepts.”  (Kilborne 121-122)   

           

Broomsticks trousers ad

Beyman Blender designer store ad

Women 2.0 web image women leadership

 I believe that more women need to break into the advertising industry, especially at the executive level where she has a voice in the boardrooms to change the advertising industry’s culture to curb sexism, objectification, images that invokes violence, racial and gender discrimination.  Otherwise, business is as usual and good old boys will be just boys with their toys. 

Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul.  Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising.  Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.  45-76. 

Kilbourne, Jean.  Media&Values:  Beauty and the Beast of Advertising.  Los Angeles:  Center for Media and Values, 1989.  121-126. 

Steinem, Gloria.  Ms. Magazine: Sex, Lies and Advertising.  Arlington: Ms. Magazine, 1990. 112-120.