Gender effects of advertising

by Katherine Huff

Have you ever caught yourself flipping through a magazine and browsing through the advertisements? While to a reader the advertisements may seem random the advertisers and magazine companies have a strategy in mind. That is, knowing who their audience is. Most of the time you will not see a group of men reading Glamour and inversely you will not see many women reading Esquire. Therefore advertisers stick to the stereotypes that they know will sell their products to a certain demographic. A stereotypical woman has a perfect body, is young, and is a care taker. A stereotypical man is physically fit, masculine, and mentally tough. Unfortunately these are the things that sell products to our society today even though we do not want to admit it. We, as a society, attempt to ignore the fact that women are now only looked at as sex objects and homemakers. In reality they are intelligent leaders both inside and outside the home. Advertising companies employ stereotypes that men need to be manly and women need to look young to sell their products to a society that claims they are trying to erase such concrete and unyielding gender roles.
While flipping through the latest issue of Glamour magazine one will come across an ad for Aveeno Positively Ageless night cream that says “Natural Beauty is Ageless” in bold capital letters. Another ad for an Avon eye cream reads “Younger Eyes in just 24 hours,” (Aveeno, 2008). Research shows that 50% of advertisements in teen magazines that are geared towards female readers use beauty as an appeal for their product (Body Image and Advertising, 2000). Advertisers do not just target teens though. In fact, they are targeting women of all ages with ads like these. The ads suggest to women that they should look like they are twenty when they are really forty. Advertisements like these are putting the message out that old is ugly and young is beautiful. How many ads do we see today with women over age 40? There are so many different beauty products advertised now a days that reduce wrinkles or bags under your eyes, that younger women are getting the idea that getting older means becoming ugly and unwanted. The effects of the messages advertisers send out trickle down into the younger ages and influence the way they think about their own body images.
Women everywhere are getting the idea that looking young is beautiful. Neutrogena suggests that looking young and having a ‘perfectly natural look’ (Neutrogena, 2008) is also beautiful. Ads like this reinforce the idea that women must have a natural appearance in order to be considered beautiful because if they do not then they are ugly. Neutrogena even goes as far to say in an ad for anti-wrinkle intensive cream that “You’ll look younger than you do today. That’s what we call beautiful” (Neutrogena, 2008). In this case Neutrogena makes it clear that looking younger is what is beautiful. Neutrogena knows that if they tell women then they will go out and buy it. These two ideas of what is considered beautiful embody our society’s stereotype that a woman is only considered beautiful if she is flawless. Unfortunately as a consumer society this is what sells to us. If the average person was to see an advertisement for something that says it makes your skin look average or normal then no one would purchase it. Our society strives to be perfect and advertising in the media puts out the image that perfect is being flawless and therefore means true beauty. Normal and average are not perfect therefore are considered ugly and people will not buy a product that promises them this.
Similar stereotyping applies to men’s magazines as well. When a men’s magazine is deciding what celebrity to put on their cover, they are most likely to choose an ‘ideal’ man who looks sexy and muscular with his shirt off. While this may seem like an appeal to the ladies it is also an appeal to the magazine’s male audience. For example, Esquire has featured men such as David Beckham, Derek Jeter, Mathew McConaghey, Matthew Fox, and Lebron James on their covers (Featured Men, 2008). From a man’s perspective these are all men who embody masculinity and fitness. These are the kind of men who get the sexy women. The portrayal of men in this way puts the idea in the heads of all men that being toned and muscular will bring you female attention.
One of the most popular products advertised throughout most men’s magazines is cars. A Mercedes-Benz ad reads “It’s lower, longer, wider, and just plain mean,” and in the small text on the bottom reads, “We gave it a 6 speed […] and a road loving, racetrack-tuned sport suspension. Then we engineered in a mean streak,” (Mercedes, 2008). In this ad they do not mention any of the car’s safety features or how much it costs, they strictly say how the car is mean and tuned for the race track. The company does not bother with the technical details a woman might want, they simply assume that most men want a fast, tough looking car. This car ad is designed to make men think that this is the car that will get them to be the envy of all their friends because it is the toughest and most masculine car around.
This theme is also evident in other car advertisements in men’s magazines. The advertisement for the Honda S2000cr shows a royal blue sports car driving at the speed of light. The top of the ad reads, “ Tricked. Tweaked. Tuned. The new s2000 club racer,” and in the small print on the bottom it reads, “two goals in mind: Maximizing the s2000’s potential on the racetrack, and making sure you look good while you’re crossing the finish line,”(Honda, 2008). Honda knows that this is what every guy wants to hear. When guys think of cars they do not wonder what kind of air bags there are or how expensive or how much storage there is, all they do is picture themselves cruising around and how cool they look while doing it. Advertisers have given this image to their male readers. Advertisers try to tell them that every guy should own a fast and tough car.
Within our society today we claim to be focusing on erasing stereotypes and accepting people for who they are. Dove created a campaign using ‘real’ women of all body types and age. Dove states that their mission is “to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty,” (“Campaign for Real Beauty”, 2008). They began this campaign in 2004. Almost five years later we still have yet to see another company follow in their footsteps. There are still a plethora of ads advertising that young and flawless is what makes a woman beautiful. Dove’s campaign for real beauty is an attempt to abolish the stereotypes in advertising but we can see after almost five years that nothing has changed. Today, most magazines still contain a handful of ads for anti aging products and cars. It is ironic that while Dove is trying to make girls feel better about their bodies and demolish the stereotypes of beauty, the same company that owns Dove, Unilever, sells AXE deodorant sprays to men. In the axe advertisements there are always sexy and toned shirtless men being chased by half naked skinny bikini wearing models. This contradiction really underscores our society’s problem with eliminating stereotypes and shows that despite our best efforts our society is consumed with strict gender definitions.
Our society may be able to talk about changing the stereotypes in the media but obviously nothing is being done. Unfortunately young beauty and muscular men are the ideas and images that appeal to the consumers of our nation. When we see someone who is deemed to be ideal or perfect use a product we instantly feel the need to buy it to be just like them. Young boys and girls grow up with the ideas that what they see in the magazines is what is expected of them in the world. These messages are not given to them by their parents but from advertisers. People blame themselves or those close to them for their body and image issues when really the blame should be put on the advertising world. Advertisers will never let the stereotypes of beautiful women and manly men be erased from our perfection obsessed world.


Sources
(2000, April 25). Body Image and Advertising. Retrieved September 17, 2008, from Healthyplace.com Web site:
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/eating_Disorders/body_image_advertising.asp
(2008). Campaign for Real Beauty Mission. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from Dove Web site:
http://www.dove.us/#/CFRB/arti_cfrb.aspx[cp-documentid=7049726]/
(2008). Featured Men. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from Men's Health Web site:
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/homepage.do?site=MensHealth
Aveeno, Glamour, September, 2008.
Honda. Men’s Health. September, 2008.
Mercedes Benz, Esquire, September, 2008.
Neutrogena, Glamour, September 2008.