““Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel (Jeremy Bullmore).” Evaluate this statement with reference to selected critical theories (past and present).”
Jeremy Bullmore states that, ‘’Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel’’. In this essay I am going to evaluate this statement looking at how women are perceived in advertising. In the early 1900’s advertising was mainly aimed towards selling products to men, using women as an object of lower class. Demeaning women using them purely for boosting the perception of the male figure making them come across as the stronger gender or as eye-candy just to bring attention to the products. For years the advertising industry has been accused of influencing people to buy into an ideology instead of purely the product. ‘Ideology is the meaning made necessary by the conditions of society while helping to perpetuate those conditions’ (Decoding Advertisements, p.13, Judith Williamson). Although morally wrong, this is the main focal point in influencing the general public. A large duration of the advertising market, sexism, racism and fascism has all been highlighted in its progression. This just scrapes the top of the ice berg in terms of the negative side of its impact on the vast amount of people who witness this on a daily basis.
John Berger says that; ‘According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. The promised power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual – but its object is always exterior to the man,’ (ways of seeing, pg. 45, John Berger). This shows that all adverts during this period of time revolved around the way that men were perceived, the women were purely their to be shown in a degrading manor to make the male figure seem more powerful and greater in terms of superiority. A classic example that displays John Berger’s views on the way in which women are seen in comparison to men is shown within the advertisement ‘Dacron’ (1970’s). Promoting trousers by showing the man as being superior to the opposite sex therefore using the males ego as a driving point to influence people to purchase these trousers. Although during this time advertisements such as these were deemed acceptable and passed off as normal, a production like this would just be considered a disgrace and preposterous in this day and age. The advert initially intends to sell the trousers but observing the imagery used clearly identifies there is a lot more to it. The consumer, a male figure is buying into a lifestyle rather than just the clothing alone. The image shows the man standing proudly on the woman as if she is just a doormat in this household who can be walked all over. He is overpowering the woman and basically just showing her as an object and a slave to him which would be the ideal way of living in this era.
Another example of sexism within advertising is the advert for Delmote Ketchup produced in 1953. Even without having a male figure within the image overpowering the woman, the message being communicated still leads towards making women look inferior and weak. The typography used within the image looks as if the question is being posed by the woman pictured within the image; the quirky and comical typeface used also shows how women’s opinions are not taken seriously. The bright yellow backdrop gives the illusion that the woman is stood in the kitchen. Again, this stereotypes what the woman’s role should be within the domestic environment. The advert signifies how women are seen as the weaker gender, not being strong enough to even open a bottle of ketchup. The way the main product that the advert is actually trying to sell is not even fully shown within the image reiterates how the advert is selling a desire rather than a product. Buying into a desire and a dream rather than a product is something which Judith Williamson touches upon in the book decoding advertisements, ‘Adverts show you a symbol of yourself aimed to attract your desire; they suggest that you can become the person in the picture before you.’ (Decoding advertisements, p.65, Judith Williamson), which signifies false hope for the potential buyer and agrees with the statement made by Jeremy Bullmore.
Moving on to more modern advertisements is this advert by Nathan jewellers. This advert portrays women in a slightly different yet still negative manor, showing women as gold diggers and sex objects for the men to lust over and spoil. Women seen as purely sex objects is another common theme within advertising, being used as eye candy to either grab the consumers (mainly targeted towards males) attention or give the consumer false belief that by purchasing or using this product it will somehow make these pretty women fall at your knees. This proves that women are mainly only viewed negatively within advertising, always shown as weaker gender. The advert still also portrays men as the wealthy more powerful gender, being wealthy enough to purchase a massive diamond ring for the lady, however this time the advert touches on female submission and shallow motivations as well; how the female will basically do ANYTHING for a diamond ring.
Even though she is speaking about how women are seen within films, it still links to the way women are being used as an image within advertising. Laura Mulvey says that, ‘In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.’ (Visual and other pleasures, Laura Mulbey), Also Jean Kilbourne defines women as a sex object as, ‘The sex object is a mannequin, a shell. Conventional beauty is her only attribute. She has no lines or wrinkles (which would indicate she had the bad taste and poor judgment to grow older), no scars or blemishes--indeed, she has no pores. She is thin, generally tall and long-legged, and, above all, she is young.’ (Media & Values – redesigning women, Jean Kilbourne). Laura Mulvey’s point of women being used just to be sexy and looked at is shown clearly within this image which is an ad campaign for a fragrance by Tom Ford created in 2008. The way the woman is used in these adverts is purely just to grab the consumers attention and focus it onto the product itself. As far as using women as sex objects to sell a product I feel that this is the worst example that i have seen, the advertisements is basically just a naked woman shown in a very sexual manor with her genitalia covered by the product itself, not the most creative advert ever however it has had some controversy surrounding the campaign being seen as one of the most sexist adverts in the 2000’s. The advert is selling the idea that if you use this product this is what you will achieve, and by using the women as a sex object it shows that this product will get sex, or that is at least what Tom Ford wants to consumer to believe. The way Jean Kilbourne describes women as a mannequin really sums up the role women have within these adverts, they are only being used as a kind of object, a decoration, there to bring attention to the product and nothing more. However in comparison to older adverts using women as sex objects, the more recent advertisements seem to be getting more and more pornographic with more and more flesh being shown, maybe it doesn’t seem too bad by today’s standards however it seems to be more demeaning towards women, and in a time where sexism is considered over it still portrays the women as being the weaker gender.
‘The surveyor of women in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.’ (John Berger, ways of seeing). This quote is easily linked to this image of an advert for Burger King, the advert is obviously targeted towards men using the doll like look of the perfect woman as an object and a sex symbol to sell the burger. The advert is overly suggestive using the burger as a phallic symbol of oral sex to attract the customer’s attention. An advert portraying sex is more likely to catch the consumers attention than one that doesn’t, because after all, ‘sex does sell’. Sigmund Freud says that, ‘’If you take a good hard look at our modern society, you will find that most advertising uses sexual images, that movies and television programmes often don’t sell well if they don’t include some titillation, that the fashion industry is based on a continual game of sexual hide-and-seek, and that we all spend a considerable portion of every day playing the “mating game.” Yet we still don’t feel that all life is sexual.’’(Sigmund Freud, personality theories) Which shows that modern advertising clearly relies on the idea of using women in a sexual manor just to grab the consumers attention and sell products. The big bold typography used within the image also helps target the advert towards men; the powerful grungy typeface used signifies the everyday hard working middle class manual labourer man, taking up the whole of image and written in caps lock makes the type come across as loud and powerful and kind of overpowers the image of the woman which shows men as the more powerful gender. Even within the text there are several links to sex, the big bold ‘blow’ underneath the phallic image of the sandwich further drives the sexual undertones within in the advert, also the text ‘super seven incher’ is used as a sexual innuendo linking to the whole ‘size matters’ debate. The dark gradient used around the image not only helps create a sinister feel within the advert is also helps draw your eyes towards the picture of the woman, even though the whole advert is an innuendo of oral ex the woman looks to be fearful of the sandwich, like she is scared of the size of the males penis and his manhood which targets the males ego and makes them come across as the stronger gender. It also portrays that women are not powerful enough to eat this sandwich; it is for men only because women are too weak.
So in conclusion, after looking at the way in which women are portrayed within advertising from the 1950’s to the current date and how the role the woman plays within the adverts affects the consumer it all relates to Jeremy Bullmores statement; advertising does change the way people think or feel. Adverts seem to sell you an ideology, selling you a lifestyle more than just the product itself and by purchasing this certain product you are buying into this. Judith Williamson says that, ‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves. And we need those selves,’ (Decoding advertisements, Judith Williamson), which connotes the way advertisement uses stereotyping and sexism to paint this perfect lifestyle which the consumer buys into. Changing the way the consumer thinks and feels to make them believe that they need this product to live this way.
