Advertising Techniques of Yesterday and Today – Part 2

This is a continuation of “Advertising Techniques of Yesterday and Today – Part 1″, discussing how the portrayal of women in advertisements has not really changed much over time. Even as our country went through the civil rights movement, as women fought for their rights and to be seen as equals with men, and as women began to become more involved outside the home and in the workforce during World War II, advertisements still built their ads around that same stereotype of what a woman is supposed to be. Below are three examples of ads that came out during different times that really portrayed the fact that though there was an acknowledgement of the fact that women were becoming more liberated, they still believed that at the heart of the matter, when all is said and done, a woman is still a woman: strong and beautiful – going out there to fight for freedom and work hard for their families, all the while still looking beautiful and pleasing her man…

Example #1:

    

“This ad for hand lotion ran in Life, a widely circulated national magazine, in January 1943. The U.S. was fighting World War II, and with large numbers of men serving in the military, women joined the industrial workforce in unprecedented numbers and were critical to producing the planes, ships, and many other materials necessary for both the battlefield and the home front. This ad reflects the presence of women in what were previously considered exclusively male workplaces, but it also reassured readers that women had not sacrificed their traditional efforts to make themselves attractive, and ’soft’ to potential husbands.”

Example #2:

“This perfume ad ran in Glamour magazine in 1972. Its knowing reference to women marching for equality suggests that feminist activism was a widespread phenomenon in this period that required no explanation. The message or story of the ad, however, makes a blatant pitch for traditional gender roles, positioning the product as a way for women to undercut their own political assertiveness.”

Example #3:

This 1910 add titled “Avoid Sunburn, Freckles and Chaps” is interesting because it shows an almost contradictory image – a picture of a woman playing golf outdoors; she is the outdoorsy type, the fun, the adventurous woman who can play golf AND look good at the same time. It almost represents a sense of power: the sun and wind and most SEVERE of weather will have no effect on her whatsoever. When she puts this vanishing cream on it makes her strong and invincible and she can go take on the outdoors and not have to once worry about how great she looks… Again, she is a woman to please.

It seems like a recurring theme that women are expected to always look good despite what they are doing. It really shows how society tends to see women. There is feminine sense of sensuality and beauty, combined with strength. What is deemed to be the ultimate purpose of women, though, seems to subtly be unwavering. They may do other things but in the end they are still women meant to look good and please men. Crude as it sounds, it is ultimately true, and a view that will probably never really change in the back of our minds. 

Post #5: Advertising Techniques of Yesterday and Today – Part 1

Today, we have come to a point in which we see ads everywhere. Advertising companies have become experts in subtle persuasion, using our own psychies against us. They take advantage of our emotions as well as our society’s cultural stereotypes, and all in ways so subtle it’s difficult to notice unless you’re really looking for it. When studying different ads for different products ranging from the early 1900s to the present, I realized how much ads can really reflect how a society thinks and views certain things – in ways they probably don’t even realize. What surprises me most, I think, is discovering how after an entire century of our country’s growth and reform, we really still haven’t changed that much at all. It’s a peculiar question to ponder… Has our society really changed much at all? Have our psychologies and beliefs about things – like how our society views and portrays women – really all that different than they were in he early 20th century? When studying different adverising techniques used for different products one of the main things I noticed was that advertising techniques didn’t really seem to change much over time; they still advertised towards the same audiences and portayed much of the same messages. So in the end I guess that means that though very many changes have occured in our country since the 20th century, the psychology of how we think as people hasn’t and probably will never really change…

 Let’s take the example of how women are portrayed by looking at different women’s cosmetic products and perfume ads. In this area, advertisers would appeal to a woman’s desire to look young and sexy, despite her age. That is why older woman who are beautiful are shown as apposed to younger women. They also appeal to sexuality, often showing a woman with a very appreciative and attentive man in the background, holding the woman. In this way, the ads are silently appealing to both men and women. The man would want to be pleased as such and the woman would want to please…

1) The first add (click here to view) is a 1929 Marie Barlow Cosmetics ad titled “YOU can be Youthful”. This add shows a beautiful woman at the front and appeals to the desire to look young, and in effect by showing women and men ballroom dancing energetically and youthfully in the backround, it hints that by looking young you can also feel and maybe even become young again. Go back to the days of youthful energy, dancing, and craefree flirting and fun. This is definitely a technique still used today, the thought that cosmetics can make a woman look younger.

2) The second add  (click here to view) is a 1998 Chanel No. 5 ad. This one is much more simple and has no writing, but portrays the same general message we see all the time with cosmetics and perfume ads: use me and you can look just as beautiful and sexy as this woman. It’s also sensual in a way and the use of black and white for the woman and then color for the perfume is interesting. Perhaps this subtly implies that using the perfume can somehow bring “color” into your dull black and white world…

3) One of the most popular techniques used with advertising women’s products is showing how appreciative and responsive a man would be to a woman who used that product. She would become more sexy, beautiful, kissable, lovable… and this would be an appealing concept both to the woman who wants to please and the man who wishes to be pleased (and may as a result buy this product as a gift for his woman). This is shown in both the 1947 Dryad Cream Deoderant ad titled “New Way to be Sweet to Love” (click here to view) and the 1998 Elizabeth Arden Splendor ad (click here to view). The Dryad ad’s title speaks for itself. It shows a beautiful woman being kissed and loved by a man. It is sweet and sensual. The Splendor perfume ad also shows a beautiful woman being held close by a man in a sensual way, maybe about to kiss. The ad is shown as if it is the cover of a movie, and the supposed critics’ reviews written on the side in quotes say “A Fragrance Sensation”, “A Sparkling Love Story”, “Wonderfully Romantic”… and at the bottom of the ad it reads “Sometimes there’s a moment when everything comes together… a moment of Splendor.” The slogan is a catchy one, and the critics’ reviews spell out the mood of the ad and implies that the perfume will cause this “wonderfully romantic” “sparkling love story” scene to occur.               

They key thing to remember with advertising is that every little detail in an adverisement is added for a purpose. Little things like the placement of ads, their size, the colors used, the amount of text vs. pictures, the font types and sizes used – all these things and more influence how we see an add…

Continue to read more about the portrayal of women in ads in my other blog post “Advertising Techniques of Yesterday and Today – Part 2″