Alternatives to Advertising

What happened to the mode of persuasion being to sell a product based on its features and benefits? Instead today we sell our products by making the consumer feel inferior, inadequate, and ill-favored. Today the goal of advertising is to make the consumer feel the "need" to buy a product, and their strategies include giving reason to "fix" a flaw or "fill" a hole.

According to Cosntructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising, "To be successful, an ad must be persuasive on two levels. First it should persuade you that you need something... Second, an ad must provide the solution" (p.63). This is usually the case with cosmetics. When selling eye shadow, lipstick, mascara, etc, gorgeous models are shown flaunting the product. Their lack of imperfections make you doubt your own beauty and therefore, increase your desire to own the product. We equate their product with perfection. Most of the money spent on cosmetics are not even used to make the product, "only 8 cents of the cosmetics sales dollar goes to pay for ingredients; the rest goes to packaging, promotion, and marketing" (Cortese p.55). In other words, most of the revenue is used on perfecting the model in order to make the consumer feel worthless.

Besides introducing gorgeous models, the advertising industry also loves to use bodies to sell products. Their favorite? Female bodies. In Sex, Lies, and Advertising, Gloria Steinem explains carmakers were using blondes to decorate their car ads by "draping [them] over the hoods like ornaments" (p. 113). This following video does not necessarily "drape" the woman on the car, but even worse, portrays the woman to be the car itself.

In Costructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising, there is a quote by John Berger:

"The promise of the commercial is not just 'You will have pleasure if you buy our product,' but also (and perhaps more important), 'You will be happy because people with envy you if you have this product.' The spectator of the commercial imagines herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others - an envy which will justify her loving herself. The commercial images steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product" (p. 62).

Berger is only speaking of women with his claim, however this can apply to men as well. The following image is practically telling men "if you buy this car, women will be all over you, and because of this men will want to be you."

Look at these example of sexist ads:

 

"Give and you shall recieve" ?!! What is this teaching little girls? You must give your body to get what you want from a guy OR if a guy gives you something nice, you must give your body in return. No, no, no, no, no.. 

Who says women don't like action films? Who says women will not drink anything with 10+ calories? Who says we only watch romantic comedies and drink "lady drinks?" ...whatever that means.

Look at this example of a racist ad:

Okay, Intel. I see what you are doing here. Placing runners to prove you have fast speed. But why is there a guy standing in the middle, while these other guys are bowing down. Why is he white, and them colored? Hmm..

The media needs to stop circulating sexist and racist ads. They need to stop using beauty and bodies to sell their products. Words of the wise: 

I believe the best way to do this would be TO STOP PHOTOSHOPPING! As Kilbourne once said, these ads are made to perfection, the models do not even have pores! Everyone is aware bodies come in all different sizes: thin, thick, big, small, tall, and short. They also come in different colors, but one thing we all have in common are PORES! Yet the models in these ads seem to not have anything in common with us. Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising states advertising produces representations of a "mythical, WASP-oriented world in which no one is ever ugly, overweight, poor, toiling, or physically or mentally disabled" (p. 52). Advertisements need to start having "real people" sell their product. Something Dove's Real Beauty Campaign was aiming at:

These ads show REAL WOMEN. Women of different colors, ages, and body types. We need women like this in all of our advertisements. 

Another type of advertisement that can work as alternative to the already sexist, degrading, "make you feel worthless," types of ads is subvertisement. "Subvertising used the power of brand recognition and brand hegemony either against itself or to promote an unrelated value or idea" (p. 49), it plays with slogans and logos to advertise something else, sometimes the complete opposite of what the original ad was selling. Figure 3.7 in Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads: Sexism in Advertising shows a model walking down the run way holding a fur coat drenched in blood. This ad is pro-animal rights. Figure 3.15, in the same reading, shows an ad that reads "Hey Bud, Quit Using Our Cans to Sell Yours" with three serious women on the side. This ad is obviously for Budlight, a beer company, that normally uses women's bodies to sell their product. 

Other examples of subvertisements include: 

    

If advertisements begin to turn it down on a notch on perfection, maybe we could begin to solve one of America's greatest problems. Sell us your products in an honest way - for its benefits and features. Don't give us a "need" for it, give us a reason to actually want it.