Advertising Lingerie For Male And Female Audiences

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Marketing companies try to surpass one another thinking outside the box and creating advertisements which are unconventional, however, they operate within a few stereotypes about gender roles and representations. This essay will examine the differences between advertising lingerie for both male and female audiences. Commercials of focus are Primark’s Valentine’s Day campaign called 'For every side of you ' (see Figure 1.) and Justin Bieber’s photo shoot for Calvin Klein (see Figure 2.). Both brands are well – known, nonetheless their profile and target groups are slightly different, mainly because of price range, thus associations created by their campaign can be seen variously, depending on audiences’ status, gender, age, experience and many other factors.
First of all, the photo from Primark’s campaign represents a young woman with great figure and complexion – a typical attractive model, however, not a typical, average woman in general. She is standing by a dressing table suggesting an intimate atmosphere of the moment. Woman is gazing into the mirror which signifies shallowness or self-admiration, nonetheless, the mirror is playing a slightly different role in this picture. The model can see her alter ego in the reflection. One, on the left, is a subtle, sweet, innocent and almost prudish, compared to the one in the mirror. It is suggested by the colour which surround the model and the colour of her lingerie. Aslam (2006, p.23) suggests that beige tint is connotation of something dull but also costly, thus girl seems to be tame and quite boring but the scenery signifies that what she is wearing is high – priced and even high quality. On the contrary, a person familiar with Primark’s goods knows that they are cheap and not th...

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...rimark’s campaign is about Valentine’s Day, it can be argued that the lingerie is a gift for a partner, thus the advertisement suggests that woman duty is to please her man. Accordingly, Calvin Klein is stereotypical as well, picture presents man who is powerful, strong and independent – in other words, masculine.
To conclude, both advertisements create a set of values associated with gender – Primark consider women as either sweet and innocent or sexy and predatory and, on the other hand, Calvin Klein shows that men need to pursuit their dreams and never give up. The colour is stereotypical in both pictures, bright colours, beiges are girly and dark represent strength of men. Both campaigns use models within canon of beauty, they have ideal silhouette and carnation, nonetheless it is a common practice in the industry of marketing the apparel to eroticise the models.

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