Advertisement practices and its different effects on people have always been controversial. Most people in our Western culture tend to be highly influenced by the different kinds of media; including television, magazines, ads, and beauty campaigns. Western women, specifically, appear to be the most affected by both implicit and explicit qualifications of beauty portrayed by media. Tiggemann and McGill argue that the sociocultural theory provides an accurate representation of the different effects that beauty ideals have on women, such as body dissatisfaction, and disordered dietary habits. Furthermore, the authors argue that this theory “maintains that current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, and thinness at a level impossible for many women to achieve by healthy means” (23.) As a result, women develop obsessive behaviors towards attractiveness, body image, weight, and diets. This is why some action concerning delusive advertisement practices should be taken. “Love Your Body” campaign by Victoria’s Secret is one of the many examples of beauty campaigns that have negative effects on women. This campaign was introduced in 2010 to promote the new brassiere collection of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie line. Campaign marketers advocate that this campaign aims to encourage Western women, and boost their self-confidence and self-esteem. Nevertheless, most women do not perceive Love Your Body this way. Even though many argue the campaign has numerous positive effects, its outcome is not strictly positive. Instead of promoting body diversity and self-acceptance by including women with different body shapes, the campaign only promotes incredibly attractive women with bodies that seem impossi... ... middle of paper ... ...ommission and specifically the Bureau of Consumer Protection should take action regarding the portrayal of beauty by advertisers and beauty campaigns. After determining where to start, the Bureau of Consumer Protection should discuss the standards to be set. Some can include, for example, the inclusion of women of all sizes (from 0 to 12), all races and ethnicities and from different age groups. In addition, some kinds of punishments (such as sanctions, or fines) should be put in place to penalize those companies/organizations that do not obey these laws. By laying down regulations like the ones mentioned aboved, the Bureau of Consumer Production can ensure that beauty campaigns are more balanced and rational. Finally, by ensuring more inclusive advertisement practices, the Federal Trade Comission will protect Western women’s both physical and psychological health.
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
.... "The Beauty Industry Promotes Unrealistic Beauty Standards." Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007. Rpt. in The Culture of Beauty. Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.
Today society has never been more aware of the impact the media has on what is considered to be an attractive person. Those who are most vulnerable by what they observe as the American standard of attractiveness and beauty are young females. Their quest to imitate such artificial images of beauty has challenged their health and their lives and has become the concern of many. As a result, advertisements used in the media are featuring more realistic looking people.
The world we are living is a fast paced ruled by the media. We are surrounded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us every day. These images are constantly in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and target them with their product. The advertisement is implied in order to be like the people in the advertisements you must use their product. This approach is not new to this generation, but widely used today. The advertisements grab people attention and persuade them with the appearance of beauty and happy women that looks sophisticated to people eyes.
Jean Kilbourne’s 2010 documentary, Killing Us Softly 4, discusses the idea that the businesses of advertising and commercialism have promoted specific body ideals for women in our modern day society by the methods in which they market towards their target audiences, specifically how women are portrayed in their ads. Throughout the documentary, Kilbourne is extremely critical of the advertising industry, accusing it of misconduct. She argues that objectification and superficial, unreal portrayal of women in these advertisements consequently lower women’s self-esteem. Ordinarily, women have many industries that try to gear their products towards them with apparel, beauty, and toiletries being amongst the most prominent. The majority of advertisements
Is advertising manipulative; can it be controlling, or is it fueling the demand of the American economy? The exhaustive battle of what advertising is and what it’s not is never-ending and both ends of the spectrum can only battle with statistics, words, and opinions on the fact of the matter. Many arguments have arisen since the establishment of the advertising industry and everyone sheds their own light on the subject. In “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising,” Jean Kilbourne argues that the advertising industry portrayal of women is narrow-minded and produces emotional and psychological problems within women in regards with their roles in society, their physical appearance, and sexual attitudes. She also emphasizes how the world of advertising creates artificiality among women. On another note, the author of “What Advertisement Isn’t,” John O’Toole, takes a look at how the government has too much control of and poorly regulates advertising, how it is not deceptive on a subconscious level, and how advertising is a sales tool and should not be evaluated by journalistic or any other standards. These two arguments talk about issues in advertising that interconnect on broader levels but essentially are speaking of two different levels of advertisements.
Although presented as body positive, Dove, M&S and Skinnygirl’s advertising campaigns using “real women” still subscribe to existing beauty standards to maintain firm body margins and reject certain body types as beautiful. Even if well intentioned, advertising for beauty products is inherently not a good place to start the body positive movement because it relies on the consumer feeling like they need to improve themselves to buy the product. Instead of focusing on how to make “ordinary” women feel beautiful, the focus should shift away from the body. Women should not feel as if their beauty is their self worth.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In our society today, people would rather see what celebrities are up to than what is going on with our health plan. Watching the news makes us aware of the latest trend, new gadget, who’s in rehab, or who has an eating disorder. In the eyes of society, women like Eva Longoria, Kim Kardashian, and Megan Fox are the epitome of perfection. What girl wouldn’t want to look like them? Unfortunately, this includes most of the girls in the US. Through TV shows, commercials, magazines or any form of advertising, the media enforces a certain body type which women emulate. The media has created a puissant social system where everyone must obtain a thin waist and large breasts. As a society, we are so image obsessed with the approval of being thin and disapproval of being overweight, that it is affecting the health of most women. Women much rather try to fit the social acceptance of being thin by focusing on unrealistic body images which causes them to have lower self esteem and are more likely to fall prey to eating disorders, The media has a dangerous influence on the women’s health in the United States.
Dove is a personal care trademark that has continually been linked with beauty and building up confidence and self-assurance amongst women. Now, it has taken steps further by impending with a new advertising strategy; fighting adverse advertising. And by that it means contesting all the ads that in some way proliferate the bodily insufficiencies which exits inside women. Launched by Dove, the campaign spins round an application called the Dove Ad Makeover which is part of the global Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” what has been continuing ever since 2004 and times print, television, digital and outdoor advertising. As Leech (1996) believed,” commercial consumer advertising seems to be the most frequently used way of advertising.” In which way the seller’s chief goal is to sway their possible spectators and attempt and change their opinions, ideals and interests in the drive of resounding them that the produce they are posing has a touch that customer wants that will also be in their advantage, therefore generating false desires in the user’s mind. Dove is vexing to influence their viewers to purchase products they wouldn’t usually buy by “creating desires that previously did not exist.”(Dyer, 1982:6)
The media has increasingly portrayed unrealistic views of women in the media. Whether it be on billboards or in commercials, it is almost always the same image; a beautiful woman with an amazing body and no visible flaws. In 2004, Dove challenged those advertisements and came up with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It is a world-wide marketing campaign with the goal of banishing the conventional standard of beauty, and defining what ‘real beauty’ is. Despite having good intentions, I believe Dove’s real purpose is to simply broaden the definition of real beauty while making a profit.
In this age, media is more pervasive than ever, with people constantly processing some form of entertainment, advertisement or information. In each of these outlets there exists an idealized standard of beauty, statistically shown to effect the consumer’s reflection of themselves. The common portrayal of women’s bodies in the media has shown to have a negative impact on women and girls. As the audience sees these images, an expectation is made of what is normal. This norm does not correspond to the realistic average of the audience. Failing to achieve this isolates the individual, and is particularly psychologically harmful to women. Though men are also shown to also be effected negatively by low self-esteem from the media, there remains a gap as the value of appearance is seen of greater significance to women, with a booming cosmetic industry, majority of the fashion world, and the marketing of diet products and programs specifically targeting women.
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
...r young, impressionable mind will have been exposed to more than 77,000 advertisements, according to an international study. Last week, it confirmed the link between the images of female perfection that dominate the media and increasing cases of low self-esteem among young women..” (Shields,2007). The propaganda techniques such as liking, sex appeal, and celebrity endorsements are used in advertisements constantly. Commercials on television, billboards, magazines, and various other advertisement types are everywhere you look in America, and sadly it has become very important for women of all ages to try to be perfect. We come into contact with these messages every day, and the beauty industry is getting bigger and bigger. Propaganda has molded our worldly perception of beauty and will only continue to hurt us and gain from our lack of self-esteem if we allow it to.
As marketing strategies have evolved, they have enhanced the ability of advertisers to communicate to the "masses" more effectively than ever before. This ability has allowed advertisers to not only reach more markets, but to be more influential in the decision making process of the audience. American society, especially young women, is being influenced by advertisers more now than in previous generations. It is not by accident that teenagers and young adults are targeted by advertisers, especially since their purchasing power as a group exceeds that of any other consumer group. Not only have advertisers learned to identify specific products that appeal to men and women, but they have also found that the "want" of the consumer can be turned into a "need" for the advertised product. Many of the beauty product companies advertise their products as a "need" which ultimately appeals to a vast majority of women.
Show business promotes commercials, print advertisements, films and shows where unbelievably perfect women are seen as the ‘ideal beauty’ The ‘ideal beauty’ controls the behavior of young girls and manipulates their perception of beauty. The term ‘ideal beauty’ is defined to be a conception of something that is perfect, especially that which one seeks to attain. Many young girls everyday are exposed to fashion and beauty advertisements that feature models who are portrayed as ‘perfect’. Due to this Technological Age, girls are exposed to many advertisements that encourage them to be like the featured models- tall, skinny, and foreign. There is also a survey conducted by Renee Hobbs, EdD, associate professor of communications at Temple University which states that, “The average teenage girl gets about 180 minutes of media exposure daily and only about ten minutes of parental interaction a day.” Moreover, media also promotes and advertises cosmetics, apparel, diet pills and exercise gears in the name of beauty and fitness, convincing girls to buy and ultimately patronize their products. Becoming very addicted with using such products can eventually lead to overdoes and becoming vainer. It may seem obvious to most of us that people prefer to look at beautiful faces. While beauty itself may be only skin deep, studies show our perception of beauty may be hard-wired in our brains (Stossel,