Advertising Business Aspects

Advertising business aspects

Advertising business aspects? Not in this world. How can advertising be ethical when we live in a society that says sex sells? The less you have on the better the ad is. Then we also live in a time that still portrays most minorities in stereotypical roles. Most minorities are still seen as second-class citizens in some advertisements. I think until advertisements depict women and minorities in a better way, advertising will never be ethical.

Women are seen as insurance to an advertiser to sell their product. Many advertisements that are targeted to men use partial or complete female nudity, sexual suggestiveness, and innuendo (Sex stereotyping in advertising 103). In other words these ads imply that the female in the advertisement is the man reward for him buying the product. For example there is a corona (beer) commercial out now. The first thing you see in the commercial is two women walking on a beach in tiny bikinis. Then after that you see a couple holding hands finally the corona bottle appears. Women are not only used for men advertising, female models that are half naked are used to sell women products also. Victoria Secrets commercials and ads would fall under this category. Although the product is clearly for women, according to Berger the advertiser is still trying to draw a male audience. Advertisers believe that men and women prefer to see female bodies in advertisement.

Public Service Announcement is usually thought of as informative. Public service announcements are ad that tries to bring awareness about certain issues such as cigarettes.

But there are some public service announcements that can send mixed messages out to the public. In one public service announcement there is an ad with this tall, thin and attractive women. In the poster she is smoking a cigarette, but she also have one of her hand on her butt and the other right under her breast. Then under the picture in bold letters it states, “AN UGLY BUTT CAN RUIN A GREAT BODY.” The word butt could mean to different things in this sentence. So what was meant to be a health issue has just changed to a health or sex issue. The cigarette looks as if it is adding to her sexual appeal instead of demeaning it. Now the message that cigarettes are harmful to body has gotten lost. Advertising cannot be ethical when we are not sure about the message of a cigarette public service announcement. Going back to that same ad, look at the female who was chosen to do it. She is tall, thin, and attractive. Why didn’t the advertiser go for a more full figured woman?

Women as represented in popular culture have gotten thinner and thinner. Wolfe (1991) noted that the weight of fashion models went down 23% that of ordinary women. The average American woman’s dress size is sixteen and the average age is not eighteen (Anne Telford, sexism in advertising 23). But if you were ever looking through a fashion magazine you would find that hard to believe. A national health study found that out of 2,379 9-year-old and 10-year-old girls (approximately half white and half African American), 40% of them reported that they were trying to lose weight. Out of the 101 million women in the U.S., 70.3% of those working are between the ages of 25-64. In August 1996, the London office of Grey Advertising conducted a survey of women between