The Affects of Advertising on Women

In one day a person may see more than a thousand ads. They might see ads on television, in a magazine or on a billboard. However, people never fully realize that these ads seen daily have an effect on our society. Advertisers like to appeal to our fears, desires, vanities, egos, concepts of success, worth, love and sexuality. Advertisers also like to help form notions that we do not already have; what other reason could there be for a condom company to have a model airbrushed like a Jaguar with her arm covering her breasts standing in what appears to be a jungle. The jingle to that ads reads “Release your inner beast”. That ad is in the November 2006 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine; the product is Excite Sensual Gel made my Lifestyles, what does releasing ones inner beast have to do with gel that will heighten ones sexual pleasure? Is this company suggesting that by using this gel a woman will act like a beast in bed, ensuring the satisfaction of her partner as well as herself. Though the main purpose of an ad is to inform; ads also persuade concerning ideas of beauty and how women are viewed in our society.

A person’s beauty, particularly a woman’s, is supposed to come from the inside. Yet many women go to exceptional lengths to change their faces and their bodies. “A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and become more important than her real self, constantly in need of alteration, improvement, and disguise” (Kilbourne, 2001, p.292). Advertisers want women to try and achieve whatever look is popular and to fail so women will continually spend money on cosmetics and clothes that are not meant for them and so ultimately the products never get used. Advertisers also want women to feel dissatisfied when they look into the mirror. Lancome has an ad in the September 2001 issue of Glamour magazine. It is an advertisement for a new lipstick; the ad’s jingle reads Rouge Absolu Creme; the ad then gives a description of the lipstick and underneath the description is the phrase, “Believe in beauty”. Does Lancome want women to believe in their own natural beauty? Of course not; they want women to believe that they will be beautiful if they buy and wear this lipstick.

Most of the ads today portray women as either a housewife or a sex object. Rarely does one see an add that positively displays “girl power”. The housewife is usually obsessed by cleanliness, lemon fresh scents and ring around the collar of her husband. The sex object is the woman whose physical beauty is her only attribute. She has no lines or wrinkles, scars or blemishes; she is also tall and thin. Candies have tried to combine the housewife and sex object in an ad featuring Alyssa Milano. In the ad she is reading a book while cooking. Meanwhile, the entire kitchen is a mess. Candies is sending out a message that women are no longer acting like Donna Reid; women are no longer wasting their time cooking and cleaning. But women are using their time to sit around in a dirty kitchen reading to improve their minds, which is something that is not likely to happen. How many women does anyone know that can truly sit in a dirty kitchen and read? Most people would be bothered by the uncleanliness alone. Anyone could see this is a false gesture by Candies just to get more of their products sold. They proved that with the ad featuring Jenny McCarthy sitting on a toilet, with her underwear around her ankles,. sShe has on some exceptional shoes, yet the look on her face is extremely sexy. So now Candies has really confused women,. are Are women supposed to be the sexy housewife and enrich their minds; or are women supposed to be super sexy in everything that they do, even while sitting on the toilet.? “Women are constantly urged to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel their desirability and lovability are contingent upon physical perfection,” (Kilbourne, 1999, p. 270). These types of ads are extremely confusing to women who do not have a sense of self. Advertisers know this, which is why women continually fall into the trap that is set with these ads. Advertisers do not want women to know what they want; advertisers want to be able to tell women what they want while getting their products sold.

Though a majority of the advertisements seen today are negative towards women, there are some advertisers that are trying to change the look of a woman in an advertisement. Fruit of the loom is a company that has advertisements that feature women of all shapes and sizes. This change in their advertising technique is a