The Gender Codes

This time it's all about how advertising and their imagery has affecting society with their use of the gender codes. This past week in my Advertising and Imagery class I watched the films; Killing Us Softly, Ted Talk with Johanna Blakley and Codes of Gender. All of these movies examined how men and women are used in the advertising industry and the result of doing so in our society. Women are especially paid attention to due to the problems that have been created with eating disorders and the blending of women and girls in childhood. Ill save you from mundane summaries of each three and instead the links above will bring you to a summation of each film.

These three film bring up many ideas and provide proof but some of these I feel need special attention. These would be the blending of women and girls in society, sizes of the models and the idea that social media will help erase these gender lines.

In today's world there is not such thing as women and girls anymore due to both becoming the same. Women are pushed to be girls and as such are portrayed as them. While girls are portrayed as women which has in-turn put more and more pressure on the younger generation to portray themselves as women. Unfortunately in today's world sex sells right? So this means that when these girls are portrayed they are becoming the sexualized women of these ads which can be somewhat disturbing. The girls shown in the picture have short skirts and purses. As a culture we expect our children to play outside and not have to worry about their appearance to the rest of society. While there seems to be no harm, when it starts at such a young age it will only become worse in the teenage years where we see a large about a problems arise.

Another problem with our gender codes is the idea that women are suppose to be a certain size and look a certain way. Unfortunately only 5% of the women population are genetically able to reach a size double zero. Worse is that women still try to reach these sizes and do so in very unhealthy ways. Anorexia and Bulimia are examples of eating disorders that women and girls suffer from in their drive to reach this size. To show the difference in models from 50 years ago to today can help show how bad the problem has gotten with the gender code.

 

Not all hope is lost though, some organizations like Dove have make it a point to fight these gender codes by showing women who are comfortable with not being the size 00. But who knows if it will be enough to create a change but one can only hope.

Lastly during the film Ted Talk with Johanna Blakley, Blakley makes the case that social media can help erase these gender lines. Unfortunately I don't agree that this is possible. I think that social media has helped change the way ads are shown but the networks themselves are becoming a problem leading to various eating disorders.

Gender Codes become a touchy subject with a lot of views and many sides to the issues. No matter what the outcome is I can only hope that the end product will be a gender code where health is valued over looks.

Art & Copy

We recently watched the film Art and Copy in my Advertising & Imagery class. It shows some of the advertising industries most influential characters, and there work in the industry. It also showed how the major organizations such as Tommy Hilfigire and how they rises to the top tier of their respective industries practically over night. One character I really enjoyed during the film was Lee Clow who has been called the "advertising art director guru" by Advertising Age. He focused on breaking away from the normal attire of the business place and put a huge emphasis on creativity and focused on an environment were people can comfortably present and use there idea's no matter how controversial they may be. Another one of the influential characters in the film that liked to push the limit was George Lois who was the man that put Hilfigire on the map virtually over night.

George Lois pointed out something that I found very interesting during the film. You have to take the chance while making an ad, you have to push the envelope and make a ad that takes a shot at the big names. It's an awesome idea because while he did work with Hilfigire he took a shot at the bigger organizations like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein by comparing their names to the emerging brand.

I'll use the ad shown to also start posing a question, is the advertiser responsible for alerting us that we are participating in/with the ad. Louis' ad clearing is alerting us that we need to participate with the ad for us to even get the face meaning. But what about ads that we don't know we are participating in? Do they lose anymore meaning with us? I personally think that the advertiser is responsible for alerting us. If it is not clear then the ad can fall on its face and lose its power to persuade.

Diving deeper into the question you want the viewers participation because it creates a more memorable experience for the individual but it needs to be easy to grasp yet stimulating. This may be a double edge sword, ethics come in to play with some ads push the limit of viewers a little too far and can be offensive. But I think that when the question is examined in terms of ethics the ad agencies should not be held accountable. Instead it should be on the companies and media outlets that run their ads. For example Vogue should be held accountable to screening the ads and making sure that their viewers wont be angered. I think this is the natural course of action because when ads go too far you never here bad about the ad agency but rather you blame the newspaper, magazine or network that aired the ad.

A good example example of ads that might have gone too far are these shock ads.

Art and Copy was an awesome film that captivated me with all the stories of the ad campaigns and their guru's behind them. The other thing that I really enjoyed about the film was that if you watch it while thinking of a question like the one raised it really makes you think about the advertisers. Ad agencies and the people are always looking to raise the bar and turn heads. Advertising is a different world in itself and the movie is a fun way to look at it!

The Century of Manipulation

I recently watched the documentary The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis. The documentary shows how those have used Freud's work and adapted it in an attempt to control the masses of people in our society.
While watching this highly interesting and in-depth documentary one portion really stood out to me which I would like to give a little more focus on. In the first part of the film Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, also known as the creator of public relations, is shown to be the first to use Freud's work to influence the art of manipulation. Bernays came to the idea of public relations while in Europe looking at how propaganda had glorified an individual during war and wanted to achieve this in time of peace.
Bernays' early experiments included creating a want for women to smoke which at the time was very taboo. He went to the aid of A. A. Brill, a psychoanalyst, told him that if he could turn smoking into a way of challenging male power concerning cigarettes. He coined it the torches of freedom which showed women smoking in public. This exciting peace of work done by Bernays using the help of psychoanalysis made it socially acceptable for women to smoke.
The first part of the film brings more of a focus to the change that took place and the few beginnings while the latter parts support the purpose of the documentary. Bernays truly helped changed America from a needs society to a desire driven society.
This was only within the first twenty minutes of the film and it continues to get better and better throughout the film. If you would like to check out the film the first link will bring you to a website to watch the documentary for free. We truly live in a century of manipulation and it is a fascinating subject.

The Persuaders

I've recently watched the film "The Persuaders" in my Advertising & Imagery class. This film gives your a peak into the world of the advertising industry. It focuses on how the industry has changed in today's age and the immense competition between companies to had their ads break through to the public and turn ideas into success.

While observing this film two parts really sparked my interest. The first was Andy Spades work with a company called Song Air. The ad campaign created by Spade and produced by Song Air a sub-company of Delta Airlines didn't even focus on the flying in a plane not even showing a plane in their commercials. Instead it was aimed to build a lifestyle brand where Song would be considered a part of a person fitting into their lifestyle. It was a huge gamble producing ads that didn't focus on flying and instead the happiness of people and trying to make a connection between people and the airline. More information on song airlines can be found on Wikipedia or on Delta Airlines website.

This other portion of the film I found to be very interesting was the Clotaire Rapaille discovery to find a  consumers hidden desires and how use those when creating successful ads to create a successful brand. The process is highly secretive and worth a lot of money to the process itself was not discussed but it was still an interesting part all the same. The idea that one can discern ones inner desires and use that to make their products produce a feeling of luxury to the consumer is amazing. He focused on the idea of luxury and how it affects consumers, I find myself agreeing that understanding the term luxury and what it means to people can definitely help create success.

The film the Persuaders was very interesting and I highly recommend it to anyone who takes an interest in the field of advertising. It offers great insight and a taste of the changing world in this day and age. What worked in the past is becoming increasingly obsolete and its refreshing to see how new ideas and concepts are being applied.

"Tastes great, less filling"

Like beer? Here's a little bit about one of the greatest ad campaigns for beers.

The history of advertising is built around great ad campaigns. While some are famous for their success and others are famous for their failures, one stands above the rest for me personally. I love my beer and Miller Lite is my go to drink when the festivities start. About thirty years ago Miller created a slogan for their signature beer which was simply "tastes great, less filling." Miller lite has had some fans that are notable such as John Madden among others and they always had an argument over weather it tastes great, or is it less filling. So Miller naturally said it was both which did wonders for the brand and the company behind it. I was excited in 2008 when Miller decided to pull possibly their greatest ad campaign out of retirement and start using it again.



I did some research and found that Miller Lite put together one of the most remembered slogans for the industry which has never truly died but has been revived all the same according to adage.com. The slogan was last used in 1991 in its first campaign, but with competition rising is other fields of alcohol sales I'm excited to see how Miller uses this campaign to its advantage. It's great to see one of my favorite ad campaigns come back to life so I can follow it first hand.