Gender Stereotypes in Advertising

Gender Stereotypes in Advertising

 

After watching the beer advertisements in class, I began to wonder how many advertisements that we see everyday on television or in magazines use gender stereotypes. After turning on the TV and flipping through a few channels, I came across nearly 2 or 3 advertisements that objectify or stereotype men or women in some way. The scary part of this is that advertisements for nearly ANY product or service can use some sort of stereotype towards a male or female to attract consumers. Gender stereotypes are commonly used in advertisements for clothing, and makeup and such products, but can even be seen in commercials for such things as hamburgers, computers, and other everyday products.

An advertisement that I think clearly explains how extreme gender stereotypes in advertisements today would be the “Meet the Parents” Axe advertisement. Axe is a company that is directed towards males, which sells grooming products such as soap, shampoo, body wash, etc. Since Axe is targeting a male audience, it has advertisements running through nearly every commercial break on channels like ESPN, which has a mostly male audience. The commercial  starts off with a mom and a dad opening a door for there son, who enters the house. Along with him is a girl, Cindy, who he is introducing to his parents. After they greet each other, the mom begins to close the door behind her son, when he says “Mom, no”, and opens the door. After he opens it, 8 other girls walk into the house, where he introduces each with there names, to his parents. The parents are dumbfounded when they see all of the girls there son has brought with him. After this the commercial ends with the tag line, ” Axe. Use in moderation.”. The son is your average male, in his twenties probably, wearing a polo shirt with the color flipped up. He isn’t overly masculine and comes off as a ‘bro’ (your average college fraternity kind of guy). All of the women that come inside the house are beautiful women, wearing make up and dressed nicely.

Clearly, the purpose of this advertisement is to sell Axe body wash products. But what does this commercial have to do with shampoo and body wash? Although males of varying ages use Axe, Axe’s target audience is for males of ages 18-24. Axe uses multiple techniques to engage in there audience, among these being humor. The situation is clearly outlandish, making it funny to the target audience. I mean, I don’t know any guy who would try to bring home 2 girls to meet his parents, let alone 10 like the commercial has. Fear- there ads talk about  how a supposedly “real man” is secure enough in his masculinity to keep his cool, putting fear in the viewer’s mind that if they can’t keep their cool, they arent manly enough. Beautiful people- the women in the ad are basically models, implying that if you use Axe you will land gorgeous women; and Association- this ad plants the association in your mind between Axe and manliness or Axe and getting lucky with the ladies. Is Axe really the difference that makes beautiful women come running to you by the hundreds? The marketing strategy tells us a few things about Axe’s way of thinking, and societies views of the young adult male. First, Axe assumes that men make fun of women for their own amusement, and believe that by doing the same they can connect better with their audience. Secondly, Axe sees women as mere objects rather than anything, or anyone for that matter, deserving of more attention than that which is sexual.

If Axe wanted to become more friendly towards other audiences, it would have to drop the female stereotypes. One example of an excluded group from Axe commercial are females. Yes, they are included in the ad, and one could even say are the stars of the ad, but not exactly in a good way. The women shown in this ad are objectified in many ways. They are not seen as someone that men are trying to get to know, but instead they only exist as sexual objects. On top of that, Axe is also stereotyping women into a few groups. According to this new campaign, girls can be sporty, brainy, flirty, high maintenance, or party crazy. According to Axe, it’s easy to figure girls out once you box them into one of these stereotypes.

 

Link to video

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *