Advertising

Advertising, a form of communication between a paying sponsor and an identified audience (Dunn and Barban 1986), has become ubiquitous. Advertising's financial impact is significant: In 2004 within the United States alone, $263.77 billion was spent on advertising (Coen 2006). However, focusing exclusively on advertising's economic impact means that one overlooks the significant cultural power that advertising wields. Corporations, consumers, and other agencies have begun examining the phenomenon with more complexity to measure the degree of social and political influence of advertising. They note the limitations of seeing advertising only as a paid communication designed to sell products or services to an identified audience, acknowledging that many factors—including the advertised messages and their visual elements, contexts, and viewers—shape the meaning of the advertisement. More importantly, they argue that focusing on the economic role of advertising omits the degree to which other messages and values are being, if not sold, at least circulated within society. With growing attentiveness to the values that are associated with advertising (along with consumerism and marketing), many have critiqued the pervasiveness of advertising, its increasingly specific targeting of populations, and the cultural values associated with particular products. Since the 1960s, as advertising became a larger part of consumer culture, a number of questions emerged from a variety of disciplines. How are various identities—such as gender, sexuality, age, and race—portrayed in advertising? How do companies reinforce or challenge social identities? What values and perspectives are being advertised along with specific products?

MARGINALIZATION OF NON-DOMINANT GROUPS

There is a relationship between how people are represented in advertising and the perceived societal role of those groups. Women, people of color, older citizens, and other non-dominant groups (including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered [GLBT] audiences) have traditionally played a marginal role in the creation of advertising. These groups have historically held little control over their representation, let alone the values and messages that advertising portrays about them. As a result, advertising can convey notions about the perceived values of a group that might not correspond with the actual desires and experiences of the group itself. In addition, although advertisers frequently organize their audiences by various identity factors (e.g., gender, sexuality, age, race, class, and religion), they do not always research those audiences. Consequently, advertisers may not be aware of products and services that might benefit that population. Indeed, they might choose to market products with known health risks (e.g., fast food, tobacco, and alcohol) to particular groups, such as people of color (Dates and Barlow 1990) or women (Deadly Persuasion 2003). Given the ways in which portrayals of non-dominant groups have often been misogynist, racist, and homophobic, such patterns can create social discord (Kellner 1995).

Certainly, other media traffic in these images; however, advertising helps defray the cost of most media to consumers, so all media must consider the dominant images within advertisements. Most media outlets are directly supported by advertisers; in 1990, it was estimated that general audience magazines received 50 percent of their revenues from advertisers, whereas newspapers collected seventy-five percent from advertisers, and broadcasters relied almost exclusively on advertising income (Herman 1990). It is not surprising, perhaps, that the information presented in media outlets can be affected by the interests of their financial supporters (i.e., advertisers). It becomes increasingly difficult for individuals to overlook the influence of advertising when trying to determine their own relationship to society, let alone that of other groups when "neutral" media can be influenced by advertisers. Advertising, then, is a central promoter of values within public discourse, providing "perhaps the most dynamic and sensuous representations of cultural values in the world" (Lears 1994).

REINFORCEMENT OF GENDER NORMS

Advertising can reinforce particular gender norms; advertisements directed at women, for instance, often valorize nurturing and supportive roles. Such depictions, which confine women to the domestic sphere, persist despite the fact that by the 1980s, only ten percent of families included a wife and mother whose sole job was taking care of her children while her husband worked (Levitan, Belous, and Gallo 1988). Other stereotypical feminine or misogynist behaviors are portrayed as representative of all women, including women as naggers, nymphomaniacs, mentally incompetent, animalistic, and as bodies (rather than as humans). In contrast, men are typically featured as dominant, heroic, and/or competent subjects (rather than objects). Male voices are more likely to be featured in voiceovers, reinforcing the notion that authority is masculine. Such representations, then, reinforce norms of men as being linked primarily with the public sphere, whereas women are associated with the private sphere. The few exceptions seem incapable of challenging gendered norms.

In the late 1980s, images began surfacing that featured men as foolish (particularly when juxtaposed with items traditionally thought as feminine, such as those related to food preparation) or as fathers. Yet men are infrequently depicted as caregivers in advertisements. When they do appear as parents, they and the children usually participate in conventionally masculine activities. Such images suggest that men can assume a nurturing role, which has been socially defined as feminine, but they are rarely portrayed in additional feminine modes. For example, in 1999, Kaufman pointed out that men are "never shown caring for girls," suggesting that such choices might be read as excessively effeminate.

OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN

When women are represented in advertising—a public domain—they are frequently depicted as objects, rather than as subjects. This objectification of women, and their bodies, can be better understood when one considers the "gaze," which controls and fetishizes the female body (Mulvey 1975). Mulvey's work offers a productive point of origins for many scholars, including John Berger, who highlights the gendered dynamics of this concept: "Men act; women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Thus she turns herself into an object—and most particularly an object of vision—a sight" (Berger 1977). Rather than being an active subject with agency, women are presented as passive or decorative objects, who rarely interact with the products being sold (Sheehan 2003): This passivity is part of a larger cultural message being sold along with the product. These objectifying gazes have acquired moralistic dimensions: What is beautiful is considered self-evidently good (Wolszon 1998). Objectification is presented as a desirable goal that can be accomplished if one buys the appropriate products and services. Although advertisers have expanded their portrayal of who can benefit from these products and services—businesswomen, women of color, women of various ages—the demand on consumers to be sexually appealing is still a central theme of many advertisements (Kilbourne 2003).

It has become commonplace that "sex sells" when advertising strategies are discussed. However, the degree to which this maxim might be true has sparked debates and research. In one such study, female subjects on magazine covers had their heads emphasized only four percent of the time (the ratio for men is 900% more); their torsos and bodies (along with their heads) comprise the remaining shots (Lambaise and Reichert 2006). Feminist critique has focused on the high frequency of nearly or completely nude female bodies in advertisements as well as the visual dismemberment of those bodies. Feminists and others have critiqued the disturbing trend of using extremely young girls as sexual objects in ads (Kilbourne 2003, 2000). Such patterns reinforce the objectification of women, presenting it as a normal social phenomenon.

INFLUENCE ON STANDARDS OF BEAUTY

Others have rightly noted that consumers may view the highly artificial portrayal of female beauty (models typically have a lower body weight than the average consumer, are styled by many people, and may have their images digitally touched up in the editing room) as a documentary of female beauty rather than as a highly stylized fiction. Some researchers have found that there is little, if any, proof that an attractive model or spokesperson prompts consumer spending decisions (Cabellero, Lumpkin, and Madden 1989). And yet, these appeals to beauty continue to be pitched at women and girls rather than at men: such appeals appeared in fifty-six percent of television commercials that ran during teenage girls' preferred television shows; in contrast, such appeals appeared in only three percent of television advertisements aimed at men during viewing hours where they were the major audience (Signorelli 1997). Naomi Woolf has maintained that this "beauty myth" is a means of prescribing behavior to women (investing one's time and financial resources to portray youth and naïveté) and not appearance (1992). This distinction focuses on the appeal of beauty as a social control: As images of beauty continually shift, insecure consumers may perpetually justify their purchases of products and services. By endlessly manipulating and redefining beauty, advertising and corporate profits are secured.

OBJECTIFICATION OF MEN

Some researchers see insecurity as the motivating force behind the abundance of overtly muscular or conspicuously athletic men in advertising (Klein 1993). These representa-tions masculinize the values, products, and services that appear in the media. Granted, these masculine images differ from norms of female models—male models are encouraged to exhibit physically strong and intimidating bodies whereas female models are encouraged to be excessively thin—but these images speak to the ways in which men, too, can be objectified in the media. As advertisers began foregrounding the bodies of male models, consumers (women and men) were invited to become voyeurs of male bodies. While sexual objectification of women remains a long-standing phenomenon, consumers have begun to witness an increase in the sexual objectification of men. Mulvey's concept of the "gaze" has been revived with this acknowledgement that men might also be eroticized—and disempowered—as objects of desire (Mulvey 1975, Schroeder and Zwick 1999). When paired, women and men are often positioned to foreground the competition, power, and domination between the two (Goffman 1979). Such domination is often eroticized (hooks 1997).

FUNCTION RANKING AND VIOLENCE

While a model's appearance is scrutinized by advertisers and researchers, other elements of the image matter as well: clothing, activity, facial expression (or lack thereof), setting, other objects, postures, sex of the people portrayed, and other attributes of identity (e.g., race, class, and age). Researchers contend that the action of models within advertising can underscore the power differential between groups. Erving Goffman defines this phenomenon as "function ranking," the relative passivity of female models when male models are present, a pattern that he sees as supporting male dominance; Ellen Seiter finds a similar pattern when analyzing advertising images of black children observing their more active white playmates, which subtly hints at white supremacy (Goffman 1979, Seiter 1995). This passivity becomes even more troubling when advertisers accentuate this power differential so that violence becomes part of the message.

Violence in advertising may include linguistic aggression (using specific language, such as "bitch"), may highlight fear (by featuring models in perilous situations), and may even feature models posed as corpses. Typically, violence is presented as erotic or fashionable with male models as the aggressive party. Given that in the United States one in four women experiences domestic violence and that one in five women and one in thirty-three men have experienced an attempted or completed rape (Tjaden 2000, Rennison 2001), this strategy exploits and glamorizes what is a painful reality for many survivors. Some consumers have negatively responded to these portrayals of sexual objectification and of violence through boycotts, complaints, and media awareness campaigns. Such campaigns include Joan Kilbourne's "Killing Us Softly" video series, the work of the activist organization Guerilla Girls, and the long-running "No Comment" section of Ms. Magazine, which includes objectionable ads and the company's contact information on its penultimate page. These negative responses—particularly those that affect the public image of the company or the financial future of a given product—have affected an industry leery of alienating consumers (Twitchell 1996).

MARKETING TO TARGET GROUPS

This negotiation of sexuality—given its commercial appeal—becomes increasingly coded upon consideration of advertising images that are constructed to be appealing to both heterosexual and homosexual audiences. Brumbaugh and Grier's concept of "encoding" describes the phenomenon in which

marketers draw on knowledge of the selected segment to create advertising that carries a certain intended meaning for that segment. Markets 'encode' the meaning through the use of cues such as culturally similar actors, shared cultural symbols, appropriate media placement, and preferred language or vernacular. The marketer's hope is that the cues will be 'decoded' by viewers in the target segment to yield the intended meaning that encourages favorable evaluates of the product and firm.

                              (Brumbaugh and Grier 1999)

These coded messages allow advertisers to access a larger market of consumers: gay and lesbian audiences are meant to interpret these ads as representing their culture(s) and experiences, subcultural codes that are presumably not legible to heterosexual consumers (Clark 1996). When this strategy works, advertisers can market to the GLBT community without necessarily acknowledging their intent or the existence of the GLBT community.

Additional strategies have emerged to maintain coded ambiguity for GLBT audiences. Ads with "androgynous marketing" deploy "a multifaceted eroticism that includes homoeroticism," including the use of beautiful models of the same sex without presenting their relationship as non-platonic (Soldow 2006). Another strategy that relies on ambiguity is that of "gay window" advertising, which portrays same-sex couples or groups in ads where heterosexual couples might have traditionally appeared (Stabiner 1982). Companies advertise their products in less ambiguous ways when the ads are placed in media that are planned for and used primarily by GLBT people, such as Instinct, Out, The Advocate, and the cable network LOGO. Advertisers might specifically place ads in gay-friendly media despite past policies of discrimination against GLBT employees. For instance, the Adolph Coors Company placed an ad in Instinct in 2000, presenting an attractive image to a community that had previously boycotted Coors for its homophobic company policies in the 1970s. Some images are marketed to both GLBT and heterosexual audiences; however, many have critiqued these strategies.

Some lesbians have contended that objectifying women, as that ad does, fails to become more palatable just because women's desires are acknowledged. They realize that this pattern of portrayal is lucrative, especially in mainstream presses where "lesbian" images cater to male heterosexual viewers. In addition, they note that the financial incentives of presenting homoeroticism in a positive light do not mandate that those representations are personally salient or empowering (Clark 1996). In fact, they can be quite exploitative (Williamson 1986).

Yet companies continue to recognize the financial benefits of broadening their consumer base and have responded accordingly. It has been estimated that corporations within the United States spend about $232 million annually in gay media and in sponsoring gay-specific events (Commercial Closet Association 2007). Advertising in gay media has grown significantly: for example, print ad revenues quadrupled between 1994 and 2007, and there was a 241.9 percent jump in ads with "gay-specific" content between 2003 and 2004 (Commercial Closet Association 2007). Despite the ways in which these groups (and people of color) may be marginalized, advertisers remain aware that these groups have spending power. This research area remains quite undeveloped (O'Guinn, Allen, and Semenik 1998).

DISCRIMINATION IN ADVERTISING

Despite their considerable consumer power, the representations of older adults—and the effects of those representations on consumers—deserve further scrutiny as well. Ageism affects advertising: Consumers' disrespect for or dread about aging are assumed in ads that advertise products designed to restore or resurrect one's youth. For female consumers, physical signs of age that are thought to negatively impact beauty (such as weight gain and facial wrinkles) are presented as terrors that can be avoided. Presenting particular bodies as "too old" reinforces discrimination against older citizens. Certain publications that target these populations, including media presented by the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), have articulated their criteria for disapproval of such images and insist that advertisers recognize the diversity and dignity of older people (Wood 1989).

Such recognition of human dignity would also alter the representation of people of color. Historically, there has been a pattern of racist and demeaning images, typically in marketing to white audiences, when people of color are included—if they are at all. The rise of the post-civil rights era alerted marketers to the financial gains in addressing African-American audiences. However, racist images persist, such as ads which depict people of color as primitive or as a subservient class. The 1980s marked an increase in advertising companies deliberately seeking out people of color, particularly African-Americans. Researchers have noted that white consumers do not object to having African-Americans in such ads; however, the fact that researchers felt compelled to notice this tacit approval indicates the power differential between these groups (Gren 1999). Some advertisers use different methods to reach people of color than they do for mainstream audiences; in addition, some agencies have begun to specialize in marketing products and services for those populations (Cortese 2004).

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE

Consumers have responded in various ways to advertisers' efforts. Some attempt to distance themselves from the consumerism that these ads foster (Dominquez and Robin 1999). In contrast, some people deliberately seek out advertising as a form of entertainment (including television channels devoted to advertising), often in venues where commercials are seen as more noteworthy than the purported entertainment event: The Super Bowl may be the most notorious example.

Advertisers are understandably interested in what consumers find compelling. Brand images create "a set of associations linked to the brand that consumers hold in memory" (Keller 1993); typically, the strongest ads have held consistent images for two or three decades or longer (Aaker 1991). Other agencies are also interested in the impact of advertising. Public service ads promote programs or values thought to be for the public good. The government is also aware that certain products can cause direct and indirect risks. Sometimes product advertisements are regulated; for instance, tobacco companies must display health warnings in their advertisements. The government is also involved in investigating the process by which goods are marketed; indeed, one of the Federal Trade Commissions tasks is the monitoring of deceptive, and therefore illegal, advertising.

The growth in media corporations and new technologies has furthered the impact and pervasiveness of advertising. Advertising can appear in major mediums: print (e.g., magazines, newspapers), communication networks (including television, Internet, radio), public space (such as billboards), and electronic arenas. In the early 2000s, researchers became increasingly interested in how word of mouth might entice would-be consumers (Rosen 2002). Historically, advances in media have been followed by an increase in advertising. Radio, for instance, debuted without advertising in 1920 and subsequently adopted sponsorship programs and other advertising campaigns in the 1940s and 1950s. The success of such advertising was so impressive that the study of consumer behavior became defined as a social science after World War II (Woods 1995). To learn more about the marketing itself, continued attention to advertising's audience, visual components, copy, and consumer response help the public learn how to decipher the product—and our culture.

see also Media.

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                                          Mary McDonnell