The image of the women in advertising - what is it like?

Nowadays, nobody can imagine life without advertising. Since 18th century advertising has been growing stronger and stronger. AIDA represents the essence of advertising: A stands for Attention, I for Interest, D for Desire, A for Action. We are puppets in the hands of advertisements. Advertisements create a lot of, often fake, images of people and life. Today, I will raise the issue of the women in advertising.

As we all know, advertisements refer to our emotions, awake a desire for being powerful and successful, needed. They feed us with given 'recipes' which are applicable to our styles of living. The point in advertising is to make us, viewers, identify with characters in advertisements. We are inundated with hundreds of advertisements every day. Most of them are a good combination of visual, light and musical stimuli - everything to make us eager to enter the fake world of a given product. Women dominated the world of advertising. Why? Most of advertised products are connected with a household, what is more - let's be honest ladies - women buy more than men. That's why advertisements refer mainly to women. There are few types of women in advertising. The first one is: TRADITIONAL WOMAN (this type is more common than others). The woman is represented while struggling with housework (in grey clothes, tired). After having used the advertised product, she is happy because she finished her work earlier and the results are better in comparison to her neighbours who used a different product. We can notice that the represented world is a cliché. Women are responsible for housework; men are not present, for they are busy with making money as they all are breadwinners. TRADITIONAL WOMAN plays the roles of a mother, wife and perfect housewife (doing the housework is a pleasure for her). This woman is not an object of desire; it is reserved for younger ones, often not married.

The second type is: MODERN WOMAN. This type of woman advertises beauty products. Women from these advertisements are slim, beautiful, have popularity with men and good jobs. They are self - assured, self - confident and aware of their strong points. The women who do not care about appearance are sad and depressed. The advertisement sends a signal: this product is the key to your happiness. This type of woman is often connected with feminine style - woman is self - sufficient thanks to an advertised product, which is another reason to buy it. She is not usually surrounded by children. All she has to do is to care about her appearance.

The another type is LOLITA. This image of woman is quite new and refer to young women, teenagers. Lolita represents the world of young, creative people who wear fancy clothes, want to be funny, cool and easy - going. Lolita is always in the spotlight thanks to an advertised product. She stands out from the rest unlike her friends who are in her shadow. This image has a strong influence on girls. Which girl does not to be better than her friends? Young women will be dying to get the advertised product with a view to overshadowing the classmates.

Advertisements most often use stereotypes. Thanks to them, they can reach our subconscious. Using the image of mother who gives an advertised product to her children, the advertisement wants to convince us that the given product is safe and worth buying because mothers always know what is the best for her children and care for them a lot. The image of modern, beautiful woman in an advertisement of beauty products proves that the product really works and the results are visible. Be careful: advertising is a devil in disguise. It will go to any lengths to temp you to buy more and more.

Author: Martyna Somerlik