20 March 2002
An advertisement exists for the sole purpose of selling a product to as many people as possible. Companies can rarely force consumers to purchase their product, so advertising becomes a vital tool for informing the masses of the product's existence and superiority over similar products. At the same time, an advertisement can also portray the product in such a way as to create a need where none existed before. Anything which may result in greater sales becomes fair game for inclusion in an advertisement. The images used in an advertisement greatly affect the consumer's response toward whatever the advertisement pushes. Images depicting stereotypical general roles make up one example which is particularly effective at selling a product. The advertisement for an alcoholic beverage, Bacardi Silver, which I have selected from a recent edition of The Stranger makes use of gender roles and other devices to exaggerate the appeal of its rum. A connection is forged by this advertisement between the consumption of alcohol - Bacardi Silver specifically - and the enjoyment of the relationships that exist between men and women.
The full-page advertisement predominantly displays a bottle of Bacardi Silver as the largest component of the advertisement and the only image possessing any color. Behind the bottle, a series of photographs depicts a rapid sequence of events at a small social gathering. Two men and two women sit in the foreground with another man and woman occasionally visible in the background - an even proportion of genders. Smiles are the rule, even when one woman stands up to make a protesting gesture toward the man sitting next to her and he raises his hands in mock defense. The next scene is hidden by a portion of the rum bottle, creating a momentary mystery. The last scene shows the same man and woman embracing each other with her tipped backward as though they are dancing. The trademarked statement "Your night just got more interesting," takes up the top portion of the advertisement, inviting readers to share in the fun that the characters appear to be enjoying.
The first step in keeping the reader's attention is the creation of a situation that the reader can relate to. Covering a wide range of people can be very difficult because each person uses their own experiences when viewing an advertisement. Stuart Hall explores this in greater detail:
He discusses how images are first 'encoded' by the producer, and then 'decoded' by the viewer. The transfer of meaning in this process only works if there are compatible systems of signs and symbols which the encoder and decoder use within their cultural life. However, our background - i.e. our gender, class, ethnic origin, sexuality, religion, etc. - all affect our interpretation of signs and symbols. (Ramamurthy 597)The rum advertisement attempts to appeal to a wide range of people with fairly good success. Everyone can relate to the persistent smiles donned by every character in the photographs. Also, several races are depicted in the advertisement, allowing readers from each to appreciate the advertisement. A minority of readers may have a strong bias against one of the races portrayed, but such people do not represent a great enough share of the readers of The Stranger, a very open-minded paper. The advertisement also tries to appeal to both men and women by presenting a social situation which either sex would enjoy participating in. The advertisement deliberately makes an effort to cross the lines between race and sex, easily succeeding in doing so.
When portraying genders, the advertisement presents more than just the presence of men and women. Two specific situations are portrayed that are stereotypically characteristic of relationships between men and women. First, the man and woman engaging in a dispute builds on the idea that men and women often quarrel, especially when they are in a dating relationship. The first three frames could be a scene from a television sitcom: a man tells his friends something funny about his girlfriend, in good humor; she confronts him with her arms forward in protest, begging to differ with his opinion as the friends laugh on in the background. The next frame is mysteriously obscured by the product. The final frame shows the resolution of this conflict where the boyfriend has lovingly distracted his girlfriend from the topic by tilting her backward in the manner of a dance. When dancing, a woman is almost always tipped backward by a man - rarely ever does the reverse occur in the world of stereotypes. The details may differ for each person's reading of the advertisement, but in each case existing stereotypes will help fill in the missing narration. This is typical of such photographs:
Commercial photographs, because of their profuse nature and because they have never sought to challenge the status quo within society (since they are only produced to sell products), have also added in the construction and perpetuation of stereotypes, to the point at which they have appeared natural and eternal (See Barthes 1977a: Williamson 1978, part 2). Through commercial photography we can therefore explore hegemonic constructs of, for example, race, gender, and class. (Ramamurthy 600)Embracing preconceived gender roles allows an advertisement to narrow the reaction of readers to an area within the range of a stereotype. Those readers who believe in the stereotype used (and even those willing to suspend their disbelief for a few moments) will interpret the image using that stereotype rather than using actual life experiences. Since a stereotype is, by definition, an idea widely believe by a majority of people, this allows for greater predictability of how the advertisement will be perceived. At the same time, the stereotypes are re-enforced so that they will remain just as believable when presented by the next advertisement.
Once a predictable response to an advertisement is established, a bond may be formed between the reader and the characters presented. The final frame is especially tempting; the ideal, stereotypical woman would certainly enjoy being held in such an affectionate way, and the ideal man would enjoy holding her. Men and women who would not enjoy engaging in a similar intimate stance see an ideal that they don't live up to, possibly invoking a desire to be more like the happy people in the advertisement. A reader who believes that all women and all men respectively share a common ground - whether real or imaginary - will be able to feel a connection with characters acting out this stereotypical role.
Through a closer look at ads we can understand the ideological significance of them and other commercial photographs in our lives as well as the hegemony of the commodity culture. (592)In this advertisement, an ideological world is created in which everyone smiles constantly, every race is represented, and tension between genders leads to no more than enjoyable calamity. Little effort is required to wish that such a world could exist. Even less effort takes the thought a step further in bringing the reader into that world to share in the joy.
At last the role of the product comes into play. An ideological world to which readers are encouraged to aspire has been presented and all that remains is finding a means of getting there. In comes a huge bottle of Bacardi Silver in full color poised like a rocket-ship specially prepared to take the reader to their dream world. Even the slogan makes a stark confirmation of this premise: "Your night just got more interesting." Somehow a bottle of rum has transformed an otherwise dull evening into a night of social excitement. The fact that the neck of the bottle covers the frame in which the mock hostility is mysteriously resolved even suggests that the Bacardi Silver itself is responsible for this miracle. Several of the characters appear to be holding bottles of Bacardi Silver. Whatever the case, the connection is clear: drinking Bacardi Silver will make the consumer (no longer merely a reader) a participant in this ideal scene.
Never mind that drinking alcohol may make a person less socially adept. Never mind that the acceptance in society of alcohol has less to do with the merits of alcohol itself and more to do with cultural traditions. As Wilson Key observes:
Most of the early life conditioning to accept alcohol is media-induced. Part of the American culture, used cleverly by the alcoholic beverage industry, involves the identification of masculinity with drinking. Virtually all young men are taught to believe that being able to "hold your liquor" is a sign of manhood. This is believed by many parents, as well as their children. It costs the alcohol industry very little to sustain widely accepted cultural myths. (Key 153)The ability to hold liquor has no actual effect on manhood, beneficial or otherwise. Drinking rum doesn't suddenly make social events more interesting. Drunk people may be more likely to do "interesting" things than sober people, but they can also be downright rude or insulting. The idea that alcohol makes a person more socially adept derives not from any proven fact, but instead from preconceived notions that advertisements portray as truth.
The perfect world created by this advertisement - where a simple product can connect the consumer's life to desirable gender stereotypes - does not exist. Only a small amount of logic reveals that, while the consumer might find a way interact with the opposite sex in the ideal way portrayed by this advertisement, the product actually has nothing to do with achieving that goal. Unfortunately, advertisements are processed on the subconscious level where only the simplest reason may function: logic fed first by past experiences and perceived stereotypes, then fueled by desire as an ideal world takes shape. For those willing to step back for a moment and allow that world to dissolve, the truth is easily realized. Advertising is no more than a game played between the advertiser and the consumer. The consumer has an overbearing advantage in that the entire game is played within his or her own mind. So why is the advertiser so often able to win?
Key, Wilson Bryan. Media Sexploitation. London: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Ramamurthy, Anandi. "Constructions of Illusion: Photography and Commodity Culture." Academic Discourse: Readings for Argument and Analysis. Gail Stygall, ed. New York: Harcourt, 2000. 589-630.
Stranger, The 28 Feb. 2002: 8