Gender In Advertising

I read a journal on gender and advertising by Iris Mayne. The journal entry is all about television ads depicting men in almost every scene and rarely a women. Not only are women rarely portrayed in tv ads but when they are, they are shown either cleaning or in the kitchen. The research that was done was based on British television from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. Mayne does admit that times are changing and that ads are becoming more sophisticated, however they still remain the same to a certain extent. Mayne put a table together consisting of 125 tv commercials that showed either a man or a women. Women were shown in only 10 percent  of commercials and 90 percent of the time they were shown either taking care of their nuclear family or cleaning. Cleaning product adverts showed a women in the primary scene almost every single time. This is because throughout history women have been believed to be caretakers of the family and home and that men did not participate in cleaning. So showing a cleaning product with a women using it to clean some dirty surface would allow for women in that same position to relate. This then leads to the female viewer making a purchase decision when they see the cleaning product on the store shelf. The article explains that women have more freedom today than ever before and that the views adverts place on society about women might be offensive.

                Iris Mayne doesn’t see any big changes in the way adverts show women any time soon. Things like showing a women’s body in an ad but not her face has meaning. It uses her body as a symbolic image but does not identify her as a person. Rarely do we ever see an advertisement showing a man’s body but not his face. It produces a societal image that women are to be subordinate to men and I think that will change over the next ten to twenty years drastically as women become more powerful and hold higher positions in the business world. It has been agreed that advertising is controlled and dominated by men, this has a mild influence on the way adverts are depicted. I think that society will start to mold acceptable limits for what an advertisement can and can’t get away with sooner rather than later. Here in the United States people become more and more conscious about equality and stereotypes every day. It’s only a matter of time before you start seeing men in advertisements doing some sort of cleaning or cooking or helping take care of the family as society has evolved with its single parent families and full time mothers.

Work Cited:

Iris Mayne, (2000) "The inescapable images: gender and advertising", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 19 Iss: 2/3/4, pp.56 - 61 - See more at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.uhd.edu/journals.htm?articleid=880693&show=abstract#sthash.OkUhqkx0.dpuf

Invisible Communication

I read an article on invisible communication written by Ake Finne and Tore Strandvik, where they discuss communication between the customer and the company. Invisible communication is defined as communication occurring when no communication seems to take place from the marketer’s point of view about the company itself or its products and service, but still does so from the customer’s point of view. This focuses on the communication about the brand, firm or even service that the customer perceives no matter what the source is. Non-communication is where a company doesn’t send any messages to the customer and the customer sees this as a message. If a marketer were able to balance the perfect amount of non-communication and communication with the customer, it would build longer lasting relationships with the consumer. The idea here is to understand just how your customer views and interprets the invisible communication your company produces. Controlling invisible communication properly is only possible with proper research. We are trying to paint the perfect picture about a company in our customer’s minds. This is also called relationship communication, between company and customer. The paper stresses the importance of looking at created meaning rather than simple attention or immediate behavioral response. They also stress looking at the customer as an active creator of meaning rather than a passive target for communication. You must think that the customer is constantly changing how they view your firm and always creating meaning out of the communication or non-communication from your company’s messages.

                To truly understand how to manipulate relationship communication, we have to understand how customers view each message we send. If you send a direct message to your customers, you must follow up with your customers and find out how they viewed or saw that message. As a marketer, without the knowledge of invisible communication interpretation, you’re at a disadvantage. Most marketers believe that the majority of influence on customers is done through the marketing campaign. In fact, the majority of influence is in the small points of contact that we don’t generally look for. Constant research and feedback response is required to have the most influence on your customers as well as manipulating consumer response. The key here is to analyze and manage all communication and non-communication between the firm and the customer without losing sight of the company’s vision.

Works Cited:

Finne, Åke, and Tore Strandvik. "Invisible Communication: A Challenge to Established Marketing Communication." European Business Review 24.2 (2012): 120-33. ProQuest. Web. 5 Oct. 2013.