Advertisement has an influence on people of all ages genders
and social classes. As Kilbourne mentions, that everybody
gets “exposed to over 1500 ads a day”, advertising is “perhaps the most
powerful educational force in society” (Kilbourne, 121). Not only is
this form of media highly profitable but also instills society with a constant
need to reach to perfect beauty that doesn’t exist. These images paint a false
picture of beauty, objectify women and mislead society that women are suppose
to be one size. Ads should simply show a consumer a product without degrading
women or make a consumer envious of a model whose physical attributes were
constructed on a computer.
Advertisement portrays racism because traditionally this has
always been the case. Ads tends to appeal to a specific groups such as age,
gender, race and sometimes class. The video above shows how racism ads have
been prevalent. In the 1970’s the ads
were blatant depictions of racisms and stereotypes. Current ads still portray
racism and stereotypes but on a small scale but now racism are more subtle. As
a society we overlook everyday racism in advertisement and in media that we
shouldn’t accept this as consumers we should control the media.
The negative unintended effects of these advertisements is
that pre-teen, teens and even adolescents indulge in either things they don’t
need or try to follow the image of models. Advertisements make children indulge
in cosmetics and beauty like ads at an
early age, which leads to young children worrying about beauty at the wrong
time in life. These ads in a sense mold
our society, a child is made fun of because their size or physical attributes
because its not portrayed in the media.
The main way these advertisement mislead consumer is
celebrity endorsed advertisements. Celebrities put their faces are on products
that really don’t use but more for a profit. The celebrity fans support the
advertisement by buying the product. This is portrayed in the video above of
rapper P.Diddy with the popular vodka Ciroc who joined a 50-50 venture to boost
the selling of this vodka from France. Prior to the deal the vodka wasn’t that
popular but the after the deal it became one of the top vodka’s in America.
An alternative anti-advertising messaging is to refine what
beauty is. In all ads all models should be beautiful regardless of shape, size
or gender. The advertisement should be so impeccable that there isn’t a reason
for a model the product is so good that it still has the same effect. This is easily said than done but in due time
maybe step by step it may be possible.
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