Ad Strategies Paper 2 Every day Americans and humans around the world are exposed to thousands upon thousands of ads. Everywhere we walk, drive, and fly we are constantly exposed to advertisements. These advertisements consist of food, clothing, beauty products and many other miscellaneous items. It seems that a majority of the advertisements are constantly focused on promising a better, fuller life if you buy their product. Company A’s ad which states it will offer a better life for you if you use their product also claims their product to be the best and work more than Company B’s product. I have seen this to be true in the magazine I read to use in this assignment. In the February 2012 edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine, there is an advertisement for Estee Lauder, Sensuous Nude perfume. At first glance, this ad seems a lot like all of the other perfume ads you see in a magazine. There is an attractive woman in little to no clothing as well as a “hot” sunset in the background near the ocean to set the mood for the viewer. In turn, it reaches impressionable minds and promotes idealistic and sexual images of women rather than realistic ones. After careful thought, I have come to the conclusion that this ad uses a product-image format and promotes the absolute ideal woman rather than a normal, every-day, realistic woman. Ads which are targeted towards younger women, such as this perfume ad, should be promoting a realistic woman and giving viewers, mainly women I would assume, confidence and empowerment, rather than supporting today’s common idea that women are nothing more than sexual objects. In addition, the advertisement should be promoting the item that they are trying to push more than they are trying to promote the woman in the ad.
The advertisement I am basing this claim off of is out of the February 2012 Cosmopolitan Magazine, but there are many others throughout this magazine and other magazines alike that display the same type of ads and even the same ad itself. At first glance, this perfume advertisement shows a very beautiful woman with long and luscious brown hair gleaming in the sunlight. Her eyes and lips reach out to you alongside the sun’s rays and trick you to buy this perfume. The woman in this ad is also wearing seductive clothing. Actually the woman isn’t wearing any clothing. Instead, she is draping a light brown cloak over her feminine parts showing just enough to try and seduce you. Finally she is in front of a body of water to try and make it a more appealing scene. Overall, this whole image represents what people in society consider being the ideal woman which is clearly not reality. We all know a woman wouldn’t go out in public dressed in nothing but a piece of fabric draped over her body. This ad, like all other fragrance ads show the models in them as perfectly dressed or perfectly looking, aroused individuals. As discussed in lecture, she has a constant “restless desire” (Ifthkar, 2012). The way the model is dressed or her appearance at all has nothing to do with the actual use of the perfume. Thus, this is a good example of the use of a woman as an object for her sexuality to encourage the sale of this fragrance to push the lifestyle the company wants to convey to its clients. If this gorgeous woman is using this perfume, then by wearing this perfume, a “real” woman can become just like her.
Words used in advertisements can convey a persuasive message in themselves. In the particular ad that I chose, there are very few words on the whole ad, but they pack a lot of feeling behind them. The ad gives you the name of the creator and name of the perfume which read “Estee Lauder, Sensuous Nude”. Right below that, it says “The Seductive Fragrance”. By using those words, the ad takes on a whole new meaning. Instead of just making you smell good and be pleasant, this perfume wants to convey the thought that it will also transform you into a man-eater. If you wear this perfume you can seduce any man that