Advertisements are constantly contrived and displayed on posters, billboards, television, and the like. The media is ubiquitous, and its target is mainly teenagers. Teens are perfect "victims" for the media due to their nonchalance toward financial matters, their desire for freedom, and their yearnings for enjoying themselves with friends. With such a primary focus on having fun, teens can be naive enough to believe everything they read in magazines, hear on the radio, and watch on television. Such mistakes could lead to confusion, and even a void of gratification.
I've noticed one particular method the media has been using for a while to attract teenagers' attention, and it's not the most tactical: sexual appeal. As shown today in English class, such figures as Britney Spears are the epitomes of exploiting their bodies in order to entice people to purchase a product, watch a movie, go to a concert, and much, much more. To begin on a light note, many commercials use "attractive" people to advertise a product because people admire beauty. A person might believe that the advertiser "looks great" or "feels wonderful" because he or she purchased the item. This clearly means those watching should buy the item, too, so that they look and feel just as wondeful, right? Not at all. The media's goal isn't necessarily to satisfy its customers; its goal is to deceive by using nonverbal affective appeals that attract its audience's attention, convince said audience to purchase the product, and take their money.
Of course, using "beautiful" people to advertise isn't a crime...but it most definitely has escalated within the past few years to a new height that is considered--at least by me--to be absolutely preposterous. Now more than ever, commercials and movie trailers are using sexual appeal in order to grab people's attention. An example of someone who uses sexual nonverbal affective appeal to inveigle people into purchasing a product is the "actress" Megan Fox. Although constantly criticized for her terrible acting, Megan Fox sells. She succeeds in captivating audiences--most notably teenagers'--with her brazen sex appeal. To be blunt, she is using her body as a tool to make money for movie studios.
I am disappointed that such brazen sexual appeal has only attracted more people's attention. The more sexual an advertisement is, the more interested people are, and the greater the probability that they'll be duped into buying the product. This cycle will never end until people raise their standards by which they'll part with their money.
-Chloe Martianou
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Sexual appeal is not just used to target teenagers; it targets adults as well. I've noticed car dealer commercials may feature an attractive woman decorating the screen. Once I was at a Nissan dealership getting a car and they were filming their commercial in front of some silver car. The woman was a professionally-dressed, tall, pretty woman who had a pretty voice. Perfume commercials display sexual appeal very often as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree it would be very hard to stop this cycle in advertisement. It's been proved sex appeal works, so they keep perpetuating the trend. Other affective means of advertising include self-preservation, sex appeal, and altruism appeal. All three attach affective connotations that urge us to buy a product or service. Self-preservation often instills fear into us -- fear of death, injury, damage, harm, to either the individual or the individual's group. The altruism appeal isn't a strong appeal. It asks for you to give without returning. Many people feel better after giving or donating; sometimes one's self-esteem is raised. Charities use this technique. But it's not used by companies wanting to sell products/services in the most efficacious way possible, so they resort to the sex appeal or the self-preservation appeal. The economy runs on money, even if it's reduced to low standards.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/selfpres.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/altruism.html
-- tori lee
I feel as if sexual appeal is perhaps one of the most affective means of advertising because it draws upon one of mankind's most powerful desires. Regardless of whether this is morally correct, corporations will continue to exploit this desire through the use of sex in advertisement as long as they continue to make money from it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't feel as if we're headed down an irreversible cycle toward the moral corruption of youth. Just as we (most of us, at least) have become desensitized to violence, we (the consumer) will eventually become desensitized to sex appeal and the advertising agencies will have to find a new technique to get us to empty our pockets.
-Bryce Cody
I basically agree with Bryce. I do have to add something though. The reason they use 'beautiful' people is because humans (with the exception perhaps of children) are constantly evaluating others for their potential as mates. We are attracted to these people because are instincts tell us that their children will have some advantage or another. I think we would have to change the core of human nature to change the 'beautiful people' appeal.
ReplyDelete-Melissa C.
I think that the violence appeal is still an effective way of advertising because it makes people emotional.
ReplyDelete"Violence features so heavily in the media - and increasingly in advertising and marketing messages - because of its dramatic impact. It quickly attracts a viewer's attention through emotional, psychological and spectacular appeal. Yet violent images also play a part in how we make sense of our roles and positions in social culture. This fact is not lost on advertisers and marketers. Associations with violence provide a key means of targeting audiences along gender lines. Products are promoted to men as enhancing their masculine appeal - with masculinity framed in terms of strength, power, the ability to be forceful, dominant and get what you want. Nike's Just Do It campaign advertisements frequently appeal to men in these terms."
http://www.allbusiness.com/professional-scientific/advertising-related-services/996638-1.html
I mostly agree with what Bryce said. The sex apeal tugs at the very basic level of human nature. People will always be attracted to the sex appeal simply because it is so fundamentally apart of us. I disagree with Bryce that we could ever become desensitized and also that we are desensitized to violence. If we were, no James Bond movie would ever sell. Violence, like sex, is too much a part of human nature.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't mean that the sex appeal campaign is irreversible, however. The way society views sex and the use of it changes. If society were to revert back to beliefs like those held in the fifties, you would stop seeing the sex appeals, because although they would attract just as much attention, it would provide a negative association. Therefore, only by a change in the way society views sex, can this appeal disapear.
~Becca
I don't think backwards thinking is the only way. Another way to censor sex appeal would be to do just that -- censor it. If the government cared about advertising that much it could create some legislation to have it officially censored and that would stop those types of ads. But that's pretty Big Brotherish and not very ideal. I just don't think that reverting to previous beliefs is the sole way.
ReplyDelete-- tori