media: marketing

Cross-posted in Portuguese at Conhecimento Prudente.

A lot of readers were taken with the new parody video, “Fotoshop by Adobé,” that has been making it’s way around the internet. Created by filmmaker Jesse Rosten, the video parodies beauty product commercials that play on and encourage insecurities while promising women magical transformations that will allow them to attain entirely unrealistic beauty standards overnight due to ground-breaking science-y sounding ingredients and processes (“pro-pixel intensifying fauxtanical hydro-jargon microbead extract”). Enjoy!

Thanks to Jessica B., Kate A., Rex S., Emma M.H., Jessica W., finefin, Bernardo, Robin D., Priyanka Mathew (who posts at Culture+Marketing+Politics), runbotrun, Dmitriy T.M., Lots of Models, Tom Megginson, and my colleague Pete La Chapelle for sending it in!

I don’t know if “subliminal” is a real thing or just a layperson idea, but when I talk about media in Introduction to Sociology I show some images to show just how carefully advertisers are steeping their material in raw sex. I start with the image below.

I ask: Notice anything interesting about this image? Even in very large classes it usually takes a long time for anyone to see…

…that the shadow of the liquor bottle is pointing directly between her nearly bare breasts.

Here are some more:

This is a picture of an ad at the Burbank airport.  Notice the profoundly phallic shape of the foaming surf that happens to be pointing directly at the woman’s crotch.  The foam mimicks the crown printed at the top of the Budweiser bottle (in the upper left hand of the image in red).

And where is the rocket going?

This ejaculating bottle is in an ad for clothing in a magazine aimed at gay men:

What image accompanies the word “come”?

That’s Salma Hayak and Campari… or should I say Salma Hayak’s boobs and an ejaculation fantasy.

I love this one. Just underneath the banner you see two nuts, a thick pour and, let’s face it, a chocolate vaginal opening.

A vintage ad for Bright and Clear lipstick (found here):

Finally, Chappell E. sent in this Brookstone cover featuring a woman an an, errrr… automatic wine bottle opener:

See also our posts on ejaculation imagery, booby products, “boobs” in ads, other subtle and not-so-subtle sexual imagery used in advertising, and using sex to sell the most unlikely things.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In honor of Prune Breakfast Month, we’re re-running this post on the prune.

What’s a prune?

Answer One, the social construction: Prunes are dried fruit you serve to old people who need help with their bowel movements (though, hilariously, it wasn’t always that way).  This is epitomized by the Sunsweet slogan, “The Natural Way to Go” and illustrated in the following eclectic combination of cultural items:

Not exactly an appetizing advertising campaign, eh?  (Though my grandpa, and all three uncles, would totally wear that hat.)

Answer Two, the purely descriptive answer: Prunes are dried plums. Which, of course, they are.  Lovely, gorgeous, beautiful plums:

Mariani, not stupid, recently changed the name of their product from “prunes” to “dried plums,” instantly transforming their product from one for the constipated elderly to one for connoisseurs of exotic dried fruits.

From prunes:

To dried plums:

Words matter, is all.

(Images borrowed from here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Ms.

A few years back we published this fantastic ad for Legos as an example of gender-neutral advertising. It appeared in 1981; during my childhood, I’m happy to say.

The ad offers nice context for the new effort by Lego to capture The Girl Market.  Their new line of Legos, Lego Friends, has gotten a lot of attention already. In the circles I run in, it’s being roundly criticized for reproducing stereotypes of girls and women: domesticity, vanity, materialism, and an obsession with everything being pastel.  Kits include a house, cafe, animal hospital, tree house, beauty salon, and an inventor’s lab.  Choice examples:

The new line also includes a new Lego figurine that is taller, thinner, and more feminine, with boobs.  There is no innovation here; it is the exact same makeover that we’ve seen in recent years with Dora the Explorer, Strawberry Shortcake, Holly Hobbie, Lisa Frank, Trolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, and Candy Land (or visit our Pinterest collection of Sexy Toy Make-Overs).

Examples of the old “mini-fig” and the new “mini-doll” available at The Mary Sue.

The company is framing their new line for girls with “science.” Executives are going to great lengths to explain that the line is based on research, using anthropologists who spent time with girls in their homes. The frame gives the company an excuse for reproducing the same old gender stereotypes that we see throughout our culture.  They can shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, what are we to do? This is what girls want.”  In this way they are trying to make it clear that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the messages their products send.

But it’s no accident that girls feel alienated from Lego.

According to Business Week, Lego has spent most of the last decade focusing their products on boys.  They have deliberately designed products that they expect will appeal to boys and included boys almost exclusively in their marketing material. Today Legos are shelved in the boy aisle is most toy stores.

So, basically, what Lego has done over the last few decades is take a truly wonderful gender-neutral toy, infuse it with boyness, and tell every kid who’ll listen that the toy is not-for-girls.  Now, stuck with only 50% of the kid market, they’re going after girls by overcompensating.  And, to top it all off, they’re shaking their heads and doing “science” to try to figure out girls, as if they’re some strange variant of human that regular humans just can’t get their head around.

In fact, girls don’t feel like the toy is for them because Lego has done everything in its power to ensure that they will not.

The market research manager sums up Legos’ impression of what girls want this way: “The greatest concern for girls really was beauty.”  How ironic, because the true beauty of Lego is its ability to inspire creativity, not enable conformity.  They somehow knew that back in 1981.

(An ad that deserves being looked at over and over.)

Thanks to Anjan G., Sangyoub P., Rachel W., Dolores R., Erin B., Christie W., and Paul K. for suggesting that we write about this!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Ms.

Maybelline’s brand of lip gloss, “baby lips,” is a straightforward example of the infantilization of adult women:

We should be worried about the infantilization of women for two reasons:

First, it’s directly related to the sexualization of young girls.  The two phenomena, when considered together, clearly point to the convergence of female children and adult sexuality.  As I wrote in a previous post:

…on the one hand, women are portrayed as little girls, as coyly innocent, as lacking in power and maturity. On the other hand, child-likeness is sexy, and girls are portrayed as Lolitas whose innocence is questionable.

Second, the need for women to look like babies to be beautiful (and the requirement for women to be beautiful), turns aging into a trauma for women.  Susan Sontag, in her (truly beautiful) essay The Double Standard of Aging, put it this way:

The great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man… A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another…

There is no equivalent of this second standard for women. The single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. Every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat.

A very lucrative defeat for Maybelline, if we buy into it.

More of the quote at a previous post.  And, for more on the infantilization of women, see our posts on baby teeth, lady spanking, Glee, this collection of examples, a vintage example, and the Halloween edition. Link via BagNewsNotes.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Ms.

I thought it would be fun to have a round-up of examples of masculinizing the feminine — that is, attempts to sell items to men through repackaging and renaming, drawing on ridiculous stereotypes of masculinity to assure men that they can use these products without becoming girly.

To start off, how might you sell nail polish to men? Call the brand Alphanail and associate the product with sex and warfare, of course, with, as submitter Gabriella says, “women as props and men as warriors”:

Clémentine C. noticed that Canova, a British company that sells candles, has a line of candles specifically for men, identifiable by the manly images and scents. While the other candles are given names like sweet pea or watermelon, the men’s versions have more detailed names, with allusions to “bringing out the dog in you,” “the sweet smell of success,” and “a splash of motor oil.” The Cassis & Fig with Added Danger candle  includes a silhouette of a woman behind a martini glass, reminiscent of a stripper pole:

Jennifer W., Kirstie McC., Savannah G., Kristina K., Dmitriy T.M., and Scott C. informed us that CIL Paints, a Canadian company, is trying to masculinize paint colors. The website provides men with a range of colors for their “ultimate man caves.” Scott saw this ad for the line in Toronto’s Metro back in September:

What makes these colors masculine? A simple name change. The website helpfully translates the “real” names of their paints into man-speak:

According to a video created as part of the ad campaign, a quick name change instantaneously changes men’s perceptions, making them compliant with women’s wishes (“The colour she wants with a name he’ll agree to”):

Indeed, the central message is that men are incredibly stupid and easily duped; women just have to manipulate them a bit:

Now we’ve got the house painted; it’s time for some chores! Anjan G. let us know that appliance company Philips designed an iron just for men:

The man-friendly features on this “robust” iron “power tool for ironing,” described on the Philips website as the “Anodilium soleplate man iron,” include “more power, more steam, more performance” to give you “an endless excellent gliding experience.”

Now, let’s say that you’ve just ironed all your clothes with your ironing power tool, and now you want a little rest. Hmmm, you might think, I’d like a nice warm beverage, but I don’t want to appear girly. Thanks to Elisabeth M., we discovered that Man Teas has an answer for you, with their goal of making tea safe for men:

…most of the specialty teas out there have stuff like rosehips and lemon zest in them (what the hell is “zest” anyway?) and they are packaged and merchandised to appeal to women. What guy is going to pick up a box of Cozy Sleepytime Tea with a pajama’d teddy bear on it? Not this guy.

At least three different varieties of their teas are bacon-flavored. And to make sure every element of your tea-consuming experience is sufficiently manly, you can steep your tea is this manly T-Baggin Tea Bag:

And finally, along with your tea, perhaps you’d like some healthy cereal, but you’re worried that health foods are associated with women. Well, don’t worry; Tesco sells Chunky Muesli, a “cereal for men.” It’s made safe for men with construction-zone packaging:

Thanks to Sophie K. for sending us the photo!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Australian sparkling wine manufacturer Yellowglen has been running the Bubbly Girls campaign for about a decade in Australia. The brand’s self-proclaimed goal of the campaign is:

Yellowglen celebrates women everywhere.  We’re proud to be part of the celebration, and as such have asked three women who are living their dreams to be the Yellowglen Bubbly Girls.  Who are they?  They’re bright, beautiful girls who epitomise everything that we love about Australian women.

The marketing campaign actively employs a conflation of femininity and aspirational fantasy. The three women in the video were allegedly chosen because of “…the real life achievements of women and the female spirit.”

No evidence is given of any actual life achievements (i.e., experiences, career developments or highlights). Rather, the featured women talk about their dreams and desires to be famous by way of acting, music, or by spending their life travelling the world. No evidence is provided that they have even pursued these goals yet, let alone achieved anything worthy of note in these pursuits.

The rest of the campaign consists of the women modelling and drinking sparkling wine, sometimes making appearances at “fashionable” events such as the Melbourne Cup (a national Australian event worthy of it’s own post) as part of larger fashion-oriented campaign.

Thus, the campaign appears to re-enforce several patriarchal notions of femininity:

• The genderization of “‘fun”: femininity, fashion, friends, social attention (and bubbles!).
• Success is defined by fantasy; lofty and rather unattainable ambitions for careers based on appearances and social attention.
• Celebration is “a day in the spotlight,” of pamper and attention; not the acknowledgement of tangible outcomes.

Has anyone seen a male-oriented campaign that ‘celebrates’ men in a similar fashion? I’m genuinely curious.

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Nick Green studies Arts (Communications) at Monash University and Economics at University of New England, Australia, with particular interest in social economics. He performs in Heartbreak Club (a group that creates semi-satirical songs about male narcissism), writes about wine and loosely related topics at the Journal of Sparkling Shiraz, and is employed by an Australian media company.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

Anjan G. sent in an interesting pair of ads that ran as part of a Molson beer campaign in 2002/2003.  One appeared in Cosmo; it involves a man in a sweater cuddling with puppies and drinking a Molson.  It’s an example of an ad that glamorizes a soft and sensitive masculinity:

The other appeared in men’s magazines, including Playboy and FHM.  It tells readers, explicitly, that the first ad is designed to manipulate women into being sexually attracted to men who drink Molson:

The text is worth reading:

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN.
PRE-PROGRAMMED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE.

As you read this, women across America are reading something very different: an advertisement (fig. 1) scientifically formulated to enhance their perception of men who drink Molson. The ad shown below, currently running in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a perfectly tuned combination of words and images designed by trained professionals.  Women who are exposed to it experience a very positive feeling.  A feeling which they will later project directly onto you. Triggering the process is as simple as ordering a Molson Canadian (fig. 2).
…
Extravagent dinners.  Subtitled movies. Floral arrangements tied together with little pieces of hay. It gets old.  And it gets expensive, depleting funds that could go to a new set of of 20-inch rims. But thanks to the miracle of Twin Advertising Technology, you can achieve success without putting in any time or effort. So drop the bouquet and pick up a Molson Canadian…

The second ad, then, portrays men as lazy, shallow jerks who are just trying to get laid (not soft and sensitive at all).  And it portrays women as stupid and manipulable.

The two ads are a nice reminder that marketers count on their audiences being separate.  They can send each audience contradictory messages, confident that most women will never pick up Playboy and most men will never pick up Cosmo.  This is an assumption that marketers have long counted on. Miller Beer, for example, includes pro-gay advertising in magazines aimed at gay men, counting on the idea that heterosexual men, many of whom are homophobic, will never see that Miller markets itself as a gay beer.

So Molson was counting on women never seeing their ads in men’s magazines.  Alternatively, they were perfectly happy to alienate female customers.  Or maybe both.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.