Advertising Messages

Advertising is a very effective medium that the media uses to send messages to its audience about products. Nowadays, they can be found almost everywhere, during a commute on the train there are ads posted in the train car. Look around and there are people holding newspapers with ads, whichshows Ralph Hanson's, truth one, "The media are essential components of our lives." The media world that we live in today constantly bombards us with advertisements. Advertisers these days attempt to sell their products to people of all demographics, however they sometimes fail to do so and create an insulting ad.

America has had a history of sexism and racism, and it still exists today. Nowadays, these ideologies are depicted in the media that is displayed to the audience. For example, in the video killing us softly it shows how the media portrays woman. It advertisements, and magazines it defines a beautiful woman as thin and white. Editors Photoshop’s these images to the point where it is impossible to look exactly like the models in the photos. This conveys the wrong message to young girls, especially teenagers as that is the idle image they should have, they will attempt to imitate the image they see, which will result in them hurt

ing their health.

A few years ago Intel created an ad to promote their new core 2 duo processors. In this ad it had a single white man standing and sprinters in starting position who where all black. The ad read, "Multiply computing performance and maximize the power of your employee." ad gave the impression that the black sprinters were bowing before the white man, depicting racism and power of hierarchy of the white man. There were six sprinters in total but they where all the same person who was duplicated six times, thus excluding females. Shortly after this ad started stirring up controversy an Intel spokesperson made an apology to those who were offended and claimed that they were trying to use sprinters to convey how fast the new processor were, and image of a sprinter has always worked in previous ads, just not this one.

Basically in Intel’s ad they wanted to use sprinters to convey speed, which depicts Hanson’s truth three, “Everything from the margin moves to the center.” The reason Intel’s ad failed was that they used a single image of a single sprinter and duplicated multiple times. What Intel should have done was use multiple images of sprinters of all demographics. This would have removed the ideologies of sexism and racism. To further, to convey speed in an office, just have sprinters in an office setting and remove the image of a boss, thus removing the power of hierarchies simultaneously.

Advertisements nowadays are all around us, and we cannot escape them. They constantly have some type of hidden message embedded within their ads. We as an audience do not realize the messages the ads convey unless we actually take the time out to analyze it with our full attention. With technologies like DVR’s and pop up blockers, we are essentially letting advertisers get away with promoting sexism, racism, and power of hierarchies. It is thanks to those that do pay attention to these ads, and takes time out to analyze and be a whistleblower. It is thanks to them that we know advertisers are embedding these ideologies into their ads.

Intel Apologizes for “Insulting” Sprinter Ad

Killing Us Softly

Mass Communication by Ralph Hanson