Stereotypes in Everyday Ads

Our textbook tells us that the American Marketing Association defines advertising as "any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization, product service or idea by an identified sponsor". Advertising benefits us in the form of low cost media, be it television or newspapers. These outlets aid the average person in gaining a greater understanding and knowledge of the world around them, helping us form more informed opinions and finding topics and causes that interest us. While media was instrumental in the development of many "American" principles such as universally equal rights and opportunities; basically the freedom from being subjugated to arbitrary judgement derived from your physical appearance. However, while advertising provided a fuel to propel this prejudice free society, advertisements themselves seem to reinforce the stereotypes that were the root of the era of inequality.

The commercial I've chosen to examine is certainly not the worst example of a commercials' use of stereotypes, but it contains probably the most common one: the objectification of women.

Head and Shoulders commercials usually flaunt the products' ability to fight dandruff better than any alternative leading brand, which is positive; dandruff is a nuisance. So, we can assume the natural target audience for this commercial is men who wash their hair and want to rid themselves of dandruff. Well, the advertising coordinators seemed to think this group too narrow so they cast off the mono-functioning image of head and shoulders as a dandruff remover to a shampoo that will additionally provide you with a healthy scalp, whatever that means, and great looking hair, again a little ambiguous but reaches out to a larger audience. However, even the targeted audience of male shampoo users is apparently too narrow so the commercial opens itself to the even greater audience of men who like women.
The women that materialize behind Minnesota Twin's catcher Joe Mauer are presented as the added bonus to a bottle of Head and Shoulders, like a free Transformers figure found inside of a Cinnamon Toast Crunch box. Even better, these bonus women aren't just your local barmaid but perfectly meet almost every aesthetic criteria surrounding women. And yes, the key to these previously unobtainable women's hearts is indeed a shampoo, specifically Head and Shoulders shampoo. Forget bashful attempts at trying to find a personal connection with the women you're interested in, women don't want character in a man, they want great hair and a healthy scalp.
So, in a society where we have fought so hard to attain dispel archaic assumptions about women's characteristics and capabilities, when we should be able to look back at our history and be bewildered by the misguided logic that allowed prejudice to run rampant, the stereotype endures, even flourishes in front of us. We have to take a minute, like this one, to look at a commercial like this and be disturbed by the athletes impending polygamous relationship with these superficial hair obsessed women. Not only do we see this, but the commercial prescribes a high value to the bonus of a polyamorous relationship with beautiful yet shallow and materialistic girls. This objectification of women for the sake of garnering male viewers' attention can't possibly out value that eradicating that primitive practice would provide us. It's not only the objectification of women that pervades this commercial, but the portrayal of men as being driven by an urge to collect as many beautiful women as his hair product allows extends a stereotype of similar superficiality as the women's.
Perhaps its a sad inditement of our society that advertising agencies spent millions of dollars to discover that stereotypes and objectification will bring us to the stores. Clearly the gain to Head and Shoulders of adding the unrealistic promise of the formation of a cult of beautiful women around you was worth the additional advertising time beyond the description of the product's actual function.