Jean Kilbourne Advertising

As a kid, I thought I ate well. I ate all my vegetables, drank milk, and ate plenty of protein. But as the years rolled by so did my weight. I went from being a chubby baby, then fat kid, and finally an obese teenager. Up to my sophomore year of high school, I was obese. Until one day I was fed up with that lifestyle. I tried dozens of diets from low carb to low fat, and even juice diet, but nothing was working. Eventually, I did some research and found the culprit for my weight gain, soda. Jean Kilbourne the author of “Beauty… and the Beast of Advertising” preaches how the exposure of advertising leads to a negative view of one’s self because of the portrayal of unrealistic standards in happiness, and sex in the media. The 1946 yes girl coke …show more content…
Humans come from primal ancestors, so we respond to certain stimuli with primal urges. Seeing a sexy woman in a bikini with a flirty face (stimuli) cause us to want sex. In the ad we see a stranger hand reaching into the frame and handing the beautiful lady a coke and the lady shows him gratitude with a flirty face. The ad plays off the fact that sex sells to imply that if we do the same as the ad we’ll get sex back. On the other had these aspects play a different role for women. It makes them feel that they must look like the women in the ad to be beautiful in today’s society, they must be skinny, no pores, long legged, and young. This gives women unreal expectations only achievable with photoshop. In Kilbourne’s essay, she says,” All “beautiful” women in advertisements (including minority women), regardless of product or audience, conform to this norm. Women are constantly exhorted to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel that their desirability and lovability are contingent upon physical perfection.” All the big companies supplement each other to tear down the women’s views and implement their views into the women’s views. By doing so they make women believe that they are incomplete on their own that they need the support of the product to make them …show more content…
Because I have seen what their product does to the body through personal experience and this has caused me not touch a soda in the past six years. But in general ads affect me by introducing new products to me but I do not make a purchase till I know a sufficient amount about the product. I then decide I do not allow emotional appeal affect my decisions. But in general, they sell their products by going after your emotions such as happiness and guilt to manipulate the people. They also use their knowledge of the human psychology to manipulate their audience to feel a certain way towards their ad. All in all, money runs the world, and companies will do whatever they can to make the most profit and make their product