Hydroxycut Advertisement Analysis

One ad that illustrates some of the major gender issues that was discussed in the video Killing Us Softly is an ad for Hydroxycut that is found in the March issue of ebony magazine. Ebony magazine is a magazine aimed at African Americans of all ages, and varying educational and economical levels. Most of the articles within ebony magazine give information on issues that particularly affect African Americans. It also has a lot of information about African American celebrities. The advertisement is for a pill named Hydroxycut. The pill is advertised to assists people in losing weight by increasing energy, burning calories, and controlling appetite. The Hydroxycut ad is advertised towards women and it follows an article that tells women how to dress for different occasions. Some of the gender issues that that this ad illustrate is how women don’t try hard enough to be beautiful, how women should be thin, how women are supposed to change who they are and how the most important thing about women is how they look. This ad illustrates those gender issues through a before and after picture, a picture of a Karen Brandon looking at herself in the mirror and a statement from her telling how Hydroxycut changed her life. The before and after photo shows a very negative image …show more content…
The ad isn’t effective because it completely relies on the appearance and testimony of Karen Brandon. Karen Brandon was not extremely overweight to begin with; also her testimony doesn’t clearly specify how Hydroxycut helped her lose the weight. Her testimony only says that it helped in some way. They Hydroxycut ad never provides any real evidence that it works. The only information about Hydroxycut is in a picture of a Hydroxycut box that says it increases energy, burns calories, and controls appetite. The ad makes Karen Brandon the main focus and fails to properly explain how Hydroxycut can help someone lose weight, and because of that the ad is