American Apparel Analysis

In today 's society people are constantly bombarded with information. If a company wants to advertise to a person they will have to find a creative way to get a person 's attention. Many companies are using a technique called shock advertising in an attempt to make sure people notice their brand. Shock Advertising is a technique in which a company purposely startles a viewer by violating social and cultural norms. Two companies that are notorious for using this technique are PETA and American Apparel. Although these companies have different intentions, the tactics they use to display their intentions are comparable. Both of these companies, have a tendency to depict women in an unflattering light, whether that means comparing the women to …show more content…
As a company if you fail to fulfill these qualifications, you have only caused confusion for anyone who has any interest in your brand. American Apparel, a company that is constantly under watch by the Advertising Standards Authority, is known for walking on the line of minimalist advertising techniques and just causing confusion within consumers . Many of the advertisements the company are known for the blatant use of nudity as a strategy to draw people into the ad and then minimally show off the product they actually want people to buy. The ad that will be discussed, also referred to as Figure Two is just confusing . Figure Two depicts a woman, named Maks hailing from Dhaka, Bangladesh, topless, with the words, “Made in Bangladesh” on her chest in American Apparel’s trademark Helvetica font. Underneath the ad are a couple of paragraphs briefly describing her life story. To fully understand this advertisement and all of the symbolism, it would require a consumer to look at the ad for a longer period of time and it would require the consumer to disregard previous Amrican Apparel ads. Despite what people may think, this ad is completely different from a normal American Apparel ad. When people are faced with a normal American Apparel ad they are usually forced to look at a women in a …show more content…
American Apparel is company that makes all of its products in the USA, makes sure no one is working in a sweatshop, and is currently trying to get fair job laws for countries all over the world. PETA is a company that is fighting for the fair and ethical treatment of animals. Unfortunately for both of these companies, their brands are tarnished by all of the controversies that are constantly surrounding their advertisements. With this ad, American Apparel was trying to empower women, but because of all of their past advertisements, no one will take them seriously. In their ad, PETA was simply trying to expose people to the mistreatment of elephants, but because of the negative depiction of a beautiful woman, they have lost the respect of many. Both of these ads are using women to get a point across. Both of these companies had good intentions. Both of these companies should use the backlash from these ads to fix their advertisements in the