In the early nineteen twenties Lucky Strike produced an advert portraying the Caucasian women as elegant and she is also portrayed as untouchable. The advert is targeting women as in the early nineteen hundreds the majority of advertising was aimed at men. This meant that cigarette advertising ignored a huge 51% of society. Lucky strike acknowledged this and used the ‘femme fatale’ in their advertising. This is what the women of the time may have wanted to be elegant and untouchable. The advertising campaign was trying to kill two birds with one stone by targeting men as well as women by using the female in the advert, as a method of seduction. The advertising campaign was trying to make the female want to be elegant and upper class like the female in the advert, by smoking ‘lucky strike’ cigarettes.
‘Lucky strike’ tried to portray the cigarette as good for you because the slogan says, “It’s toasted,” which happens to all tobaccos during its drying process. Society however did not know, unlike today, that smoking is bad for you and because there was no evidence that it caused cancer back then, the company could say that it was good for you because nobody could prove that it was bad for you.
Around the end of the war Acme brought out an advertising campaign for its mangles portraying a Caucasian middle class women wanting a new kitchen which she has been dreaming about for the last five years. Her dreams come true when she gets her new Acme mangle and the readers dreams could also come true when they buy an Acme mangle. The advert has a piece of copy, which tells the reader that the woman in the advert has “no more washday terrors” and that the reader could also enjoy “no more washday terrors.” Women were also earning their own money and therefore could actually go out and buy the mangle as they had been liberated due to the war. This meant that if the woman of the house really wanted one then they could actually go out and purchase one if they had the money for it.
Due to the war advertising took a new angle and started to target women as well as men because they were able to purchase items without asking their husband for money, however most probably did not take that advantage or have enough money to pay for something they wanted.
During the nineteen seventies advertising using women took off and has not stopped since then and never will as there are always different markets in which have advertising as the heart of their business.
For example Yorkie launched a campaign involving a lorry driver and a stuck up woman in a soft-top convertible, which signifies that she is rich and that she is also a liberated woman. This woman is in the upper class, as she obviously could not afford a car like that unless she was upper class or married to somebody who is. The woman is around twenty-five to forty and most probably has no occupation or she is a film star for example.
Some products portrayed women as the traditional housewife like ‘Shake ‘n’ vac’ does with their commercial. However the house used was fairly modern for the time as it had huge windows, which for the time were very modern and the furniture was better than the average shown in television programmes of the time, signifying a middle class house. However the woman in the advert is not middle class but she is portrayed as working class. The woman is portrayed as enjoying doing the housework and when the person purchases the product they too can enjoy doing the housework. During the period of the advert women were portrayed as being able to have a job but the majority were still in the house unemployed and cooking and cleaning.
However throughout the large part of the twentieth century women were campaigning to be liberated and society did not agree with this at all. The liberation began in the early part of the twentieth century after the First World War between Christmas 1914 and 1918. The big push came in the nineteen sixties and women started to appear more in advertisements like in the Fairy Liquid advert in the mid-sixties. Women being liberated started a huge difference in the amount of advertising containing women.
The graph below shows what happened to women in advertising and as you can see the amount of adverts which contain women steadily goes up.
From about the nineteen eighties onwards women were used as sex objects more unlike previously. For example Lucky Strike used a woman as an upper class role model, something the men wanted to have and something the women wanted to be. However companies like Milk Tray use women in a more sensual and seductive way. For example when the lady walks out of the shower in a dressing gown whilst drying her hair and finds the box of Milk Tray on her dressing table. As opposed to the Oxo advert in the early nineteen eighties which showed the traditional Mother serving her husband and then later on feeding a whole family. Oxo’s adverts on television have always been long term campaigns, which started off with ‘Katie’ which lasted for eighteen years and then moved onto a family after surveys had been carried out.
In the nineties women were used as sex objects to appeal to the male population for the majority of the time unless the product was obviously aimed at women. For example Wonder Bra used a woman to advertise their product however the advertisement may have also captured a small male audience because of the visual aspect of the advert. This is the same for the Round the clock panty hoses, which was unveiled in the late eighties.
Many adverts made in the nineteen nineties recognised a niche in marketing when creating their adverts for their campaign, which was aimed at the male population. For example if an advertising campaign were to be aiming at men then they may appeal to their sexual weakness. This is what Hagen-Dazs has done, they have used a good-looking male to appeal to the women and they have used a good-looking female who happens not to be wearing much. The advert also has the hidden meaning of the product being a seductive ice cream.
At present day there are many adverts on television usually aged between twenty to on average about thirty-five and also some adverts. Like the direct line car insurance advert for example, which used an over 40, middle class woman because it was the same age range as the advert was targeting. The majority of the adverts which use women without much on are normally found in magazines, which helps the producers to target their audience more effectively, also they have a fair idea of which age range may see them if in magazines instead of on the television. However this is not always the case because some companies may use channels on Sky or Digital which people have to pay for to watch, which again allows the advertisers much more accuracy in who they are targeting.
Throughout the last century women in advertising has changed dramatically as well as the way in which advertising occurs through our daily routines. This is a change, which most probably will not stop. Women started off in the beginning of the century as being icons in which men aspired to have and who women aspired to be. Women then changed along with societies opinions and as wars were fought not just abroad but equality for women as well. This liberation led to women appearing more frequently in advertising and appearing more in the work place than they may have done twenty years before. I feel that women in advertising is a good thing because society is equal and therefore women are just as likely to purchase goods as much as men.
