Women are the targets for many advertisers. This may be due in large part because it is usually the woman in the household who makes buying decisions for particular products. Women are also target by publicists and advertisers due to the fact that women are bigger consumers than men. This logical reasoning has driven the advertising market in the 21st century, and even prior to that. We see how prevalent it is in today’s economy because it is no longer subtle. Advertisers purposefully gear their campaigns toward women.
Marketing campaigns for sports enthusiast has always been lucrative, but with an ever increasing number of women participating in sports it has become geared towards more females. For example, the Women’s Tennis Association created a marketing campaign in 2011 entitled “Strong Is Beautiful” (Adams). These videos and photographs show women as strong, inspirational athletes, and they appeal to a woman’s sense of beauty emerging from an inherently underlying strength (Adams).
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Advertising campaigns appeal to a woman’s desire to look or be beautiful. This oftentimes leads to objectifying women in advertising. In addition, advertisers do not understand how to market to older women. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ad campaigns that market products for older women, but use younger women to market said products ( Manning). For example, anti-aging products are seen in commercials being used by thirty year old women (Manning). This seems dishonest at best.
Even though advertisers have modernized their advertisements and have included more campaigns at women, they still have work to do. They will continue to market specifically towards women, but perhaps the advertising executives should think more about not objectifying women and to continue to portray them as strong and capable.
- Adams, William Lee. “Game, Sex and Match: The Perils of Female Sports Advertising.” Time. Time Inc., 02 July 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
- Manning, Margaret. “Companies Don’t Know How to Market to Women Over 60 — and That’s Bad for Everyone!” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
