Propper Aim of Advertisement - Essay Example

Magazine Content Analysis There is immense competition in the global market, which necessitates for advertisements. The globalmarket is alive to various forms of advertisements that include print, broadcast, and verbal advertisement. Print advertisements entail magazines, newspaper, billboards, and banners. Ideally, any advert targets a specific audience and hence the diversity in advertisement since the global market has a diverse audience. The diversity in target audience may relate to race, economic status, gender, age, and social status. Magazines target specific audience depending on the content of the advert. Some magazines target the minority while others target the majority. Indeed, we have minority-targeted magazine like the Black Enterprise magazine and mainstream-targeted magazines like BusinessWeek magazine. This paper presents a content analysis of minority and mainstream magazines. In doing so, the paper will explain how advertisement in minority-targeted magazines and mainstream-targeted magazine by establishing the similarities and differences there in. Ideally, advertising produces magazines that target diverse audience. A mainstream-targeted magazine refers to a magazine with a huge readership and demographic categories while minority-targeted magazine relates to a magazine with limited readership and few demographic categories. In the recent times, the number of minority-targeted magazines have been increasing subject to the appreciation, increase, and buying power of the minority. Indeed, advertisers have realized the potential in the minority and have since tailored different advertisements targeting their needs, perception, and potential. The frequency and quantity of minority-targeted magazines have led to an intrusive and consistent mode of advertising that the minority cannot afford to disregard. Some of the minority-targeted magazines include the Black Enterprise magazine, African American Golfers Digest, Black Collegian Magazine, and Black Men Magazine. With respect to the Black Enterprise magazine, we can establish that the magazine is more prominent in black neighborhoods. The magazine has a capacity to reach about 6 million people and hence the need to analyze the content of the adverts contained in the magazine. The content in Black Enterprise magazine seems to target Black Americans and their needs. Notably, the magazine contains adverts of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks that suit the social needs and purchasing power of the blacks. Most notable is the fact that adverts in the Black Enterprise magazine tend to lack health information required on major health issues caused by the consumption of the advertised products. In most cases, enticing images dominate the advert where they symbolically convince the target audience to consume the advertised product. Indeed, the content in the adverts posted on the minority-targeted magazine exposes the audience to unwarranted minor health risks. The audience relies on the message presented by the adverts, which leads to increased consumption of advertised products and total advertising turnover. The Black Enterprise magazine hosts various adverts that seek to meet minority tastes in the fast-growing minority consumer market. The content in the magazine is racially oriented since it addresses Asian, Hispanic and African-American communities. However, it is worth noting that some of the content in the adverts placed on the Black Enterprise magazine is ineffective, discriminating, and embarrassing since it depicts an irrational motive. Indeed, since these adverts seem to address specific ethnic groups, they only constitute a small portion of the advertising budget in America. The wide disparities in income, age, and education limit advertisers from reaching many minority customers. The minority customers that access the Black Enterprise magazine are equally diverse and hence the content of the advertisements placed in the magazine may fail to capture the attention of many minority customers. However, most of the information contained in the magazine depicts a clear and simple language that addresses specific social needs among Africans and African Americans. The articles and advertisements contained therein appeal to the target audience that includes African Americans. Indeed, the content is appealing and understandable to minority customers with basic knowledge in black culture. Moreover, the Black Enterprise magazine contains relevant content that promoted the advertised product to the minority customers. The Black Enterprise magazine also contains extensive images and photos that complement the content. The images and photos represent the target audience and hence the audience identifies with the adverts placed on the magazine. Indeed, the content in the magazine also includes explicit appeals and unambiguous symbols that seek to convince the audience. Ideally, there is an underrepresentation of minority customers in advertising since white advertisers do not advocate for effective representation of the minority in advertising messages placed on different platforms. However, the content in Black Enterprise magazine has a high representation of Asian, Hispanic, and African-American consumers since the magazine is popular in these communities. The minority customers cling to their race or ethnicity and hence connect with the content in the magazine since it considers such demographics. The content in the magazine appreciates the authenticity of the audience’s needs and their social life. Clearly, new minority customers can access the content in the magazine courtesy of its effective layouts. Moreover, there have been significant changes in the magazine’s layout to make the target audience access and identify with the content contained therein. On the other hand, we have mainstream-targeted magazines like BusinessWeek magazine that depict huge readership and demographic categories. The content in the advertisements placed in the BusinessWeek magazine seek to deliver a professional, powerful, and global message to a diverse audience. The majority customers rely on this content to make wise market decisions. As such, the content connects the target audience with the mainstream-targeted magazine. The content in the advertisements placed in the BusinessWeek magazine expand the advertisement message thus enabling a huge audience to access the advertised product. The content in the BusinessWeek magazine is authoritative and trusted and hence a good basis for making purchasing decisions. The content explains the entire product’s dynamics with an aim of enabling majority customers to make effective decisions. In addition, the BusinessWeek magazine hosts advertisements that manifest exclusive information about a specific product. Indeed, the magazine contains exclusive content and interactive features that play a major role in introducing new products in the market. Such content is effective in representing product development and offers more purchasing options to the target audience. Quite notable is the fact that the content in mainstream-targeted magazines does not represent and ethnic group and hence plays a noble role in discrediting racial barriers in the market. However, it is clear from the BusinessWeek magazine that minorities rarely featured in mainstream-targeted advertisements. In fact, even the content in such advertisements do not feature the minorities. Even when they featured in the BusinessWeek magazine, the minorities only appeared in the background and played secondary roles. Most of the minorities that featured in mainstream-targeted advertisements were African American. This emanated from the continued recognition of African American consumers in the global market. There is over-representation of White women and white men in the adverts placed in mainstream-targeted magazines. The content in such magazines seem to promote white ideologies though they also appreciate Black ideals, which send a mixed feeling to black readers. Moreover, the content in mainstream-targeted magazines like the Business Week depict more Black women and children than Black men since the Black women and children pose minimal challenge to the White audience. The content in the Business Week magazine portray White people in higher status while Black people occupied lower status. Indeed, the content manifests the Whites as customers and the Blacks as products. In terms of gender, the content in the Business Week portray White women as submissive and focused than Black women. Subject to these aspects, the content in advertisements placed in the Business Week magazine please the whites who have a greater purchasing power than the blacks do. Ideally, only few advertisements manifest good interactions between Black people and White people. Most advertisements are now racially oriented where they address specific races. Most mainstream-targeted advertisements manifest inaccurate representation of ethnic groups and stereotyping of gender and race. Indeed, mainstream-targeted advertisements rely on minority models to perform stereotyped duties with an aim of attracting majority consumers. However, the magnitude of inaccurate representation and stereotyping depends on the type of magazine, type of advertised product, and perceived significance of the advert. Advertisers are aware of the challenges involved in using minority models for mainstream-targeted advertisements that seek to attract a huge market audience. Notably, mainstream-targeted magazines like the Business Week do not address the market and social needs of African Americans. As such, mainstream-targeted magazines are ineffective in representing ethnic diversity in advertising. Examples of adverts in minority-targeted magazines include the Lorillards Newport ad seen in Ebony and Jet black magazines (Stanford School of Medicine 1). Examples of adverts in mainstream-targeted magazines include the ad for Skyy Vodka that features a man in a suit standing straddled over a woman (Carson 2). The ad depicts a man with a Skyy Vodka bottle and two glasses while the woman is lying down and looking up at the man (Carson 2). The ad manifests gender stereotyping by portraying the man as the most powerful object and the woman as a submissive sex object (Carson 2). Some of the adverts in both the minority-targeted magazines and mainstream-targeted magazines are highly similar and standardized. Indeed, the Lorillards Newport ad and Skyy Vodka ad in a minority-targeted magazine and mainstream-targeted magazine respectively depict some similarity and standards. For instance, the two ads feature black American men and women. Notably, the content in the ads advertise alcohol and tobacco, which are popular among the blacks. The two adverts seek to attract more black men to consume alcohol and smoke tobacco. Moreover, it is quite notable that the two ads include no text and leaves the audience to interpret the symbols and images used. Nevertheless, the two ads depict some significant differences. The Skyy Vodka ad in the mainstream-targeted magazine depicts gender stereotyping while the Lorillards Newport ad in the minority-targeted magazine has no stereotyped roles. This difference shows how mainstream-targeted magazines stereotypes minority models. The differences depict the different objectives and significance of the two magazines. They signify the diversity in target audience. Indeed, the diversity includes the race, economic status, gender, age, and social status of the target audience. The two ads in the minority-targeted magazine and mainstream-targeted magazine define the dynamics in the advertising industry. The images in the two ads complement the advertising text where they symbolically convince the target audience to consume the advertised product. Quite notable is the fact that the two ads serve the same purpose of convincing the target audience to consume the advertised products. Indeed, the two ads seek to define the content of an advert. Works Cited Carson, Candace. Race & gender stereotypes: a content analysis of magazine advertising. 2011. Web. 6 October 2014. < file:///C:/Users/Acer/Documents/Honors_Thesis.pdf> Stanford School of Medicine. Recent Black Ads. 2005. Web. 6 October 2014. < http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/images.php?token2=fm_st169.php&token1=fm_img5055.php&theme_file=fm_mt019.php&theme_name=African%20Americans&subtheme_name=Recent%20Black%20Ads> Read More