Advertisements Play an Important Role in Promoting the Pop Culture - Essay Example

Popular Culture In the recent years, there has been major technological development in various sectors of the economy. As a result, many changes have been effected in the concerned sectors hence introducing new trends. Of more concern, the telecommunication sector registers major changes that have led to the introduction of modern culture exhibited by people from different parts in the world. Considering the fact that many people spend more time in different forms of communication media, they get informed of latest cultural trends from which they become informed and start to emulate for different reasons. In particular, many advertisements connote popular culture adopted by communities across the globe. The advert “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box”, consisting of two modern women fighting over a Bailey product represents the place of women in popular culture. This essay will analyze the advert by applying story telling method, gender and sexuality method and finally discussing a source related to the advert. In summarizing the “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box” advert, it is possible to draw several aspects that represent popular culture in the community. The advert consists of two contemporary women fighting over a baileys product. Several aspects in the advert indicate that the women represent the modern society. The dressing codes used by both women in the advert indicate modern culture. One woman is dressed using a shorter dress that is mostly used by youthful women in different parts of the world. The second woman is dressed up using an outfit that perfectly fits in her body, an outfit that is popular among youthful and classy women. In addition, both women in the advert are groomed using high heeled shoes, which are trendy among classy women in the society. Further, the advert portrays a Bailey product being wrapped using a gift box, something that is commonly associated with women because majority of women in the society like to receive gifts. Finally, the advert includes a picture of beautiful jewelry indicating that Bailey’s Fine Jewelry are capable of producing quality and attractive products for women in the society. This print medium used in the “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box” advert has several primary strengths that make the advert to be successful in attracting the target segment to purchase Bailey’s Jewelry. To start with, the advert incorporates emotional appeals that play an important role in attracting target audience. Emotional appeals in adverts make the target audience to focus more on the advert and in the end receive the intended message concerning the products or services being promoted. According to Andrew, emotional appeals enable advertisers to communicate to the target audience imagination, something that underlines their decision making process in purchasing a product (2010). In the “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box” advert, the two fighting women arise an emotional appeal to target audience indicating that the Bailey’s box contains a precious jewelry that is worth fighting for. This motivates the target customers to purchase the Bailey’s jewelry in order to associate themselves with the precious product that every woman would fight to have. The advert also incorporates other aspects that further increase the strengths of the advert in relation to the target audience. Firstly, the advert passes on a clear message to the target audience by using a picture of two fighting women. In real sense, fighting is something that is not accepted in many communities all over the world. Therefore, an advert including an image of people fighting attracts a lot of attention in the society. Therefore, this advert successfully attracts the target audience easily. In addition, the fact that the two lades in the advert fight over a Bailey’s product also pass a clear message to the target audience. This is because the two women go against the community expectations in order to get the Bailey’s product. This clearly passes a message to the audience that Bailey’s products are valuable and worth sacrificing for. The advert is also clear that the two women are fighting for the Bailey’s gift box and not any other thing. This helps the target audience to constantly remember that Bailey’s gift box is something worth sacrificing for in whatever circumstances in order to get it. Moreover, the advert is also clear on the target audience for the intended message. The dress code used buy women in the advert indicate that the advert is intended for women who want to be termed as classy or sophisticated in the society. Although the print advert is well articulated for the specific target, it may not appeal to “video culture generation”. In the current generation, the popular culture dictates that most people prefer getting message via video communication media because it is easy to grasp many aspects of the message when compared to print media. In reality, video advertisements are thought to impact greatly to the target audience more than the print advertisements. This is because video advertisements are more realistic since they feature real artists who perform ‘humanistic’ activities. In addition, emotional appeals can be well presented using video advertisements since videos command more attention to the present generation of people. Further, humorous scenes can be included in video advertisements hence making it easy for the audience to remember the message contained in the advert. Therefore, the “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box” print advert presents some form of weakness because it is easy for the target audience to forget the main message. According to the Entertainment Merchants Association, current consumers prefer video advertisements packages over the print media (n.d). This indicates that the popular culture makes video advertisements to be more successful since many audiences prefer video adverts. Therefore, the “Every Woman Wants A Bailey Box” advert may not be more effective in passing the message to the target audience. A video format of this advertisement would be better because of several reasons. To start with, considering the fact that there are many media platforms that support video contents, many people prefer watching and listening to video contents. Therefore, a video format of this advert would be effective in passing on the information to a large portion of the target audience. Secondly, a video format would create a better emotional appeal to the target audience hence leaving a lasting impression to the target audience as opposed to the print format that can be easily forgotten. Lastly, a video format of this advertisement would have enabled the producer to incorporate humorous scenes that further enhance the effectiveness of the advertisement. Arguably, the primary audience for this advertisement is young stylish women with high economic capabilities. This is eluded by several aspects of the picture of the two women in the advertisement. To begin with, the age of the women in the advert can be estimated by looking at their faces and body size. Their body sizes indicate that they are grown up while their faces indicate that they are still young. In evaluating the picture critically, it is possible to conclude that the two women are stylish and so is the target audience. Both women in the picture are groomed with fashionable clothes and shoes. In addition, both women have put on facial makeup indicating that the advert is made for an audience with keen interest to style. The fact that both women in the advert have stylish clothing and makeup, which are expensive to purchase indicates that the advert targets audience with high income capable of purchasing expensive jewelry used by stylish women. With the present pop culture generation the advertisement depicts the evolved status of women in pop culture. Current generation women enjoy equality rights more than the previous generations of women, who faced oppression due to male dominance. This advertisement portrays that the current status of women in the society is greatly improved towards equality. This is because the advert passes on a message that current women are economically powerful by being able to purchase expensive products such as the Bailey’s jewelry. In addition, the fact that only woman are used to pass on the message to the target audience, who are also women, indicates that modern women are significantly recognized in the society in various sectors of the economy. However, the advertisement portrays a weakness when analyzed using gender and sexuality method. The advertisement only shows the identity of certain age group of women, locking out the too young and too old. This indicates is not age sensitive considering the diversity of market segments. For instance, there are elder women who are also stylish and would present a portion of the target market segment. In addition, there are some parents who like to purchase stylish products to their young daughters. Therefore, the advert should have catered for the additional categories of people in order to maximize its effectiveness in marketing the Bailey’s products. This static print advertisement would be more effective in video format because it would be possible to incorporate other elements to make it more wide encompassing to represent all age groups of women. This would be possible because a video format of the advertisement would enable the producer to capture the different age groups in a short span as opposed to the print media, which would prove challenging to include all the age groups while still holding the basic message of the advertisement. When analyzed using gender and sexuality method, the primary audience of the advertisement is stylish modern women embracing pop culture. Ideally, most advertisements represent different social strata in the community while passing on the message to the target audience. However, this Bailey’s advertisement represents the evolved social status of young women in pop culture by indicating their levels of sophistication through dressing codes and make ups. In addition, the Bailey’s advertisement indicates the social status of women in the current society in addition to making them to be the target audience. Of more importance, advertisements play an important role in promoting the pop culture in addition to passing specific messages concerning the products in question. According to Pacific University Oregon, advertisements contribute in promoting “dominant attitudes, values, and ideology of the culture” within the society (2003, pg.8). This means that advertisements not only pursued target audience to purchase their products, but also expose the audience to the current cultural trends adopted by people in the modern society. This is achieved by introducing a ‘current problem’ that can be solved using the suggested products or services in the advertisement (Pacific University Oregon, 2003). In evaluating the Bailey’s advertisement, the text used a unique approach to hegemony and ideology. This is because the advert used women as characters. Therefore, the text in the advert is highly recommended to women audience because of the products being advertised. In conclusion, in evaluating the Bailey’s advertisement in storytelling, gender and sexuality methods, it is evident that the advert was successful in passing the intended message to the target audience. By using the gender and sexuality method of analysis, the Bailey’s advertisement represents the state of women in the popular culture in the current generation. However, the advertisement portrays a weakness by targeting a smaller segment of women in the society hence failing to address a wider market segment that presents potential customers for the same product. Therefore, it is important for advertisers to target a broad market segment in order to increase effectiveness of advertisements. References Andrew A. N. (June 7, 2010). Using Appeals to Emotions to Sell Paint. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/business/media/08adco.html?_r=0 Entertainment Merchants Association. (n.d). Consumer Intelligence Series. Retrieved from http://entmerch.org/ema_pwc-presentation.pdf Pacific University Oregon. (2003). The Wonder of Barbie: Popular Culture and the Making of Female Identity. Essays in Philosophy. Retrieved from http://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=eip Read More