Advertising R Us Rubin Analysis

Advertisements R Us In her essay, Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin talks about the Coca-Cola company’s targeted market based on an advertisement from 1950. Melissa Rubin is an English major at Hofstra University. She proclaims that “they include text and images that reflect and appeal to the ideals, values, and stereotypes held by the consumers they wish to attract.” Rubin points out that the potential audience portrayed in the Coca-Cola ad from August 1950, is mainly caucasian males, blue collar workers, businessmen and servicemen in uniforms.

In conclusion, advertisements, although they are intended to only sell products, contain many different underlying ideas and opinions of the people who created them and the society from which they came. I analyzed a Red Robin commercial for a burger which included a suggestive woman to appeal to men and their appetites. This use of women and the ways in which American society has sexualized food have societal and cultural implications that are not overtly visible unless one is looking for them. If we look at the way Americans view women, we see that they are sexualized. This sexualization is used to sell much more than food, such as cars, watches, perfume

Since the emergence of advertising in American culture one thing that has remained constant is the visible truth that men and women are portrayed differently. In consideration to the evolution of man kind gender roles have evolved immensely throughout time, although advertisements have not kept up with this process of evolution. Companies to this day use their tactics and skills to reach out to specific genders such as pretty fonts with a stylish message, while advertisements towards men portray the character as strong and intimidating. The typical viewer can easily spot the difference in the portrayal of genders. Men are portrayed this way because the viewers look up to these characters, they want to be

What does an ad say about a society? When viewing a product advertisement, many people never stop to think why the ad and product appeals to them. However, when a more critical look is taken, it’s easy to see precisely how ads are carefully tailored to appeal to trending values of a targeted demographic, and how that makes it easy to examine the society of those whom the ad is targeted at. In the analytic writing Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin provides an excellent example of this, as she crafts a logical and clear analysis of a 1950’s Coca-Cola magazine ad which thoroughly explains how advertisements can reveal quite a great deal about the society in which they were created.

By adding historical context into her writing, Rubin explains the attitudes and conditions that were present during the 1950s, and how Coke used these attitudes and conditions to promote their product and symbolize it with optimism and energy, as well as target their product towards the highest valued group of people at that time. For example, Rubin points out how the vast majority of people in the ad are white males dresses as service men, blue collar workers, and business men. Also, Rubin points out that because of the war this was the largest, and highest valued group of people in America. By including this information into her writing, it helps support her claims about how Coke uses the ad to effectively promote its product to the most profitable demographic in the

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

In her article “Advertisements R Us,” Melissa Rubin notes that Coke’s message in the ad she analyzes is that “Coke will refresh and unite working America” (249). Her evidence for this is based on several things—for instance, right in the middle of ad sits a large Coke machine and the bottom of the ad explicitly states, “A welcome host to workers—Inviting you to the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca-Cola” (249). She concludes her article with the insight that “Coke ads helped shape the American identity,” pointing to the underlying message of the ad that Coke can provide the carefree, joyful life it never fails to portray in its ads to everyone who takes a sip (250).

During the 1920’s, advertisement has changed in many aspects of American culture. Although the concept of advertising has existed in the United States since the establishment of the thirteen colonies, the American advertisement became what it is today as in a result of the 1920’s. During that time, most of propaganda techniques, that were used in modern times, were officially established and perfected. However, advertisers find great accomplishments with the different techniques such as psychology of advertisement, brand consciousness, therapeutic ethic, and even the use of women image use on consumers that will master mind the advertisement culture.

Race representation in advertisements is often anything but diverse, however as time moves forward and attitudes in society change there has been a considerable amount of progress with the inclusion of more than the typical white male or female. One of the most classic examples of the progress in representation of more than one race in advertisements is with the classic body products from Dove and their commercials seen on TV. Upon exploration of Dove’s older ads, the typical female portrayed is a White female with either brown or blonde hair, playfully cleaning her skin, often times she has a face blooming of satisfaction and happiness. The classic ad for Dove’s Pink soap released in 1958 not only seems to be selling the pink and fragrant soap but a

From 1890 to 1940, advertisements were produced in such a way of generalizing groups of people to make goods more appealing. Advertisements directed at women generally concerned beauty products and household goods, which were women’s main concern in this time period. These advertisements capitalized on women’s inferiority to men, and motherhood. However, women were also used to help sell goods, by making men think they will attract more women, or be able to provide for their woman with certain products. People of color were treated as almost a whole other species. African Americans were used on labels to represent a richness about the product, in that people who had this product seemed to have the resources to hire a person of color to work

Men and women are both displayed and stereotyped in different ways. The men are typically shown in advertisements that are non-domestic, and not associated with family (Furnham, Farragher, 2000, 13C). More times than not, men are also used for the voiceover of commercials (Furnham, Farragher, 2000, 13C). Women are shown in a different light. The women

In a culture of ever-changing media, the most constant mover of product has always been white women. Companies spanning many industries are guilty of selling sex, and Coca Cola is far from an exception. Ads are in place to, “pursue attraction to people’s fantasy aspirations…” allowing consumers to become inspired and ingrained in them. These two ads from Coca Cola pander to the fantasies of the average Joe through placement of women that fit the paradigms of societally normal beauty front and center to draw the eye of the consumer to their product. By the time The Coca Cola Company had a successful means of distribution in the United States, World War II was at the doorstep causing citizens to have to answer a call to arms, however, “...the government told the women to go back home to be housewives. The advertisements may have contributed a key in encouraging this. Women were employed as a way of selling products and represented in distinct social-classes to give their brands a further worldwide attraction mainly to other proletariat people.” At this time, advertisements were known to, “…pursue working-class women because they never had sexual appearances,” as displayed by the older Coca Cola ad from 1939, found through the “American Memory Project” from the Library of Congress.

In Craig's article, the author explores how advertising views men and women as separate consumer markets and appeals to both of them at separate times. Gender roles are heavily influential when creating commericials for each respective market. Craig details this through an analysis of beer ads

In her fourth installment of “Killing Us Softly”, Jean Kilbourne explores the image of women that American advertising industries have created in our society. Kilbourne breaks down the trends that advertisements constantly reinforce for women throughout the decades, and criticizes the impossible standards that women are shamed into trying to achieve. She allows us to take a deeper look at the exploitative, sexist, and misogynistic tendencies embedded in commercial culture, which is presented everywhere we look. Proceeding to emphasize that these ads have damaging effects in the real world, leading to violence against women, eating disorders, and low self esteem. Furthermore, Kilbourne acknowledges that although things have changed through the

One will see a white female with pouting red lips and the very petite body that resembles a thirteen-year-old girl. The extremely artificial women and the heavily photo-shopped pictures in these ad’s create a norm and make those women who look differently, feel insecure of who they are and make them feel as if they are less of a woman, for example they tend to over represent the Caucasian, blonde with bright eyes, white complexion and a petite body. This is an unattainable beauty for most women, which has caused many to develop issues such as eating disorders, depression and the very much talked about these days, anorexia.