Advertising is a form of mass media designed to promote a specific product, service, or idea on behalf of a business or organisation. Advertisers ordinarily use such media as television, radio, print (magazines, newspapers and billboards), sponsorship of cultural and sporting events, and the internet. Today advertisers also use settings less obvious than billboards and TV commercials, such as sidewalks, movies and school buses. Guerrilla marketing tactics like ‘product placement’—where the intended audience is unaware that they have been exposed to an advertisement, while the desired impression of the product remains—are increasingly common.
In the early twentieth century, advertising in the US was primarily directed towards women because they were responsible for most consumer purchases, the exception being ‘big ticket’ products like cars and major appliances (O’Barr 2006). Ads oriented towards men were straightforward and usually included an image and description of the product’s function, price and location. After World War II, however, industries increasingly courted the adult male consumer, and then with the advent of youth culture, teens and young adults.
Today, advertisements regularly play on consumers’ anxieties and emotions. As Galbraith presciently argued, advertising’s main function is to create desires that previously did not exist (Galbraith 1971:149). A standard ploy is to make the consumer feel as though the product will remedy a specific insecurity. Ad designers prey on a modern culture obsessed with self-enhancement, youth, body image and gender identity—a favoured theme aimed at both men and women (Barthel 1988, 1990; Goffman 1976). However, advertising’s ubiquitous presence also creates a more sceptical and desensitised audience. Men, in particular, tend to believe that they are less susceptible to marketing ploys (Elliot and Elliot 2005).
In mainstream Western advertisements, men are usually portrayed in active, authoritative and important roles. Common themes are the provider father, the strong athlete, the socially successful hunk and the wealthy, incontrol businessman. Men are represented in more television advertisements than women, with the exception of health and beauty products (Ganahl et al. 2003). Global research concludes that commercials in Latin America use similar storylines and depictions of men (Medrado et al. 2001).
In voice-overs, male narrators are usually employed to convey greater authority. Research from Brazil found that 86 per cent of commercials had male narrators (Medrado et al. 2001). While women are still more frequently depicted as sex objects, ads increasingly show men as sex objects. Idealised male figures are now employed for many fashion, health and beauty products—including erectile dysfunction or impotence remedies. Although marketers deliberately evoke both insecurity and relief, it is a delicate balance. A pitch that overly induces shame will not likely succeed for men (Irvine 2006).
Ads portraying men as sex objects face challenges because the ‘male gaze’ is traditionally directed at women, and appearance is supposedly less of a man’s concern. Ads commonly address this dilemma by depicting a’masculine’ character with overt heterosexual desires. For example, grooming product commercials equate shaving with high speed racing or rocket ships and conclude with a sexy woman caressing the adventurer’s shaven cheek.
In the ongoing tension between consumer resistance and advertising appeal, advertisers sometimes embrace images that contrast with traditional male ideals. One instance is the recent trend towards rejoinder ads celebrating ordinary guys who sit around, delight in TV and fattening foods, and seem utterly unconcerned with their appearance. This depiction—which resembles the average male body type far more than most ads for women match real female bodies—suggests that not only is the ideal body unattainable for most men (Elliot and Elliot 2005), but also rebelling against it can be ‘cool’. Very few femaleoriented ads, in contrast, depict women who stray far from the sexualised, thin body ideal.
Several recent ad campaigns for men court viewers by playing upon a threatened sense of manhood. The pitches portray men’s behaviour and ‘needs’ as opposed to the demands of women or gender non-conforming men (gays, wimps, etc.). For example, a Burger King ad called the ‘Manthem’, first aired in 2006, features hungry men taking a city by storm while holding big hamburgers and singing ‘I Am Man!’, a parody of Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am Woman’. The ad included men burning their underwear (a wink to supposed ‘bra burning’ in the 1960s women’s liberation movement) and flipping a mini-van over a highway overpass (a rebellion against domesticity). These over-the-top ads use comedy to handle the irony of portraying men as a constituency group with unmet needs (Smith 2005).
A thirty-something white, middle-class heterosexual male remains the standard version of ‘man’ in popular culture, although many advertisers seek to capitalise on the variety of masculine identities. Awareness of various ‘masculinities’ allows advertisers to cater to specific male demographics. Sophisticated techniques like data mining help identify (and subsequently create) niche consumption desires. Additionally, hyperspecialised media outlets enable advertisers to target precise demographics. For example, advertisers began designing ads for gay men and airing them on gay-oriented cable television channels like Here TV and Logo.
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