Extended Communication Analysis Project: Part 3

Advertisements sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity, and normalcy” (Servidio 2). In the last  few weeks, I have been studying the use of sexuality in advertising. The specific case I have been examining has been the international fashion house Calvin Klein and their use of sexuality as part of their marketing strategy. Calvin Klein has been in existence for close to five decades, in which time they have managed to establish themselves as a leading international fashion house. Calvin Klein primary deals in high end fashion products from clothing to accessories and fragrances. Central to their success has been their advertisement strategy. Their advertisements have drawn mixed reactions from the general public, with some even becoming the subject of controversy. The February 2015 ad campaign for the Reveal men’s fragrance, for example, features a fully-clothed male model holding an obviously naked female in an embrace. This raises the question on Calvin Klein’s, among other businesses, use and application of sexuality in advertising media. The most compelling questions I have identified are how their advertising strategy has evolved to reflect this attitude, and how they adapt these advertisements for more conservative markets like those in countries that practice Islam. Also, I am curious about how such advertisements are received among women. The importance of such considerations are derived from the recent debates questioning the role of women in media, and the push to correct the image that has been projected of womanhood in advertising.

The depiction of sexuality in media and advertisements is not a new phenomenon. Ever since Festinger (124) presented the social comparison theory, advertisers have sought to take advantage of the fact to encourage associations between prospective clients and their product. One of the most often applied concept is sex appeal. Advertisers have cleverly adopted their products to reflect a perception that the use of their products would increase one’s sex appeal and profile with the opposite gender. While these ads are increasingly targeted at either sex, those depicting women as sex objects are far more common. The unfortunate side effect of this has been the objectification of women, a concept captured by the objectification theory. Fredrickson and Roberts (187) observed that “women exist in a culture in which their bodies are looked at, evaluated, and always potentially objectified.” However, these two were merely formalizing an observation that had been present for much longer. Goffman and Cheatwood (2) were among the first to suggest the ideologies of submission and dominant oppression that are present in advertising media. They observed that female models were typically represented as being subservient to men. Common impressions include the physical hunching of shoulders, eye aversion in females, and the “shoulder hold” by men. Aside from the use gender ritualization, Goffman & Cheatwood (3) also identified the use of size ratio to show inferiority. Usually, the men were placed in the foreground or were bigger to give them an air of superiority while women were smaller or relegated to the background.

Williamson (3) looks at the matter further and identified the use of adverts to transfer sexual adventure and fantasies. Most advertisements, he observed, featured the use of “holes” in advertising which made it easy for a party to substitute themselves with the subject. Another of his observations was women were depicted in various stages of undress or seen on their side or lying on their back. Williamson presented that this allowed the viewer to identify that the model was sexually accessible and vulnerable in that situation. Women too were depicted as being thin, perpetuating a false stereotype of women in our society. Kilbourne was to later expand on this with the observation that women are depicted as sexually desirable subject to them being thin, young, well groomed, and made up. Caputi (443) while observing the prevalence of the practice noted that advertisements were used in the construction of feminine and masculine subjectivities that were based in gender inequality, and had the resultant effect of conditioning us to eroticize subordination, domination, obectification , and violence.

As a way of seeking the answers to these questions, a research methodology has to be defined. I would look into Calvin Klein ad campaign from the company’s inception in 1968 to the current time, noting any that would qualify as showing women as objects or commodities. Since the advertisements are almost exclusively featured in high fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle, GQ, and FHM, I will go through the magazines In addition, I would try to identify any advertisement campaigns that featured the female models displaying excessive skin, especially with men who were dressed. I would also look for any additional cues identified that demonstrate subservience to the male gender. Such cues would include the lack of emotional connection seen through the aversion of the eyes, and no physical contact as well as other forms of domination and subjugation. After collecting the data, I would classify it under different criteria into various categories. First, I would try to identify when the brand began using sexually-oriented stimuli, whether it was a strategy adopted from the onset or was a later development.

From the identification of when the sexually-oriented stimuli began featuring in ad campaigns, I could reach the conclusions that would help identify what might have provoked the development, and the basis of such a decision. Since the time the brand began featuring sexually-oriented advertisements, I would try to identify the relative numbers in either category to record the relative numbers of those adverts featuring sexual content to those that do not. In the categorization, I would look into what percentage of the advertisements have a sexual tone and those that do not. Of those having an underlying sexual tone, I will further classify them into two general categories, mildly sexual and overtly sexual ad campaigns. An additional focus will be placed in identifying and documenting cases of male objectification in advertising as well. Where a sexual tone was not applied, I would further seek to get the nature and numbers on the advertisements meant for more conservative markets like those in the Middle East. In addition, I would also identify the number of the advertisements with a sexual tone in magazines with predominantly female readership. A distinction will be made to categorize those that feature female objectification, and those that objectify men and are in magazines with predominantly female readership. Once all this data has been identified, I will plot the data into necessary graphs for easier analysis. The projections on the data analysis points to there being categories to group the data based on the time, the nature of the ad content (sexually-oriented or not), the strength of the tone of the material (mildly or overtly sexual), and on readership on specific readership magazines based on the whether the advertisement features sexual content or not. The results will then be plotted into line graphs for easy comparison

Works Cited

Servedio, Christina L. Sex in Advertising. Diss. University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 2002.

Caputi, Jane. “Everyday pornography.” Gender, race and class in media (2003): 434-50.

Kilbourne, Jean. “What else does sex sell.” International Journal of Advertising 24.1 (2005): 119-122.

Festinger, Leon. “A theory of social comparison processes.” Human relations 7.2 (1954): 117-140.

Cheatwood, Derral, and Erving Goffman. ‘Gender Advertisements.’. Social Forces 58.1 (1979): 383. Web.

Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts. ‘OBJECTIFICATION THEORY.’. Psychol of Women Q 21.2 (1997): 173-206. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

Williamson, Judith. Decoding Advertisements. London: Boyars, 1978. Print.