Advertising? How dare they make me buy things I don't want!

In forming our consumer society, the mass media started, according to Rosalynd Williams in his paper Dream Worlds of Consumption, with the Paris exposition of 1855. This exposition started out just showing tools and scientific discovery, but it eventually led to more popularity thanks to it being reported on in newspapers and the like. Thus it became glamorized, with consumption becoming its main point starting at the 1900 exposition. Then department stores started coming around, and a little after that, according to Jackson Lears’ paper Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society, magazines were printing off advertisements for these department stores and other stores alike. They promoted everyone being consumers and buying things which they might not even need, such as businessmen buying axes to feel more masculine, even though they’ll never use them. These advertisers were trying to get people to buy things they did not necessarily need because they wanted to sell their product, and that has continued to grow and blossom into the consumer market of today by becoming so commonplace that is almost impossible to go anywhere without seeing an advertisement of something trying to get you to buy something you do not want or need.

In trying to get you to buy into their advertisements, advertisers will get across ideas of somehow making you a better person with their advertisements. They send across ideas such as,”Buy this computer and you will be hip,” or “Buy this deodorant and you will be very manly.” They could probably technically get this across much easier in words, since images can be translated in many different ways, while words tend to be more solid in how they can be translated. However, in reality, images tend to catch people’s attention much easier than words, and the images tend to be simple images that most people can understand somewhat easily, so they work well in communicating their ideas.

The advertisement which I am analyzing is an old spice advertisement, in which a nerdy looking guy is portrayed in a before picture, and a tough “manly” looking guy in an after picture. It has a short quip about how Old Spice Swagger transformed this nerdy person into a “colossal man mountain of awesomeness”. Initially, the advertisement confused me. It came out of a video game magazine, which, at the very least, used to be the arena of these “nerdy” people. Now they are not only putting out the idea that being nerdy is not socially acceptable, but they are putting out the idea that looking tough and masculine is the socially acceptable way to be. It just seems bizarre that these once stereotypically nerdy people of the gaming crowd are having it thrown at them that they should be tough and stereotypically masculine.

Why this advertisement looks the way it does? Why is this nerdy and girly looking boy, dressed in what looks like the get up of a dungeons and dragons player so huge in this advertisement in a huge picture? Why does it portray a tough and mean looking man in a nice suit with no hair underneath this image in a smaller almost wallet sized picture with a quip about how old spice transformed him into a manly manly man? The nerdy boy is the cultural stereotype of a nerdy person. We have an idea of a nerdy person, and it involves glasses, playing dungeons and dragons, having long hair and a moustache, looking weak, nothing “masculine”. Whereas, the “masculine” image has a suit, little to no hair, and a serious mean looking face. This is what a man is. He means business. He does work. He looks neat, clean, and strong due to his muscles which you can only just see. In the differences between these two pictures and the quip between them, there are imbued strong cultural ideals of what it means to be a real man. The man fits that completely. Then there are strong cultural ideals about what it means to be a nerd. This boy fits that bill completely. There has been a stigma attached to being nerdy like this, and just about no one who wants to be socially acceptable will want to look like this. The image of the nerd is also made huge. This is probably to catch the attention of the people reading the magazine. They will be flipping through the pages and see this unacceptable image. With their attention caught, they will read through the advertisement and see that, by using this product: Old Spice Swagger, they will become more masculine than they are, just like this nerdy kid became a “colossal man mountain of awesomeness”. People do not want to be this socially unacceptable nerd. They want to be this socially awesome colossal man mountain of awesomeness. This advertisement also shows humor through this phrase. It is a phrase that, while grandiose, cannot be taken seriously. Thus, they show themselves as a product that people can enjoy and relate to them through light hearted humor. It is promising all this so that whoever sees their advertisement will choose their deodorant over others.

Citations:

1. Crowley, David, and Heyer, Paul. “Communication in History - Technology, Culture, Society.” Dream Worlds of Consumption. Ed. Bowers, Karon. Person Education, Inc., 2007. 169-175.

2. 1. Crowley, David, and Heyer, Paul. “Communication in History - Technology, Culture, Society.” Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society. Ed. Bowers, Karon. Person Education, Inc., 2007. 197-202.