Unveiling Gender and Sexuality in Advertising: Impacts on Product Promotion and Societal Dynamics - Paper Sample

Today's pervasiveness of sexuality and other ill content in popular media platforms is the subject of debate across the world. This revolves around the relationship between media and gender, and how gender is depicted in operations in media platforms including but not limited to radio, television, films, advertisement, video games, or social media. People learn sex and gender norms from social media, and this influences the sexual mindset in individuals. Businesses today take this as an advantage to market and sex their products. Some enterprises use sex and gender to promote and sell their products through adverts with sexual content. When sexuality is used to sell a product, some sexual content is also sold to the consumer through the adverts. This paper focuses on the impact of sex and gender on product promotion and their effects on children, teenagers, and adults.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Most businesses now use gender marketing, a strategy based on the various properties assigned to women and men, with both physical characteristics and interests, which are geared towards improving the sales of their products. The gender-based marketing strategies use techniques that tailor advertising content to the various purchasing and consumption behavior of consumers of different genders, aiming to meet their satisfaction (Sengupta, & Dahl, 2008). Sexuality in advertising refers to the use of sex appeal to advertise and facilitate the sale of a particular product or service (Sengupta, & Dahl, 2008). Research holds that sexually appealing images do not need to pertain to the specific product or service being promoted. Sex sells because it attracts people's attention (Sengupta & Dahl, 2008). Consumers are hardwired to notice sexually relevant information; therefore, ads with sexual content are usually seen easily. The images which contain sexual content used in advertising also shape brand impressions.

Most businesses apply stereotyping in advertising as a way of communicating underlying messages in the adverts. Gender stereotypes are the most common in business adverts today. Gender roles are stereotyped in adverts. For instance, women's role as housewives is held by women and is still common in modern adverts (Chu et al., 2016). The most common stereotype in sexually appealing adverts is the female decorative model, which may have images of sexually attractive women and fashionable dress codes and design (Chu et al., 2016). These adverts can be used to market various women wear clothing, manicure and pedicure services, fashionable hairstyles and designs, or flourished skincare routines courtesy of various cosmetics and perfumes (Chu et al., 2016). Stereotype advertising creates a sense of anxiousness in consumers, thereby boosting their interest in trying new products or services being advertised.

Men and women are portrayed in adverts in various ways, which depict some underlying message about gender. The representation of gender in adverts provides consumers with powerful models of behavior to emulate or react. Images of men in adverts depict masculinity, while women show feminism (Sengupta, & Dahl, 2008). Masculine images typically convey strength, athleticism, competitiveness, and power, while feminist images represent beauty, submissiveness, cooperation, and nurturance (Sengupta, & Dahl, 2008). These aspects are popular in advertisements and are often accepted by consumers who view them as natural aspects of the human condition.

Surprisingly, gendered advertisements negatively impact consumers since they cause self-objectification when viewing ideal body images in media, leading consumers to have negative feelings about their bodies. Additionally, sex in advertisements affects children, teenagers, and adults by instilling ill morals and sexual mindset in their lives. The adverts on alcohol and tobacco are the primary exposure agents of youth to immoral behavior. The family should mediate the effects adverts have on their children and teenagers by restricting children from too much exposure to adverts with sexual content and immorality. This can help reduce youth engagement in drugs and sexual behavior at a tender age.

Conclusion

Conclusively, advertisement plays a crucial role in improving the sales of products for businesses. Most businesses use sex and gender in advertising as a strategy to market their products since sexual adverts attract most consumers' attention. This can be used to determine the consumers' purchasing and consumption behavior. Sexual and gendered advertising also has negative impacts on consumers and the lives of children, teenagers, and adults.

References

Chu, K., Lee, D. H., & Kim, J. Y. (2016). The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation. International Journal of Advertising, 35(1), 106-134. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kyounghee_Chu/publication/292462794_The_effect_of_non stereotypical_gender_role_advertising_on_consumer_evaluation/links/5c7cd366a6fdcc4715acb46f/The-effect-of-non-stereotypical-gender-role-advertising-on-consumer-evaluation.pdf

Sengupta, J., & Dahl, D. W. (2008). Gender-related reactions to gratuitous sex appeals in advertising. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 18(1), 62-78. http://143.89.8.89/mark/files/staff/Jaideep/Jaideep%20JCP-1%202008.pdf