Missrepresentation: Do Women in the Media have Power?

Recently I saw this trailer and it really hit me hard. Pat Mitchell (CEO of Paley Centre for Media) says this quote in this trailer:

"The media is both the message and the messenger"

That quote makes so much sense when you think about it. When connecting that quote to other topics I have covered in this blog, (sexualization of women/violence in fashion advertising), its quite easy to realize that the only reason why these things are somewhat okay in this society, is because advertisements and the media put out this message that more or less says "It's okay to sexualize women, you get to wear Jack Will's panties if you do." 

The media essentially tells people its okay to make fun of a women because the media and advertisements do it. I can't begin to tell you the amount of times I have heard the "Women belong in the kitchen" joke that many teenage boys use nowadays, and I think that stems back on how many degrading advertisements that feature women. If the media continues to degrade the most powerful women in North America, how can any women be powerful and rise above this discrimination?

I think that the fact that advertisements show many girls being degraded, that its become okay for a lot of advertisements to show that.

(As an example of how the media criticizes woman in the industry, here is a video of the women of The View discussing how the media criticizes Michelle Obama's fashion)

Pros and Cons: Using Celebrities in Fashion Advertising Campaigns

We live in a very media and celebrity driven world. Everyone wants to know everything to do with every celebrity, including what they are wearing. When using a celebrity in your fashion advertising campaign, they become the face of your company. Choosing a credible celebrity can be very hard, because they don't always stay the same. What they are advertising must seem relevant to them too. 

Pros:

• Celebrity Endorsement
• Promotion
• Consumers know celebrities = Pay more attention to the ad than they would if it was someone they do not know

Cons:

• Celebrities are seen in a bad image could mean the Brand is seen in a bad way also
• Celebrity could "outshine" the brand
• Celebrity could wear a different brand, shows disloyalty to the Brand they are endorsing

I think that if a brand has a very distinct image, choosing a celebrity to endorse their product and star in their campaign can be very risky, because things can change very quickly in the media.  

Advertising Influence on Trends and Brands

Fashion Trends: A fad, sometimes called a trend, meme or a craze, is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior's being perceived as novel in some way. (x)

Every trend always comes back. Every brand always puts their own spin on the trend to make it new and fresh. How do people know what is on trend this season? Advertisements for clothing. 

By looking through magazines, readers see the different advertisements for different Brands for new clothing. This creates interest for the consumer, they feel like they need this article of clothing for the new season. This need then becomes a want. Some of these advertisements may feature popular celebrities, which also helps generate promotion for the product because many people follow what celebrities wear/do. People always want to fulfil the new fashion.

As an example, two trends that have returned over the summer and fall are the Jean Jacket and the Wide Legged Pant, something my mother recalls from her late twenties. 

Advertisers must develop campaigns to not only promote the product, but to promote the new trend and create a need and a want for the consumer.


Advertisements in magazines and television commercials is the easiest way to influence consumers to see and want the product. I, myself, know that when you see an advertisement and the model is wearing a new style/trend, you feel like you should have it. 

Advertising Fashion: Print vs. Online

When a consumer flips through a magazine, they are bombarded with fashion advertisements. How does a brand advertise their clothing online in a unique way to catch attention from web users? 

It's hard to convert print advertising to online advertising, because they are two different advertising mediums. When making a campaign, the advertising agency must have something different from their print advertisements to their online advertisements. Online advertisements can all be very different; single pictures, moving pictures, pop-up advertisements, and promotional advertising on blogs. The movement towards iPad's being used to read newspapers and magazines also need to be taken into consideration, because now advertisements that would normally be print for magazines, can be turned into different online advertisements, as a GIF/moving advertisement. 

Many brands are creating their own blogs and other social networking sites to advertise their products along with print advertisement. Spending is changing from brands paying for print and television advertising to advertise on their own networks. When it comes to advertising brands/fashion, a current trend to remember is that many people are shopping online now. Having an interactive shopping website can help consumers decide what products they want and give them a positive online experience.

For example, Warby Parker sells sunglasses and eyeglasses. Not only do they give a pair to someone who needs them when you need a pair, but when deciding what pair you want, they give you the option of the "virtual try on"; a way to try on your glasses using your webcam.

As someone who does online shop, this is such a good tool to have. The consumer will know what they are going to expect when they get their glasses in the mail, and they won't have to return them. I believe this is the best advantage online advertising has over print, the ability to engage the customer with the products, something print advertising can't really do.

Sexualization of Women and Girls in Fashion Advertising

When our world is so cluttered by advertisements everywhere we go, how does an advertisement stand out? By having that advertisement that catches your eye immediately with its wow-factor. The demand for younger and younger models are growing in the Fashion Industry more and more, especially in Print Advertisements. 

So when does the Sexualization of Women in Fashion Advertising draw a line?

Recently in North America, there has been outrage over a French company that produces "loungerie", lounge wear and lingerie combined. This would probably be somewhat reasonable, if the target market for this clothing wasn't for 4 - 12 year old girls. The line is called "Jours Après Lunes", and it includes bras, panties, etc. Many people in the Fashion Industry were quite shocked that a company had 12 year old girls photographed for the advertisements, wearing makeup and the revealing clothing, and posing in ways that were too premature for them. Many publications said that they couldn't even publish the photos on their blogs and new sites due to the photographs being too inappropriate to post. However, according to wishididntknow.com, the Europeans would most likely be less offended by the advertisements/pictures.

(Part Two to follow..)

Sexualization of Women and Girls in Fashion Advertising - 2

Jack Wills Advertisements Banned for Sexualization of Women

Jack Wills, a popular clothing company in the UK, had their advertisements banned for Sexualizing Women in the advertisements. According to Jack Wills, the advertising campaign is intended ‘to project a positive, fun and sometimes flirtatious’ image it believes was an accurate reflection of student life.' The 4 different advertisements all had different sexualizations of women, with the fourth one being the most criticized with concern.

"The fourth advert caused the most concern. It shows a young man and a young woman embracing and kissing. The man is shirtless and the woman wearing only knickers. The side of her breast is clearly visible, the ASA said." (x)

 The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) said that the advertisements may depict an appealing lifestyle that other younger target markets may feel they want/need, not just the 18+ target market they were targeting to. Many of the articles that I have read have stated that Jack Wills marketing team should know that even if you are targeting an older teenager market, you will always have younger pre-teens looking at those advertisements, believing that they should act like that now or when they are older. Liz Fraser in this article even stated that Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe, which is even more of a reason why the marketing team should be more knowledgeable when they are advertising.

 The advertising pamphlet, which was called "Spring Term Handbook", breached advertising laws, governing harm and offence to children. Jack Wills is not allowed to produce those advertisements again.

--

As I stated in Part 1, when does the Sexualization of Women in Fashion Advertising draw a line?

I personally think that any Sexualization of Women in any Advertisement is a bad idea, for every age. When advertisements have young girls in provocative clothing, that is sexualization girls that are too young to even know what they are doing. When advertisements feature teenage girls being sexualized, not only does it make other teenage girls feel like they should be like that, but it makes younger girls feel that way too. Hopefully one day advertisers will not use women and girls as sexual objects as advertising campaigns. 

Advertisers Using Fashion Blogs to Promote Products

Many of the popular Fashion blogs that I read (vipxo, llymlrs, milkteef), all have something in common: Promotion. A lot of popular blogs have advertisements on them, either on the top or the sides.

Companies have an opportunity to advertise their brand/product on numerous blogs, allowing the bloggers readers to be exposed to the advertisements. Many bloggers endorse products that are given to them by the brand/company, another advertising technique to attract consumers.

By sending products to Bloggers to feature on their blogs, Bloggers can give the product a lot of exposure depending on how many views and followers that they have. For example, Vipxo receives over 2500 views on her blog a day, 72,000+ views a month, and a total of 400,000 views since the start of her blog. She also has over 2800 followers on blogger, and over 2500 followers on Twitter, another social networking site that can be used to promote products.  She sells advertising space monthly and for two different sizes right here. For five pounds (approx. ten canadian dollars), an advertiser can place a 350 x 70 advertisement, giving the brand so much exposure.

Another way of promotion by bloggers is by giveaways. Giveaways is when a company sends a product to a Blogger and they post a blog with that product, promoting the giveaway. For example, the brand Dixi can send a request to a blogger to post a promotion about their current giveaway of an article of clothing, such as this cardigan. Some of the rules can be, "In the comment field, write your two favourite products on the Dixi website" and "Follow the Dixi blogspot", so its not only promoting the giveaway, but its promoting Dixi's various sites also.

Just by what the Fashion Bloggers wear is an advertisement. Many readers request that links are posted along with what the Bloggers wear, in order for the readers to buy the fashion too.  By posting outfit posts featuring the different brands, the Bloggers are being an advertisement for that company, they are just not being paid to feature the fashion.

I think that using blogs to promote products is a mix of good and bad. Sometimes, as a reader, it feels like the Blogger is 'selling out' for money, if the product does not relate well to the blog, thus changing the view that the reader had on that Blog/Blogger.

Violent Fashion Advertising

The term "Sex Sells" is usually right when it comes to products and advertising. Fashion advertising uses lots of violence if you look close enough and really realize what you are looking at. Many of these advertisements show some sort of violence, and some even glorify it by using sexualization and fancy fashion.

Man is digging the woman's grave, while she lays in the trunk

Glorifying guns and knives

Objectifying woman/Woman with her hands tied up

It seems as though advertisements always have the woman being/looking powerless, and many of the fashion advertisements are like this. 

"We never see men in these positions," he says. "We never see men upside down, we never see men being tied up, we never see men being assaulted by women, we never see men being hit by men, being hit by things in the head. We certainly wouldn't see men enjoying it. " x

It is quite crazy to me that advertisements featuring women being objectified still exists and are created. I don't understand how an advertisement featuring a women being objectified helps sell products. 

eBay UK Unveils New Fashion Advertising Campaign

(image credit)

By using the tagline, "‘The clothes you love direct from the brands you love’", eBay has released their new advertising campaign for their "eBay Fashion Outlet" website, which features 30 high street brands. When it was launched in 2010, eBay's main goal was to provide a place where consumers can buy clothing and accessories at considerable low prices compared to what people would be paying for in-store, and to attract potential consumers that may not have thought of using eBay before as a place to buy their clothing. They want to be a brand that is considered when consumers are shopping for clothes.

"Miriam Lahage, eBay's vice-president of fashion, says: "Consumers traditionally go to five to seven websites to look for fashion and we want to be in that consideration." (x)

On the Facebook page, they say that "eBay is the world’s largest online marketplace and a leading U.S. destination for fashion", which makes sense, since according to Auctionbytes.com, eBay's fashion section is surpassing the market, traffic on the website is growing at 30% year after year, and 4 million consumers searching for new items each month.  

As someone who loves to shop both in-store and online, I personally love the idea of having brand name clothing being sold at cheaper prices, whether its new or used. Miriam Lahage, Vice President of Fashion for eBay said:

“We’re attracting growing numbers of shoppers to our Fashion category as consumers want to choose from a huge selection of products, from the brands they know and love, at great prices. “Our latest campaign showcases the unique fashion offering available on our site - only on eBay can you get the combination of the biggest brands and the best of the high street, combined with that special vintage find, and that illusive top from last season.” (x)

"Miriam Lahage, global head of fashion brand, said engaging with social media was a crucial part of a commerce 3.0 model that also includes mobile, local and digital media in allowing consumers to buy anywhere, anyhow and anytime. “People are spending more time connecting with each other online: it’s just another excuse to be shopping,” she said. All of this, she said, comes as “the very nature of shopping is changing around us. The way that customers want to shop is changing and we need to change with it.” (x)

I think this campaign is a good move for eBay. Not only because it will show the consumers that you can get quality, high street clothing for cheaper prices, but you can also mix and match with things that are being sold from a few seasons ago. They know that social media is very strong at the moment, and probably will be for ages to come. By embracing the fact that people are using social media websites to connect, more people will see the advertisements and will be shopping online.

Print Advertisements will be in major women magazines, such as Hello and Grazia Daily, and in early November, print advertisements in magazines like Marie Claire and Glamour. Outdoor advertisements will be shown in all of the major cities in England; London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham, and there will be a social media aspect to the campaign, targeting social media users (Facebook, Bloggers), encouraging them to shop at the Fashion Outlet. eBay is also re-vamping their blog, to include more media, such as blogs and a lookbook, a collection of photographs featuring clothes that can be bought from the eBay site. It's very interesting to see so many companies using Blogs as a way to promote their products and services. 

On eBay's Fashion Outlet Facebook, they are putting together and posting outfits for different occasions, showing consumers how easy it is to put an outfit together, all available at their Fashion Outlet.

 It will be interesting to see this Fashion Outlet expand even further with more brands and maybe even outdoor advertising to other places, like Canada.

Video Links: Social Media Marketing for Fashion

Here are a few interesting videos on Fashion Brands using Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs) to market and advertise their brands!

And this video too!


It is really interesting to see how social media now interacts with the fashion industry. I think it is a really good idea to use social media to promote fashion brands and companies, because it is such an easy, cheap way to get a message to a large number of people at one time.