Advertisement appeals essay

Male is a gender of greater self-awareness, and they pay much more attention to their construction of identity, which is mostly, masculinity. Advertisement is one of the tightest links of the products to ordinary people, especially in a highly commercialized society like ours. So, it has been a fascinating thing to examine and describe why these advertisements can attract and persuade us into buying the products they talk about. According to Jib Fowles, there are approximately 15 appeals that advertisements may produce to influence people. Among these appeals, the most frequently seen appeals are those that appeal to men, or we should say, male. Thus, advertisements that appeal to men would fit some of the need of a man’s masculinity. One will analyze a few commercials and see how they match Folwes’s theory of 15 appeals, and how do they manage to attract male’s desire for masculinity.

The first one is the advertisement of the famous brand of swimming utilities, Speedo®. According to Fowles, sports heroes are the most convenient means to snare consumers' needs to achieve. The company chose Michael Phelps as their endorser, clearly wishing to build up a sense of success and achievement among men. Phelps, being the world’s top swimming athlete and Olympic medalist, is the kind of ideal male in the heart of many men, especially the American men who are thirst for success. They do it because they want to be positively evaluated by other men, they want to be a “man among men” (Kimmel: 465). The words written on the ad “Worn by World Champions, my Speedo®” strengthen their thought. Also, if one takes look at the body shape of Phelps, we can see his perfect muscle which makes him fast in the game; and also his eye of resilience, which suggests he is a man of perseverance and self-reliance, greatly evaluated by American culture. Now, he’s got a Speedo® swimming glass with him that makes him professional and competitive. All these leave people an impression that if they buy the pair of swimming glasses, they will be as professional and competitive as Phelps. This is the typical appeal to achieve, and a perfect one matching the demand of masculinity. In addition to masculinity, he is also the type of “heterosexual men that have continually been inundated by popular culture images designed with their sexual responses (Bordo: 168).”

Along with the sense of achievement, of course, a man needs not only the sense of achievement, but also the sense of a harmonious, happy family, which we see as in the need for dominance. In this advertisement of Johnson’s Baby Powder (Johnson), the sitting in the middle of the whole picture is the absolute center of this family, at least seen from the structure of the picture. Yes, taking care of children and household chores are generally considered as women’s business in the modern society, but when it comes to publicity, especially in the society that men’s image should be predominant, people would not give up the chance of demonstrating the dominance of male everywhere. Fowles describes the phenomenon in terms of advertisements “the appeal of dominance”, or the need to dominate. Although people probably know that such scene in the picture can hardly be seen in common families, still they are persuaded by the advertisement that this family looks better than the others, because men would finally take care of their babies. So we can see the picture also goes to the need to nurture, to take care of the small, defenseless creatures, children and pets, largely. (Fowles, 1994) In fact the need to nurture is just another reflection of need to dominate; it is because his need of dominance that drives him to take care of the weak ones, and that’s what men want for their “Guy code”, and also for the baby in the man’s arm. The words “Like father, like son” is the best interpretation of that. People ever since Freud believe that the key to boy’s development is separation, that he must switch his identification from mother to father in order to “become” a man (Kimmel: 462), and ad gives men everything they want.

Despite families and achievements, affiliation such as friendship is another key feature that defines a man. A male would hang out with his friends from time to time, despite his status, job and family situations. Men must get together for some time and have long chats about “men’s thing” with a beer or some kinds of other shots in their hands, in a pub, or a bar. This advertisement of Miller High Life Beer (Miller) is a perfect symbol of this kind of “men’s culture”. With four guys holding a beer in their hands and smiling at each other at a pool table, an atmosphere of friendship is created. The need for affiliation, according to Fowles (p.25), is the key element that dominates this piece of ad. Apart from affection, friendship is definitely the kind of relation that men treasures most; the ads of this kind have successfully made men believe that if they want to build up friendship, they must hold a beer in their hands so that he can join the conversation. In this advertisement, the four men must have been friends for years, or they would not be playing pool together. The Miller High Life beer in their hands serves as a symbol of the tight relationship between them, a typical demonstration of men’s friendship and affiliation. One can also see this scene in various videos and books, which all contribute to the augmentation of this concept. The influence of the ads may not be very instant, but once it is done, it’s a long term one.

Advertisements aim to attract men from their need of not only masculinity, but also of nurture, dominance, affiliation and achievements. What all men desire in the modern society are perfectly demonstrated in all the ads above: achievement as in Speedo, dominance as in Johnson, and affiliation as in Miller. These appeals will keep attracting men for the next few years. So long as “Guy’s code” stays the same as it has always been, men will be persuaded by these ads to be the way the society have always want them to be, the men of pure masculinity.

Works Cited

1. Bordo, Susan. “Beauty rediscovers male body.” The Male Body, Farrar, Stratus and Giroux, New York (2000).
2. Fowles, Jib. "Advertising’s fifteen basic appeals." Language Awareness, 6th ed. St. Martin’s Press, New York (1994).
3. Johnson’s Baby Powder. Advertisement. Atticpaper. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 October 2014.
4. Kimmel, Michael. “Bros before Hos: The Guy Code.” Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, Harper Paperbacks: New York (2009)
5. Miller High Life. Advertisement. 3Cushion. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 October 2014.
6. Speedo. Advertisement. Shoppingblog. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 October 2014.

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