Communications and Media

Advertising is the promotion of a product or service and is extremely persistent in 
contemporary society. To maximize their sales, the companies pay a premium for wide
exposure through the mass media. Advertising space includes billboards, public
transportation, movies ( product placement ), television, schools, clothing and even
washroom stalls carry ads. Advertising, including traditional media such as newspapers
and magazines too. Then there is new media such as websites. Thus the Industry is
constantly finding new ways to advertise. Even though we may only look at them for a
few seconds, our everyday life is affected by them. Since we live in a consumer society,
it is inevitable that advertisements bombard us all the time.

This essay aims at investigating the main features of advertising, the impacts of
advertising on our lives, and the significance of advertising in the media and
communication studies through a textual analysis of a magazine ad of Embrace
disposable razor.Similar to other advertisements, this advertisement too follows a basic format- a
combination of different elements, including slogan, image, factual information of
product, and logo of the brand. Firstly, the advertiser uses a striking image to draw
attentions of potential consumers. In the advertisement, there is a young couple sitting
happily on the wharf. The young female character is embracing the young male character
from his back while he is touching and gazing at her legs. Both of them are having a
smile of contentment and satisfaction on their faces. Unlike other advertisements, the
portrayal of the female in this ad is not sexually exploitative and submissive. On the
contrary, the female seems to be playing a dominant role in the relationship, which in
itself makes it a little striking, as it is common for the male to take an active role and
embrace the female from her back, but not always common for a woman to take the lead.

Besides, unlike the females appearing with sexually connotative facial expressions in
many other ads, the female in this ad looks confident and pleasant. This advertisement
seems to suggest that the position of young female adults is equal to or even higher  than
the males. They can do or act independently and confidently in a relationship, in order to
assert their own happiness and satisfaction. However, this is not the whole story.Apart from the apparent image, consumers can get more ideas about the message being
conveyed by the advertiser by considering the second element, the slogan. - Goddess
of hes mine and a sub slogan Embrace- It-  our closest shave for your
closest moments. Because it all starts with an embrace it  is shown a bit higher than the
eye level in the advertisement. The slogan and sub slogan conveys to the consumers that
the happiness and confidence of the young female actually comes from her closeness
with her male, instead of merely performing the act of shaving itself. This closeness is
smooth and comfortable, devoid of any flaws because of her smooth satin like skin which
is the result of shaving with the product of their company .An ordinary female too can
become a goddess or can feel like a goddess while she has in her embrace the person she
most dearly loves, .because she has acquired now the ability and the satin beauty  to own
a guy. It implies that the male is still dominating the relationship, because the male is the
center of her thought and her entire focus. Thus the females who opts  to purchase the
Embrace disposable razor are not primarily thinking about themselves and their
happiness, but about their partners happiness and satisfaction too..

The slogan is suggesting that males can be satisfied by the stain and smooth skin of female in the
intimate moments. Females in turn can be satisfied by satisfying the male or in this case
the love of their life.. Thus in reality or apparently the advertiser is using image and
slogan to tap females desire for pride, self esteem and successful romance. However,
from the perspective of media and communication studies, this advertisement is an
illustration of patriarchal society and it also shows some gender stereotypes in the
consumer society.This ad can be found in the female magazines like Vague. Inherently, its target
consumers are females. However, the consumers can only get the message from the
advertisers accurately by adopting male-gaze, or a male angle. According to Laura
Mulvey, male-gaze means  in respect to this ad, the young female is wearing swimming
suit and showing her satin skin. The message of an ideal and a beautiful female body with
an equally beautiful and smooth skin  is produced by advertiser. Besides, the gaze of the
male character on her beauty directs the audience and their gaze to the female and her
beautiful legs. Therefore, the female model in the ad provides a perception of how
females should look and should be looked at. The  prominent audience of this ad is a
female, it engages in the mirror effect which means females are encouraged to view
themselves as the photographer views the model or as her lover views her.

It has been an age old custom with women- they  like to dress up the way their men want
them to .Looking at this ad the women would, undoubtedly be inspired to buy the
product, shave their hairy body in order to become as desirable as the model in the
advertisement, and achieve their ultimate goal of winning the attention of their man and
attain happiness and satisfaction for both of them. . On the other hand, it reflects the bitter
reality that we are still living in a patriarchal society.

Form the above analysis, it is clear that men admire beautiful women and  women admire
what men admire in them and they can go out of their way to achieve it.   The standard of
the beauty of the women to some extent is set from the male perspective. However this is
not the ultimate truth. There are some women with an independent mind and integrity,
who are more of feminists, whose actions are never guided by any male perspectives..

They are extremely independent with a mind of their own which cannot be influenced by
males.

This ad suggests another negative angle too, which is very prevalent in our society. By
becoming the interest of a  male-gaze, the female model in the advertisement becomes an
object for audiences to gaze, specially for males. Such advertisements do not focus on the
inner beauty, strength, integrity and intellectual qualities of women. They fail to focus on
the  intrinsic qualities of female and  focus only on the outer beauty which is very often
skin deep. It is because only the objectified image can be consumed in the consumer
society. Objectifying female image has become a major feature of advertising. Since a
scantily dressed female body is always more attractive than that of a male. Thus
consumers should be very careful and sure about the quality of the product while buying
a product instead of being influenced by the exterior beauty of the models. The purpose
of a beautiful model in an ad is generally to titillate the viewers and their fantasies.The third element which draws our attention  the factual information of the Embrace
disposable razor is not significant as compared to other elements in the Advertisement.

This ad can be categorized as a transformational advertisement since it provides minimal
information about the product attributes. The advertiser uses less than 14 space of the
page for placing actual product without detailed descriptions and instructions about its
quality and compositions..The consumers can only get to know that there are 5 blades in
the package and how the Embrace disposable razor looks. Unlike informational
advertisement, this one is not directly stating its product features or quality. In other
words, it provides benefits in terms of perceived value, which has been explained in the
previous paragraph, rather than product quality.

The reality or the actual knowledge that consumers should gather from such analytical
studies of advertisements is that while buying a product the visuals of advertisements of a
particular product are important, but to a certain extent. One must go deep into the
chemical compositions and the ingredients of the product. How good and beneficial they
are form the human health view point. A product must be purchased after being totally
convinced from all aspects.