Each and every day, different companies surround a person with various forms of advertising.  From commercials on the television, to ads the Internet, segments on the radio, and billboards posted on sides of the road, a person will inevitably encounter some form of advertisement in their daily life.  Through all of these diverse methods, advertising agencies have succeeded in creating unfair gender stereotypes, which has become problematic for a society attempting to accept differing opinions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations.

The advertising industry is a tenacious field of work.  Endless hours and millions of dollars are spent to assemble the perfect advertisement that appeals to a broad audience and shapes the thoughts of the person viewing their ad in order to sell the product or get a certain message across.  Within the field of advertising, however, there are significant differences in the ways in which men and women are characterized.  Furthermore, the ways these advertisements are designed in order to target a specific male or female audience seem to have distinct differences as well.  Advertising companies create these gender stereotypes in an attempt to attract the general population at large.  This, in turn, creates unrealistic social expectations for how society is to view particular genders and how those genders are expected to look and behave.  

Over time, advertising firms have adopted some important techniques they often apply when it comes to the basic design of their advertisements.  By understanding how these certain techniques are applied, a deeper appreciation of specific advertisements can be constructed.  Some of the primary techniques most commonly used by advertising companies include: association, flattery, beauty, comedy, and severity.  Association, one of the most common techniques that nearly all advertisements employ, is the technique where an ad connects a brand to something the viewer already enjoys or may desire.  Using this method, the ad builds a positive idea to correlate with the item the potential buyer will remember when deciding whether or not to buy a specific product.  Flattery is another method commonly used in many ads in order to build up customers' pride, especially if they intend purchase the product being advertised.  By using beautiful people, the ad attempts to create a connection between the product and the buyer.  They attempt to convince the consumer that by buying the product, they will be more like the person in the ad.  Advertisers often attempt to employ comedy into their ads as well.  Earning a laugh and appearing to be amusing creates a positive attitude that a person may recall when deciding whether or not to buy a product.  Lastly, adding severity and intensity to an advertisement's atmosphere can help to connect the product to events the ad depicts.  By utilizing all these techniques collectively, advertisements are able to convey a specific idea without giving the audience much of an explanation of what the product is actually used for.  One of the most important, and controversial, topics present in the advertising world today is the effect these advertisements and techniques are playing on people's opinions of certain cultural and societal norms, specifically, gender roles.  

Advertising companies are giving gender roles very specific restrictions in modern day advertisements.  In Natalie Peters, Lucie Holmgreen, and Debra Oswald article, It's Just A Joke: Reactions To And Justifications For Sex Stereotypes In Advertisements, three women attempt to justify gender stereotyping.  In their article, they write, "Advertisements may rely on stereotypes to compensate for a lack of time and space, providing viewers with the most basic information possible" (Peters, Holmgreen, Oswald 161).  Stereotypes generally portray men to be aggressive beings, desiring things such as money, power, speed, and physical superiority.  The male-targeted products often make statements about enhancing their performance at certain tasks and the ads frequently demonstrate these things.  The names of products also often express these traits for men by adding irrelevant titles to give them the characteristic of being better, faster, and manly.  For example, several products include titles such as "Turbo," "Mach," or simply the letter "S" after the name just to show that the product is superior to others.  Feminine products have taken on a different portrayal as advertisers have characterized the female gender role in a different way (Brasted, 2010). 

While men are viewed one way, the advertising world portrays women in a completely different light.  Men are viewed as strong and powerful beings, while women are most often given a more domestic role.  More often than not, women in ads are commonly seen as mothers or housewives and they are given passive roles that usually have them on the receiving end of notice or praise from a more dominant male figure.  The product appeal for many items specifically designed for women often employ this tactic and the products are often portrayed as cute, dainty, and feminine.  The products targeted at women attempt to convey the message that women should be more focused on their appearance to look their best.  They also try to communicate that women should wait for a man like prince charming to come in and sweep them off their feet.  Women are portrayed as docile humans who do not have the capacity to go out into the world and command or control situations (Brasted, 2010).

One of the best examples of gender targeting in advertising are the Old Spice commercials, specifically the one titled "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like".  From the title alone, the audience can clearly see several of the techniques used in advertisements being employed.  Comedy is the major technique used in this advertisement, but association and beauty are also applied as well.  While the ad does not directly state that if a person uses Old Spice he will become more like the spokesperson in a physical sense, it claims that the user will smell like him instead.  Due to the fact that the spokesperson is an attractive, charismatic male figure, this advertisement constructs the belief that if a person uses this product, he too will become a more attractive and charismatic man.  Although none of the claims are stated to the audience directly, the ad still manages to communicate these messages.  Through all of these things, we can see that gender roles of the idealistic man are being formed.  This particular ad goes on to say, "sadly he (your man) isn't me," (Old Spice Commercial).  This advertisement inherently implies that anyone who is not like the spokesperson is not a suitable partner for women and therefore he needs to buy this product to become a more desirable.  This ad constructs the idea that the ideal man should be able to assertively take control of situations while still being charming and alluring.  Despite the fact that this message is clearly targeted at the male population, it is designed in a way that it appears to be a message to women.  Advertisers do this so that the ad does not come off in a threatening manner towards men, but still carries undertones of persuasion to it.  While ads targeted at men are portrayed in this particular way, the ads specifically targeted at women take an entirely different approach (Old Spice, 2010). 

Commercials that target the female audience are completely different than those that target men and generally attempt to evoke different emotions within the viewer.  One example of female targeting is Dove soap's "Choose Beautiful" commercial.  This commercial employs the techniques of flattery, beauty, association, and severity in order to get their message across to their viewers.  As women approach the entrance to a building, they are forced to choose whether or not they consider themselves to be average or beautiful in order to enter the building.  According to Dove's statistics, 96% of women do not consider themselves to be beautiful.  Many women choose the average entrance are then made to feel guilty about the decision they made.  Dove is notorious for pushing products that are "corrective" to a woman's body. From cellulite cream, to skin whitening products, Dove is known to experiment with the shame that women feel towards their bodies and suggest that they are the solution to that shame.  While the commercial is an attempt to reveal to women that they should always label themselves as beautiful, it conveys the message that women should have to choose how to feel about themselves.  This carries the idea that most women have low self-esteem and are very weak characters in the grand scheme of things.  While beauty is something nearly all women strive for, it is not an obligation and women should not feel pressured to look a certain way.  Ads that target women often attempt to strike at flaws and insecurities in order to make them feel inferior.  Companies try and offer solutions to these weaknesses in order to boost their earnings.  Today's advertisements targeted at women endeavor to make them view themselves in a way that is completely different from male targeted commercials.  Ad companies appeal to both audiences in order to convey their messages (Dove, 2015).

Today's advertisements have a great impact on society as a whole.  While they are used to shape consuming habits of men and women, the ads tend to have a detrimental effect on society as well.  The advertisements presented create societal and cultural norms for the population who are exposed to them.  The audiences immediately form the opinion that is expected of them by society, and they are more likely to act in that manner, especially when the ad identifies the ideas of being more desirable or successful.  This creates an expectation of the societies of the world to behave in a certain manner that the targeted audience has seen from being exposed to the ad.  Messages conveyed by advertisements to the population hold great power overs the people and companies should keep in mind that not only what they but how they say it can have a great effect on the population.

