Liberated and society Essay

Some products portrayed women as the traditional housewife like ‘Shake ‘n’ vac’ does with their commercial. However the house used was fairly modern for the time as it had huge windows, which for the time were very modern and the furniture was better than the average shown in television programmes of the time, signifying a middle class house. However the woman in the advert is not middle class but she is portrayed as working class. The woman is portrayed as enjoying doing the housework and when the person purchases the product they too can enjoy doing the housework. During the period of the advert women were portrayed as being able to have a job but the majority were still in the house unemployed and cooking and cleaning. However throughout the large part of the twentieth century women were campaigning to be liberated and society did not agree with this at all. The liberation began in the early part of the twentieth century after the First World War between Christmas 1914 and 1918. The big push came in the nineteen sixties and women started to appear more in advertisements like in the Fairy Liquid advert in the mid-sixties. Women being liberated started a huge difference in the amount of advertising containing women. The graph below shows what happened to women in advertising and as you can see the amount of adverts which contain women steadily goes up.  From about the nineteen eighties onwards women were used as sex objects more unlike previously. For example Lucky Strike used a woman as an upperclass role model, something the men wanted to have and something the women wanted to be. However companies like Milk Tray use women in a more sensual and seductive way. For example when the lady walks out of the shower in a dressing gown whilst drying her hair and finds the box of Milk Tray on her dressing table. As opposed to the Oxo advert in the early nineteen eighties which showed the traditional Mother serving her husband and then later on feeding a whole family. Oxo’s adverts on television have always been long term campaigns, which started off with ‘Katie’ which lasted for eighteen years and then moved onto a family after surveys had been carried out. In the nineties women were used as sex objects to appeal to the male population for the majority of the time unless the product was obviously aimed at women. For example Wonder Bra used a woman to advertise their product however the advertisement may have also captured a small male audience because of the visual aspect of the advert. This is the same for the Round the clock panty hoses, which was unveiled in the late eighties. Many adverts made in the nineteen nineties recognised a niche in marketing when creating their adverts for their campaign, which was aimed at the male population. For example if an advertising campaign were to be aiming at men then they may appeal to their sexual weakness. This is what H(agen-Dazs has done, they have used a good-looking male to appeal to the women and they have used a good-looking female who happens not to be wearing much. The advert also has the hidden meaning of the product being a seductive ice cream. At present day there are many adverts on television usually aged between twenty to on average about thirty-five and also some adverts. Like the direct line car insurance advert for example, which used an over 40, middle class woman because it was the same age range as the advert was targeting. The majority of the adverts which use women without much on are normally found in magazines, which helps the producers to target their audience more effectively, also they have a fair idea of which age range may see them if in magazines instead of on the television. However this is not always the case because some companies may use channels on Sky or Digital which people have to pay for to watch, which again allows the advertisers much more accuracy in who they are targeting. Throughout the last century women in advertising has changed dramatically as well as the way in which advertising occurs through our daily routines. This is a change, which most probably will not stop. Women started off in the beginning of the century as being icons in which men aspired to have and who women aspired to be. Women then changed along with societies opinions and as wars were fought not just abroad but equality for women as well. This liberation led to women appearing more frequently in advertising and appearing more in the work place than they may have done twenty years before. I feel that women in advertising is a good thing because society is equal and therefore women are just as likely to purchase goods as much as men.