Analyzing Gender Stereotyping in Visual Media Advertisements

In an age where consumerism is pervasive, visual media significantly influences societal norms and individual behaviors. This analysis focuses on how advertisements utilize gender stereotypes to captivate audiences, often reinforcing regressive gender roles. Specifically, the essay examines M...Read More

Running head: ANALYSIS ESSAY
Visual Medium Advertisement Analysis
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Author Note

ANALYSIS ESSAY
In this world of acute consumerism, the visual media controls the people significantly.
Any information through various modes entertainment reach to the millions of consumers easily.
They consumer habit of the consumers get decided by those programs most of the time and the
effect of such programs on the young minds is undeniable. There are multiple issues that have
been bothering the sociologists and social activists for years. Gender stereotyping is one such
problem that even in this post-modern era bother the responsible citizens (Cote & Levine, 2014).
The world has experienced many movements from feminism to movements against slut
shamming but the gender stereotyping against the women needs to be highlighted. The
advertisement makers or financing companies have been using gender stereotyping as a
persuasive technique and shockingly it has proved to be effective in most of the cases. That is the
primary reason that the viewers see a female model with seductive clothes or behavior in a male
shaving cream advertisement (Xu, 2016). These advertisements mostly target their male
audience and these methods act as their feeding techniques to them and often they become
successful in their plan without making any logical sense. M1’s You Deserve Better is one such
advertisement.
The selected advertisement for this paper is the “You Deserve Better” ad by MobileOne
Ltd. Or M1. MobileOne Ltd. is Singapore’s one of the powerful mobile communications
provider (M1.com.sg, 2017). The company offers full range data communications and mobile
voice services over 2G,3G or 4G network. It also provides with international calling services to
its fixed line and mobile customers. This mobile company has more than a million users so the
effect of the services over the customers can be imagined. It provides wireless broadband service
and collaborated with Starhub and increased its customers. This mobile network company aims
to the younger generation who grew up through the popular culture, reality television and

ANALYSIS ESSAY
internet boom. The imagination and interest of the services captured the interest of today’s youth.
The internet savvy customers who practice content sharing and entertainment material at every
moment are greatly influenced by the company’s powerful advertisements.
The selected advertisement is from the You Deserve Better ad campaign and the specific
advertisement is “Talk all you Can Play” plan that offers free unlimited outgoing calls and in the
advertisement the M1 mobile company is making fun pf the competitors (YouTube, 2008). This
is a 30 seconds long ad consisting of 4 male characters, one female and one plant that talks in
male voice. In the ad three employees presenting a business idea to their boss and they describe
that their customers love to talk and they talk to anything from a bed to a plant and that is why
they discovered a plan where the customers can talk even to plants and without any call
limitations. Then they call a female employee who is carrying a moving plant in her hand. The
plant comments about the female employee and the boss feels happy about the plan. The
advertisement planned to be entertaining and catchy so that they can capture the concentration of
the users easily. However, the advertisement highlights various aspects that talks points out
multiple issues that today’s visual medium presents to the world.
This is natural cognitive practice of human beings to gather and organize essential
knowledge from their surroundings. The entertainment programs of the visual medium present
certain representation of reality that form the human cognitive scheme (Greenfield, 2014). The
advertisement makers often use stereotypes to convey their ideas. The advertisements generally
tend to align with the conventional practice presenting certain messages through stereotypes so
that certain consumer groups identify with them easily. The advertisement in the discussion
demonstrates the alarming problem of modern society that is the spreading messages of gender
stereotyping to its consumers. The discrimination against women has been a long practice of the

ANALYSIS ESSAY
commercial advertisement world despite the long criticism (Anand & Tyagi, 2017). In the M1
advertisement the organizational leadership is a man and all the employees who sitting and
actively participating in the organizational activity are males as well. The advertisement can be
interpreted in another way of discrimination as well. This is a mobile company working in
Singapore and the boss is an American. The fascination with the west is often gets presented in
visual medium in the developing countries and this is no exception. This is also a stereotypical
thought that the underdeveloped countries are depended on America which is not the case. Upon
calling in a degrading manner, another female employee enters the presentation room who seems
to belongs to a secretarial position and it is clearly evident that she is being objectified. The plant
is also a male because he talks in a masculine voice. The plant objectifies the woman employee
in lustful manner and with as the plant makes sexist remarks the male employees express their
joy. The gender discrimination in the work place has always been a societal practice and the
advertisement makers use this strategy to connect to their customers. Most television
advertisements present women as a housewife or subject to male gaze (Lysonski, 2015). As in
this advertisement the woman is in the outside office set up she take up the role of a messenger
who conveyed the sexual messages to its male viewers. Also the women are often presented as
weaker than men like in this advertisement.
This type of messages often has a strong negative impact on the society. The gender
stereotype results in setting up the norm and construct the gender identity of the young viewers
(Boden, 2016). In this advertisement the woman in a workplace sphere is just like a showpiece as
she is serving the male spectators. The makers of the advertisement successfully reflected the
desire of its male recipients. The women in this advertisement just acts as mean to provoke erotic
desire to its male viewers. It was not necessary for the advertisement to include a female

ANALYSIS ESSAY
character but adding her expands the desire quotient that delivers the message more effectively to
its consumers. The world has been changing and the women are altering their roles decided by
the social construction; therefore, the true and exceptional representation of women would be
more effective for the companies to grab attention of the consumers.

ANALYSIS ESSAY
Reference
Anand, M., & Tyagi, V. (2017). Advertising: Boon or Curse for Women. International Journal
of Research in Economics and Social Sciences, 7(3), 116-124.
Boden, J. (2016). Mass media: Playground of stereotyping. International Communication
Gazette, 78(1-2), 121-136.
Cote, J. E., & Levine, C. G. (2014). Identity, formation, agency, and culture: A social
psychological synthesis. Psychology Press.
Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and
computers. Psychology Press.
Lysonski, S. (2015). Sex-Role Stereotyping in Advertisements: A Re-Examination.
In Proceedings of the 1983 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual
Conference (pp. 461-464). Springer, Cham.
M1 You Deserve Better - YouTube. (2008). YouTube. Retrieved 5 November 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ0ykYYIy30
M1. (2017). M1.com.sg. Retrieved 5 November 2017, from https://www.m1.com.sg/
Xu, Y. (2016). How females perceive masculine advertising models?: Master of Business Study
in Marketing at Albany Campus, Massey University, New Zealand (Doctoral dissertation,
Massey University).