Cultural stereotypes in advertising

Some people think media has the power to mold culture while other thinks that media mirrors culture. According to Ramamurthy (2017), advertising reflects to our social norms, mores and values. In advertising, stereotyping is not only hurtful but also wrong. Stereotypes are generalized when people assume that the stereotype is true for each person in the category. As Zotos (2016) found, people rely heavily on stereotypes when they are deciding on their possible negotiation tactics. However, while the ad seems to bring humor, not everyone is laughing and some people went forth to complain to the social media about the Ad campaign. The prompt was launched by the Meat & Livestock Australia’s (MLA) as a late summer campaign and calls a union of Australians with trans-Tasman counterparts over a hearty dose of lamb via a party in the middle of the Tasman sea.

While the campaign seems to depict the idea of unity, Ramamurthy (2017) found that the stereotyping depicted in the ad led to increased criticism while celebrating the Australian Day. It’s worth noting that progressive views on the issues were generally held by the minority group. Such stereotype can result to inherent risks for any brand that targets a broader consumer audience. They should be authentic and sincere and should do whatever their advertisement has to take to be reflected internally too. The Best a Man Can Get Gillet Ad In another Ad, Gillette portrayed a change in the societal narrative by presenting its best men campaign otherwise referred as “the best a man can get. ” The advert went viral and had reached 3 million views in YouTube in just 48hours.

Three days later, the video had gone viral and had reached 13million views. However, Tian (2017) found that the video had divided both the consumers and the industry in terms of strategy, execution and creativity. Even though people have tried to stop people from using Gillet razors, buying habits especially to products people are used to are hard to break. Gillette ad plays a significant role on portraying that all men want right now is do better not necessarily understanding how. During its campaigns last year to determine the market trends, the company asked men from different nations on their definitions of a strong man through focus groups comprising of men and women, through online surveys and visiting their homes. This campaign brought the concept of masculinity where the company promised to donate $1million a year for three years to support organizations that support boys and men being positive models.

In his research, Tartaglia (2017) realized that advertising is in the trend of determining cultural trends where firms spends a lot of time reading, thinking, and focusing on a culture shifts. In another research, Tartaglia (2015) found that even products that are associated with men like expensive cars and sport items, women have been found to even spend more. Women have been found to spend more than $4 trillion yearly which accounts for 83% of all U. S consumer spending. Additionally, Tian (2017) found that senior citizens are the fastest growing population in Australia but mass marketing to seniors remains elusive. The marketers argue that age has little to do with the interests of the senior consumers. For the AANA self-regulatory system, the code of ethics act as the cornerstone and the system is supplemented with wagering advertising and marketing communication code, environmental claims code, food and beverage code and code of advertising and marketing to children.

moreover, the system is underpinned by a robust transparent and independent handling system that is administered by AD standards. The latest revised codes of ethics were issued on 12 July 2018 by AANA with relation to the use of gender stereotyping in advertising. According to Bivins (2015), the Ad Standards Community Panel will be required to use the revised code of ethics practice notes in future review of complaints about advertising to determine whether an Ad has breached the AANA Code of Ethics. As the section 2. the stereotype of the audience with the strongest purchasing power will therefore win. Moreover, brands focus more on the advertising campaigns that sell their products or services by sending a message to their audiences that will increase sells.

If the audience represented in the stereotype demands change in that messaging, the will only change when the buying power shifts from that brand. The great ability of new brands to launch quickly as well as the power of digital advertising is also changing the use of stereotype in advertising. Additionally, Race is the most obvious form of stereotyping that creates negative connotations advertising. Using the racial tropes is therefore a common way that target specific demographics, which is not perceived as negative as racism is. This is what raises a hot debate on whether the use of stereotypes in advertising is ethical or not. According to Bivins (2017) some people consider the use of archetypes to a specific group of people as racism just because it is a generalization.

However, it is offensive to some members when media representations are disproportionally distributed and advertising appears as the most prevalent media available. Bivins (2017) found that stereotypes are the inferred belief that positions, attributes and roles in a culture are given to various groups of people depending on their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race. When racial stereotyping results to an offence in advertising, then the ad is deemed as not ethical. Numerous research is being done on stereotyping to determine the real facts about specific groups of people rather than believing in everything that media is portraying. The two adverts breach the codes of ethics set by AANA against stereotyping. The Code of Ethics section 2. 1 prohibits advertising that discriminates or vilifies a person on the basis of gender, ethnicity or sexual performance.