CHOSEN ADVERTISEMENT
Nestle 'Nuts' Advert - Link
ANALYSIS
Throughout
history, corporations have been creating preconceived conceptions regarding
personal identity, and using them as a means of advertisement to promote
commodities to specific audiences. Identity focused advertisement usually promotes
an ideology of ‘difference’ and ‘elitism’ to make consumers feel superior to
others who cannot afford the similar products. Furthermore, in modern capitalist
society people create a self-image through the purchase and exhibition of
commodities, this ideology is perpetuated in the advertisement industry through
visual campaigns that focus on promoting commodity based identity. The
following passage critically analyses a piece of corporate advertisement aiming
to highlight and explain how and why different methods of persuasion have been utilized.
Firstly, the
image chosen to reflect the identity driven ideology promoted by the
advertising industry is part of a visual campaign by corporate giants Nestle. The
series of printed posters was created to promote one of their nut based
chocolate bars to a male audience, using an ideology of hyper-masculinity to
arrest male attention. Throughout history a gender-stereotype has outlined
males as the strong, heterosexual bread winner, often seen as dominant in
physical stature, heroic and unafraid of violence. Nestles visual campaign
plays off this ideology, showing an image of a well-built male in swimming
shorts staring into shark infested waters. It is not unusual for advertisements
to utilise these historical stereotypes as;
“Often the
claims are based on an essentialist version of history and of the past, where history
is constructed or represented as an unchanging truth.” (Woodward, 1999, p12)
By
challenging male masculinity the Nestle advertisement implies that by consuming
their product the audience will fit the gender-stereotype of a powerful
heterosexual male. Moreover, selling the ideas that ‘Nuts’ bars make you more of
a man helps the audience to construct their identity, as consuming the product provides
personal reassurance regarding their desired self-image. Once this personal image
has been attained identity related thoughts move from personal reassurance to a
sense of otherness, which helps people to quickly define their identity from
what they are not. This sense of difference is what helps people to feel
individual and comfortable with their selected identity and social group;
advertisers know this and therefore use it as a means of manipulation.
“This marking of difference takes place both
through the symbolic systems of representation, and through forms of social exclusion.
Identity, then, is not the opposite of but depends on, difference. ” (Woodward,
1999, p29)
Differences
are established through “classificatory systems” (Woodward, 1999, p29) which
are created by people as a way of dividing social groups and sorting them into
some sort of hierarchy. In modern capitalist society a person’s identity plays
a vital role in their placement in this hierarchy, people in good shape, with
lots of money and commodities are seen as successful and hence are highly regarded.
Advertisements like the one by Nestle are created to sell the idea of the fearless
heterosexual male, by eating that small nutty chocolate bar they can be distinguished
as a hero and a man.
“Perceptions
and understandings of the most material of needs are constructed through
symbolic systems which mark out the sacred from the profane, clean from the
unclean and the raw from the cooked.” (Woodward, 1999, p38)
To conclude,
the Nestle advertisement was created to capture the attention of young men, using
clever methods to promote a stereotypical hyper-masculine image of a
courageous, powerful man. To attain this self-image unwitting participants
simply need indulge in the product
advertised, if this message is successfully communicated young males will buy
into the product profiting the corperation. Identity is formed through social
and material representation, people often assert judgements regarding the differences
between these symbols and therefore organise people into social hierarchies. The
classification systems used to organise these social groups form what we know
as identity, as without the classifications we would be unable to distinguish
between all forms of individuality.
REFERENCING
- Woodward, K (ed. 1999) Identity and Difference, Sage, London.
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