Gabriella Catalfano
CA2
Erica Delsandro
Monday April 1
Part l
As you flip through any type of magazine, watch television or do anything for that
matter, you will encounter advertisements no matter what you are doing. An advertisement is
anything that promotes to a consumer some type of product, service or event that the producer is
trying to sell. Advertisements are everywhere in our media today, that it has become second
nature for us to see them wherever you go. You may not even notice yourself to start overlooking
such familiar advertisement that you see often. But, there are always certain ones that will catch
your eyes and that always what the producers wants to happen.
An advertisement that caught my eye while flipping through a magazine was for the
product DayQuil and NyQuil. This is a type of cold medicine that deals with stuffy head, sore
throat, coughing, aching and fever. It comes in both tablets and liquid form for which ever you
may prefer.
On the top of the advertisement, they have a fairly young brunette woman sitting on a
bathroom counter. The brunette’s curly hair lays down her back and past her shoulders in the
front. Her right leg dangles off the countertop, while her left leg is neatly tucked under other leg.
This pretty woman looks to be in her mid to late twenties. They have her dressed in what looks to
be a comfy, green, loose fitting long sleeves shirt and a pair of black leggings. Even though her
clothes are not completely form fitting, you can tell she is pretty petite woman. They also have
her wearing light pink fairy wings that have stars and dots all over them. She is wearing a
necklace that hangs off of her neck because of the way they have her positioned, which is
hunched over. This woman looks to be extremely content and has a perfectly white smile on her
face. She has her eyes closed not knowing what to expect when she finally opens them.
This woman is not sitting alone on the countertop. There is a toddler about two to three
years old sitting right in front of her. She has lighter brown hair than her mother but, still just as
curly. They placed her in a color blocked t-shirt, that has light pink on the top half and white on
the bottom half of her t-shirt. There is a sparkly pink object in the middle of the shirt that is hard
to completely make out. She is also placed in comfy looking, purple pants. It looks as if they are
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playing dress up because she is wearing a sliver tut-tut that is wrapped around her tiny waist. The
little girl is sitting crisscross with her bare foot showing on the counter top. She gazes up at her
mother with a face of concentration as she powers her mother’s cheeks in one hand. But, in the
other hand she has brush to apply some type of make-up. It looks if this make-over is all pretend
because in the advertisement, there is no visual make-up anywhere, just the utensils to do it.
Behind the little girl, who is sitting on countertop, is a normal looking sink which has a
wooden box next to it where the bar of soap is placed inside of it. The dress up- theme of the
advertisement continues with the blue, wavy wig that is coming out of the sink and draped across
the front of the counter. On top of the wig, there is a pink curlier and some other type utensil that
is hard to recognize. There is also, a side mirror that is connected to the wall that has a purple
feathered boa draped across it.
In the background of the advertisement, they used very dull colors like: bluish-gray and
white to make it not stand out as much. This makes you realize that the main focus was on just
the mother and daughter. All you really notice in the background is huge mirror, which has a
reflection of a few doorways and a chandelier. You can also see the little girl’s reflection putting
make-up on her mother, but not the mother’s reflection in the mirror at all. Finally, you see the
reflection of the wall mirror with the purple feathered boa hanging from it.
Underneath the picture of the mother and daughter playing dress up, it says “DON’T LET
A COLD TAKE AWAY DRESS UP MOMMY.” They put DRESS UP MOMMY in a different
font and made it bolder than the rest of the saying to emphasize it. Then finally under the saying,
they have a small picture of both DayQuil in orange tablet and NyQuil in green liquid. The
medicines are both placed side by side. These are the products they are trying to sell the
consumer and they are all the way at the bottom in extremely small pictures. They want you to
use DayQuil so it can help mom feel better faster and NyQuil to help mom sleep with a cold. On
each side of DayQuil and NyQuil, they placed the symptoms of the medicine that is supposed to
help. Then finally in the lower right hand corner of the advertisement is the logo of VICKS,
which makes both products of DayQuil and NyQuil, with their saying “breathe life in”.
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Part ll
An advertisement is selling more than just a product, service or event to consumers. It
sells ideas to society. While you briefly gaze at an advertisement, you may just see the product
the producer is trying to sell. But, the closer and the more detail you look at in the advertisement,
you can start to see the idea that they are trying to sell to society. The producers sometimes do
not even notice that they are selling this idea but, society sees it differently. Finally, as the
producers make an advertisement, they always have a targeted audience they are trying to sell
their products to.
When you look at the advertisement for DayQuil and Nyquil the little girl sitting on the
bathroom countertop looks to be about two to three years old. That would make her too young to
start attending school unless they put her in pre-school at that young of an age. But, they would
still need a parent guardian to watch her for the other part of the day because pre-school is not a
full day. Also, if you look at the detail of the advertisement, they are both wearing pants instead
of shorts which would show that it could not be summer. This demonstrates that the little girl
would not be in school either way. People would than come to the conclusion that the little girl
either way would need some time of supervision at home. Then as a society, it becomes assumed
that the brunette woman in the picture or also played as the mom would have to be a stay at
home mother for the little girl, even though she is looks as if she is trying to impress someone.
Being a stay at home mom, it really should not matter what you look like. This so called
sick mother in the advertisement, whom has to take medicine to feel better, still looks extremely
presentable just to stay inside of her own home. She is dressed in a cute, but semi-comfortable
outfit and still accessorizes with a dangly necklace. Her hair is perfectly curly as it lays down her
back. She looks to have already applied make-up on herself to brighten up her appearance.
Looking at this woman, you would not be able to tell she is the least bit sick. Being a woman she
still has to keep up her appearance regardless if she is healthy or not. Also, if you look she is
playing dress up with her daughter, which shows that she does not just hire some kind of nanny
to take care of her child. She wants to be the one to take care of her daughter because it’s her
responsibility, rather than some strangers.
Also, if you pay attention to this woman build. She looks to be extremely fit for just
having a kid only a few years back. This shows that she must have gone to the gym a lot to get
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her body back after getting pregnant. Being a stay at home mother it is time consuming to have
housework to do, take care of your family and have to somehow fit in your schedule time to
make sure your body is in good shape. This just shows in our society that the type of body you
have is all accounted in your overall beauty.
Even though in this advertisement, it does not show that this woman is married, it is just
already assumed that she is at home with the child instead of at work regardless of her being
sick. If she was a single mother, than it would not matter if she was sick or not, she would have
no other choice than to be at work. Her income would mean more to her than staying at home
because she has a responsibility to support her family by herself. But, instead since she is a stay
at home mom, she can rely on her husband to go to work, while she stays at home with her child
and get better
Another thing to focus on in this advertisement is age of the young woman. The pretty
brunette in the picture looks to be about anywhere from 25-38 years of age. It is not some old,
wrinkly woman taking care of her child. They focus in on such young woman because that is
your prime time to bare children. You are at that point in your life where you have settled down
with your husband and it is time to have children. All older women already know how to take
care of their children because they have been doing it for years and years but, the younger
generations of woman are just starting out and that is why they are main focus.
Also, if you look in the background of the advertisement, you see a chandelier, which are
fairly expensive items just to put in a bathroom, rather than in a more common area like a dining
room. Another thing that looks to be expensive is just the bathroom itself. It is a very decent size
and well decorated. This shows that the family relies on the husband to make good money at
work, while the mother gets to stay at home with the child. This is a one income household so
the husband has to work extra hard at work to be able to support his family and have them have a
decent life to live.
Finally, the last thing to notice in this picture is how happy this woman is. She is up and
playing with her little girl like nothing is wrong. Yet she is supposed to be sick with a cold.
Instead of laying around in bed and resting to feel better like most would do, she has to put up
the appearance that she feel completely fine because her main priority is not the health of herself
,it rather her family. Stay at home moms do not have time to worry about themselves, they have
a family to take care of. So, she gets up like she would any other day, make sure she looks
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presentable for whatever might come of the day and puts on a smile to keep up the appearance
that she is happy and healthier than ever.
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Part lll
While looking at an advertisement, it paints such a larger picture for society than just
what the producer is trying to sell. As a whole, our society is so wrapped up in looks, weight, age
and so many other small factors that it puts images into everyone’s minds. They tell us this is
what we should look like as a whole. But, when you do not have what they would call the “look”
which, could mean you may not be a skinny enough, then society puts you into a category saying
that you just are not beautiful. The awful part of that is, if you are not beautiful in our society,
than you are not anything.
A writer named Naomi Wolf wrote a book called the Beauty Myth, in which she states
that “The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not appearance” (Wolf, 14).
This means the concept of “what is beauty” is always changing but, the fact that beauty is so
important is not. So, as a society we tell woman that if you want to succeed in this world and
become anything than you must obtain beauty. But, how does one fully obtain something that is
constantly changing. The fact of matter is that you don’t. Women will never fully believe that
they are beautiful because society will tell you something completely different. This so called
Beauty Myth puts so much more pressure on women in this world than it does for males.
In an advertisement for cold medicine, it shows a young beautiful brunette who is sitting
on the bathroom countertop. Her dark brown hair is perfectly curled as it lays down her back and
hangs a little bit past her shoulders in the front. She has a comfortable but, cute outfit on that is
semi-form fitting to her skinny body. She even accessorizes with a beautiful, shiny necklace. Her
make-up is fully done and she is completely happy with a smile on her face. But, even though
this woman is sick and in the comfort of her home, she still feels the pressure of society that she
needs to keep her appearance up. This woman is supposed to be representing a stay at home
mother so, who should she have to try to impress while being at her home. The fact of matter that
comes into play is that this woman’s husband is going to have to come home soon enough from
work and she cannot look all disheveled all for him. She has to keep her appearance up because
this man still needs to looks at his wife as beautiful and not leave her for someone else who
actually is. The pressure is never ending on woman and does not just begin when you are a wife.
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Children’s most impressionable time of their lives is by the time they enter the third
grade. Their brains are not fully developed yet so, they can never totally comprehend everything
in our lives to the fullest complication. They read fairy tales, watch television and imagine their
lives to extreme happiness and perfection because that is how our lives are portrayed. As Maria
Tarter states in the book, The Classical Fairy Tale “Although fairy tales are still arguably the
most powerfully formative tales of childhood and permeate mass media for children and adults,
it is not unusual to find them deemed of marginal cultural importance and dismissed as unworthy
of critical attention” ( Tarter, xi). What she is trying to say is that fairy tales are the most
powerful type of influence but, they do not portray cultural importance the way they should. This
may have been true before but, I feel that today the media is more of an influence in today’s
society than fairy tales due to the soul fact that technology has taken over children’s lives now
more than ever.
With the technology rising in the younger generations, the media for them has become
much bigger of an influence. They look through magazines, watch videos and television and
much more. But, what they do not realize is the little advertisements that pop up on the screen of
their iPods, Ipads and iPhones. They may just simply watch the advertisement and go right back
to their games. The children do not realize that the more they play these games and the more
familiar those advertisements become the more likely they start to influence them. It happens so
subconsciously, that they may not even recognize what is going on.
For insistence, the advertisement I choose was the cold medicine of NyQuil and DayQuil.
If that were to constantly pop up on a child’s iPod several times, they might start to see what
media is trying to say about our society. They do not truly care about what the producers are
trying to sell; they look strictly at the pictures. So, all they see is a mother at home with the
daughter playing dress up. This shows the children, that this younger woman but, yet beautiful is
a stay at home mom. She does not go off to work like daddy does but, rather stays at home with
the children and takes care of them when they are younger. The more and more children see
advertisements like this, the more and more they think this is how all people live, like it is some
kind of norm. It makes it look like woman are completely dependent off of men and they are
only good for taking care of the children at home and doing the usual house mother stuff like
cooking and cleaning. Also, little girls look at the mother and daughter playing dress up with the
wings and tut tuts and may relate this to fairy tales. As we all know all fairy tales end in what
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they would call a happy ending. You never hear about the fighting or divorce, but rather just the
marriage of a man and woman and then automatic assumed happiness for them for forever. That
is why children never understand why mommy and daddy are fighting because it is portrayed
that they are always constantly happy and nothing else. So, since children are at that age where
everything they see they believe, these kinds of medias and fairy tales affect their views as a
person.
Whether you are a child or a grown-up, advertisements have such an impact on the way
we perceive them. Producers sell us so much more than just the product. It is more about what
they are telling us about our society. But, the awful thing about is, is we buy into in. As a whole
society, we do not try and change the way people perceive us, we rather just go along with it and
believe what they say. We have all, including myself, become so wrapped up in media and what
they say is beautiful, that we start to just trust them, rather than have our own ideas. This just
shows me that we are no longer thinking for ourselves; instead we just conform to society and
are like everyone else. Things do not change by themselves, let’s make history and put these
standards behind us and be our own kind of beautiful.
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References
Tarter, Maria. The Classic Fairy Tales. New York. W.W. Norton& Company. 1999. Print
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 2002. Print
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