by speaking to the class, i have found that 85% of designers, within my class find that designing for the opposite sex is much harder than designing for the same sex. This is down to the fact they find it harder to distinguish what the opposite sex wants.
My aim is to gain an understanding of what the opposite sex looks for enabling me to become a much more effective designer.
Primary analysis of archive.
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In terms of gaining a greater understanding of how psychoanalysis is applied to advertising by looking at archived ads from Saatchi it became apparent how much advertising had changed over the years especially when designing to target the female audience. I feel that by analysing these ads i have gained a greater understanding of what and how psychoanalysis works.
Proffessional oppinions. Advertising agencies. Male and Female opinions.
Rod Elms, Saatchi & Saatchi
“When creating ideas at the start of any new campaign we are, obviously, influenced by gender which is usually specified as our target market (or who we are talking to) in our initial briefing. Generally certain products lean towards a specific gender (Tampax and Lynx being obvious examples for both genders) and our language, tone of voice and visuals reflect this. When the product has a more universal appeal we try not to alienate anybody when coming up with ideas. I think that there has always been a 'female' voice in advertising on a generic level because, as research shows, women are the main purchasers of most products (everything from FMCG, white goods, holidays & fashion) not just for themselves but their families and partners. One area where there is a definite bias and the exception to this rule is the car market where men are the main deciders in the market, that is why you will find, with most makes of cars, the tone of voice is all about power and sexiness etc. This is what appeals to the male demographic in that particular market so nothing has really has changed over the years.”
Female Feedback…
“Hi,
Firstly, I would recommend reading Judith Butler – Gender Trouble, this will ensure proper use and understanding of ‘gender,’ but also this will probably help with the construction of an argument and a really detailed analysis.
Of course, there is always a target audience that has to be considered with any campaign and this is often simplified and somewhat generic as appealing to masses implicitly means you cannot speak to individuals, despite the desired effect being to speak to an individual. It is relying on the individual’s interpretation of a representation (eg. a car advert) and so to an extent is conditional on that individual’s grasp of social norms and conventions (which are reflected through the ad) and how they situate themselves in relation to those norms before they can understand what they are seeing.
The idea that car advertisements are tailored towards ‘men’ is true insomuch as they represent what is considered/accepted as ‘masculine’ (and masculine being an accepted quality of men) within that specific culture.
As far as a female voice is concerned, it depends on how the viewer understands ‘female’ and of course, it does not necessarily mean ‘feminine’ so you need to ask, do you really mean ‘feminine’ or the ‘idealised female in western culture,’ as opposed to simply ‘female?’
So to answer your question, there is a female voice because there has to be if an advert is constructed around a ‘male/female,’ ‘masculine/feminine’ binary, but it is relative to ‘male’ eg. the constitutive outside (see Stuart Hall on Representation). As we live in a patriarchal society, the female voice in this context is passive rather than active. Car adverts are tailored to appeal to a sense of heteronormative masculinity and imply that men should strive towards that and this is where women as active consumers are left out of the picture. Obviously, this is not a good thing.
With the title, you first need to ask what is the female unconscious and is this ubiquitous?
I’m not really sure reconfiguring advertisements to target a female unconscious is actually very feminist or constructive as it means first women must again be objectified.”
Female 2 feedback
Here are my thoughts:
I don’t think there is any doubt that advertising campaigns are influenced by the gender of those that create them, but on the whole the car industry is incredibly straight white male-dominated, which means that any advertising campaigns occupy this straight white male-gendered space no matter the gender of their creators.
To really reconfigure car advertising the entire car culture needs to be occupied more by females. Not just for the sake of them being female but because they use and enjoy cars just as much as males, and yet television programmes like Top Gear are presented by males, and car industry shows include females only as models or promotional staff. Females see this and immediately feel excluded or at least severely marginalised, which is an issue that no amount of advertising can remedy.
However that’s an answer for a what is probably a whole other different question. As a female, if I were to work on a car advertising campaign I would be consciously pushing the topic of being inclusive of females, whereas males may not consider this viewpoint as a priority, and therefore any female appearances or appeal may be entirely incidental or at least steretypical. Some car campaigns have targeted females with success, such as the new Fiat 500 with its bold colours and unmistakeable (and very stereotypical) ‘female’ imagery, but in my opinion this is sexist to a degree - it only served to further reinforce the gender divide in the car industry as it’s telling us that some cars are for females, whereas the vast majority of others are for males. Female representation in car advertising certainly isn’t as sexist as it used to be by a long shot though!
Therefore what I would suggest is that in order to target the female unconscious, gender-neutral advertising is the only way to go. In an era where more and more females are sitting up and taking notice of, and riling against, ‘gendered’ advertising, no matter which gender it’s aimed at, it’s becoming more harmful to companies to target one over the other for products that are for both.
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