Women in Advertising

Jean Kilbourne began her presentation by pointing out some shocking information, such as how the average person spends three years of their life watching advertisements. Another way that she grabs the audience’s attention from the start is by using visuals and incorporating jokes to keep the audience laughing, interested, and waiting to hear what she has to say next.

It is also interesting how she varies hard facts with light, yet serious, jokes, such as the advertisements about the most dependable fishing line in the world and the woman with no pores. Through this, she also incorporates new issues, like eating disorders, teen pregnancy statistics, and battery. It surprises the audience to hear the presentation begin to go in that direction, therefore drawing them in even more.

The entire presentation is strewn with visuals, as she is constantly showing clips from advertisements. Though some of the ads are humorous, like the ad about the woman losing weight to get married, others are just shocking, like the ad that claims, “Great hair never dies.” Also, many of the ads hint at the frequency of sexuality in ads. For an Evian ad, a girl is shown in a bathtub, looking at the bottles on the floor and Abercrombie ads that feature half-clothed girls.

While watching Kilbourne herself, one might notice that she does not wear revealing clothing, which shows that ideas can be conveyed without using sexuality to sell it. She has a mostly serious tone, though some lighter comments slip in through jokes to keep attention, and she maintains constant eye contact with audience in order to reinforce the seriousness of issue.

The most memorable parts of her presentation, in my mind, were the battery and sexually explicit ads. I was surprised to see the great hair never dies ad and the one with the man holding a gun to a woman. I never thought that such tactics would be thought of to sell product.

All in all, Kilbourne was able to keep my attention and leave an impression about women in advertising. She used many approaches to convey her thoughts to the audience, which kept me on my toes and eager to hear more.