Ad Analysis
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Flipping through the pages of Glamour you are bombarded with advertisements geared for selling things such as make-up, clothes, underwear, and so on. What you see is a cultural pattern, beautiful woman after beautiful woman, representing some product selling that product, but more importantly selling that products image. Upon coming across this advertisement (which was the first in a series of similar ones for the same company) I noticed something different, something that was being said that was a little askew from the other advertisements in the magazine. Granted the advertisement is still selling an image, but what this company, Esprit, is selling is something that is obviously trying to be different from the rest. At first glance the advertisements connotations did not fit into the code we have for femininity, a code exploited by other advertisements.
The first thing I noticed looking at this advertisement is how my eyes were drawn to hers. In the picture there is denoted a girl, slick black hair, red shirt, and some words: “I AM ESPRIT” and [in small type along the upper right edge,] She believes that words havent lost their meaning.” The girl has freckles, short hair, green eyes, and appears to be leaning forward. We see her head, shoulders and that is it, no body, breasts, or long legs. Part of what is so important to this ad is what is not denoted, and how what is there is used.
The girl has excellent symmetry, not only in her facial features (complimented by her slicked hair), but also in her positioning on the page. This symmetry is complemented by her forward stance, creating a closer proximity with her face (rather than her body) for the viewer. The advertisement uses color contrast between red shirt and black hair to center your eyes on her rather pail face, and more specifically her green eyes. What is crucial to this advertisement is that attention is attracted to the right places. In this case her hair is black for contrast but more importantly it is short and slicked, and doesnt consume the readers eye. On the bottom side the red shirt serves several purposes: 1. It counters the black hair on the top of the head, 2. It gains enough attention to serve as a great backdrop for the words “I AM ESPRIT”, but 3. The red is blurred or dulled to let you know where the focus is. The focus is brought directly to her eyes, but why?
There are, of course, reasons why the creators of this advertisement want us to be caught up in the eyes of this woman, to sell an image, and likewise there are several ways they go about selling this image. The advertisers have created a confrontation with her eyes. You notice she does not possess the “male gaze,” rather she seems to twist this gaze into a stare, or as 1 said a confrontation. Her forward posture, is part of what lets us know this is not a “look” or flirtation with the camera. Her eyes signify a strength or unwillingness to be submissive. The other part relies on that about her which is different from other advertisements, and the paradigmatic relations of the words to the pictures.
What is different about this advertisement is literally plain to see. She has no (or no noticeable) make-up on, has short “boyish” hair, and freckles. She is what advertisers may call normal, not a normal model but closer to the girl next door