Women and Advertising Imagery: Practice Your Right Brain Thinking
Sometimes there is a bizarre synergy in the randomness of my research and writing, and this week has been a good example.
Just as I’m starting work on a project on women in advertising with a couple of university business professors, the latest issue of Edit, a publication distributed to Getty Images clients, has been released, with an article that takes a closer look at the representation of women in ad imagery. "Through the Looking Glass" presents the opinions of advertising experts (and one marketing expert - me) on images of women in relation to topics that include: beauty, travel, tradition, exercise and technology. It’s definitely worth a look
In the meantime, all this attention to imagery tends to refer me back to the "R-Directed Thinking" Dan Pink writes of in A Whole New Mind. Is some new awareness about the power and nuance of advertising imagery being raised? Are business types learning to use their right-brains more to balance out their thinking in what is now a much more conceptual age?
I hope so.
Anyway -
The Edit piece demonstrates that the old white-rimmed pictures of "family" or "beauty" that we Boomer+ types might hold in our memories don’t necessarily apply today. And, it reflects how many of us have since realized that beauty is not solely represented by sixteen year-old, 5′11" models who weigh 105 pounds (as so well explored in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, for one). And, finally, isn’t it also true that the Ricky Nelson television version of "family" would resonate with very few Americans today?
Then, there is the academic study I’m working on, which will get to the more fundamental questions about cross-cultural women and advertising imagery by way of a content analysis. My co-authors and I hope to find a few patterns to learn from in the following questions, among others: Is the number of women in ads comparable to the number of men? What is the woman’s role, as opposed to the man’s? What is the tone? What is the topic/product?
Developing or choosing imagery for an ad campaign can be a very loaded task, no matter the product, service or end-consumer, and that’s why marketers pay creative agencies so much for their work. However, I don’t think we should leave it at that. I still think those of us who are clients or involved in creating marketing materials, in general, should work to gain our own, however minor, understanding or awareness of all that is involved and how many different ways women may be interpreting the photographs we choose to use.
Start asking yourself things like:
-What emotion do you want to claim as your brand’s own?
-What photos (content, style, tone) are the women you want to reach taking themselves, or - which ads are they pinning to their bulletin boards?
- How can imagery help to better reflect your products relevance in their lives?
This is not linear, traditional business-minded stuff. Rather, learning more about imagery and how people react to it is part of embracing your more conceptual, right-brain thinking skills. When you start noticing and analyzing ad imagery and content, it might also be a great time to start a design notebook. As Pink writes:
"Before long, you’ll be looking at graphics, interiors, environments, and much more with greater acuity. And you’ll understand in a deeper way how design decisions shape our everyday lives."
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Here’s to the synergies of randomness!
P.S. That’s a photo of me on the shores of Lake Michigan with my cousin when we were little - early 1970s. Does childhood fun resonate with you, as much as it does me?
October 9th, 2006 at 4:42 am
Andrea Learned on Imagery
To move forward we must build the plank of design into the bridge from our left brain to our right brain. I find the art of advertising fascinating. For me it’s all about the intent. What messages are advertisers trying