Description
Analysis of Gender Related Marketing
Summary of the assignment
In this paper, you will conduct a critical analysis of gender in an advertisement. Your analysis should be grounded in the (readings attached) from the class and explicitly engage with concepts and ideas that have been discussed in these sources. The paper should be a minimum of 4 to 6 pages (double spaced, excluding title paper and references).
Detailed instructions
Selection of an advertisement
You are asked to pick one advertisement of your choosing to analyze. You can select any print or video advertisement within the following parameters:
· The advertisement must clearly be identified/labeled as an advertisement. Students can use conventional advertisements as the basis for their analysis or influencer sponsored content on social media (e.g. Instagram) that is clearly disclosed as an ad (#ad) or sponsored content (#sponsored).
· The advertisement must be legally available for public viewing. Students are not permitted to select advertisements or posts that are from private accounts or websites. Advertisements may come from:
o Official corporate/product websites, social media accounts, or YouTube accounts (e.g. Nike, Thinx, Sephora, etc.)
o Paid advertisements or product placements in on-line publications, social media accounts, or YouTube accounts
o Television commercials that are accessible via on-line streaming (e.g. compilation of “10 Best Super Bowl Commercials” on YouTube)
o Television commercials airing during live broadcast television
· The advertisement must be available for public viewing during January to February 2021.
· You may select to analyze a foreign language advertisement that is not in English; however, such advertisements/posts must contain English translations.
· You must clearly indicate in your paper the source of the advertisement. For on-line advertisements, you should provide a link to the advertisement (please double check the link to make sure that it works for subsequent viewing). For television commercials airing during broadcast television, you should indicate the date/time /channel in which the advertisement appeared as well as the name of the television programming airing at the time.
Thesis
This paper asks you to critically analyze an advertisement’s portrayal of gender. This means that after you have viewed the advertisement, you first need to develop a central/main point of view about how you think the ad presents gender (and then provide evidence to your reader to show why the point of view that you have taken is the correct one that they should embrace too). The central/main point of view that you want to put forward (and then construct the rest of your paper trying to prove) is your thesis. So, it’s important that the introduction of your paper contain a clear and concise thesis statement.
For example, your overall point of view might be that the advertisement relies on multiple gender related marketing techniques that target specific gendered audiences in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes. In contrast, your overall point of view might be that the ad directly challenges patriarchal gender roles and portrays gender in novel ways that counter dominant gender ideologies. Yet again, your overall point of view might be that the advertisement presents contradictory and/or inconsistent messages about gender (such as relying on some aspects of gender related marketing to appeal to male or female audiences while at the same time including representations of transgender people that challenge cisnormativity). Whatever position you take, you want to formulate a clear thesis which summarizes it for your reader right out of the gate.
Now, prove it!
Once you’ve set out your central thesis, now you’ve got to convince your reader that the perspective you’ve taken is the right one (you’ve got to win your reader over to your side). This is where the evidence comes in.
Remember: don’t just describe, analyze. Description is simply the “what”; analysis talks about the “how” and the “why.”
For example, if the central thesis of your paper is that the advertisement objectifies female bodies through the male gaze in its marketing of the product to male audiences, show your reader exactly how the ad does this and why the presentation of female bodies in the ad is objectifying. Make sure you clearly define and explain key concepts (in this example, objectification and the male gaze) and use specific examples from the ad to illustrate your point. If the central thesis of your paper is that the ad relies on multiple gender related marketing techniques to promote gender stereotypes, clearly identify which specific gender related marketing techniques are used, explain exactly how they are employed in the ad, describe why those specific techniques promote gender stereotypes, and clearly articulate which specific gender stereotypes are being promoted. Use the readings, lessons, and course content as supporting evidence to support your interpretation.
Use the class materials (lessons AND the course readings)
A strong paper uses the class materials to build and support the analysis (please refer to the section below entitled “Notes on Formatting Your Paper” for information on how to reference/cite the class lectures and readings in your paper). A well-rounded analysis doesn’t just rely solely on the lessons or the readings but incorporates both to illustrate key points.
In your analysis, you are required to explicitly and meaningfully engage with a minimum of two required readings assigned
Meaningful engagement with the reading goes beyond merely citing a quote from the reading. A strong paper (a) summarizes the central ideas of a reading and (b) explicitly connects those ideas to specific examples taken from the advertisement.
It can’t be emphasized enough: use the course readings, lessons, and discussions to inform your analysis and provide support for your interpretations.
What You Will Be Evaluated On:
The strength of your analysis:
· Did you successfully defend your central thesis with sound evidence and supporting arguments that were compelling?
· Did you use multiple specific examples from the ad to illustrate key points in your analysis?
· Did you thoroughly define/explain concepts that you used in your analysis and clearly/explicitly illustrate how the specific examples that you selected from your ad were indicative of these concepts?
· Did you ground your analysis in a meaningful/substantive way to the course materials (lessons, readings, videos, etc.)? Did you summarize central ideas from the readings and lessons that you used and explicitly connect these to specific examples from the ad?
· Did you show evidence of critical thinking rather than superficial observations throughout the paper? Superficial observations rely solely on description (“in this ad, this happened”). Critical thinking involves moving beyond the description (the “what”) to form an analysis (the “how” and “why”).
The quality of your writing:
· Did you clearly identify your central thesis and organize your paper in support of this thesis?
· Did you meet requirements for page length and formatting? Your paper should be between 4-6 pages in length (double spaced). Note: this does not include title page, references, etc. (there should be 4 to 6 pages of the main text/analysis).
· Did you thoroughly edit your paper to ensure that there were no typos and spelling or grammatical errors?
· Did you explicitly and correctly cite all course lessons, readings, and videos used (please see section below on “Notes on Formatting Your Paper” for instructions on how to do so)?
· Does the paper flow smoothly with transitions between sections? Even if multiple people wrote different sections of the paper (if you are completing your paper as part of a pair or group), the paper should be edited so that it reads like a single cohesive document (not like five separate papers written by five people copied and pasted together)
Notes on Formatting Your Paper:
· Include a title page that provides the full names/ID#’s of students who are submitting the paper (as an individual, pair, or group). If you are submitting the paper as part of a pair or a group, you only need to submit one copy of the paper (not a separate copy for each pair/group member).
· Papers are to be typed (12-point font; double-spaced) with 1” margins on all sides. Do not try to spread out your text to meet the minimum page limit by using larger font or increased spacing…come on, people, we can see this trick from a mile away.
· References to specific readings should be clearly labeled. That means, if you use an idea from the reading you need to let us know what the author said (and, if it is a quote, the page of the reading where the quote appears). You should do this in the body of your text at the end of the sentence which contains the idea by citing the author’s last name and year of publication (Johnson, 2005). If you use a direct quote, make sure you add the page number to your reference (Johnson, 2005, p. 12).
· Be sparing in your use of direct quotes and try to put things in your own words as much as possible. If you do use a direct quote, just be absolutely certain that every quote is clearly labeled with quotation marks and fully cited [(author last name, year of publication, page #)].