Dr. Jean Kilbourne exposes an ugly side of advertising

At a fund raiser for Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region (SASC) Dr. Kilbourne explored the impact of advertising on our perceptions and ideas of what it means to be a women. She has many powerful examples of how advertising taps into societies existing perceptions and can then perpetuate negative ideas. Dr Kilbourne believes we are living in a toxic cultural environment because many of the messages we are presented within advertising poisons our perception of what is realistic, presenting false images that we then measure ourselves against and can never achieve.

I have read Dr. Kilbourne's book Can't Buy my Love: How Advertising Changes the way we Think and Feel. It exposes the emotional tools used by advertisers for endearing a product in the mind of the consumer and offers great case studies that demonstrate that when advertising is done right it is a powerful tool for a marketer. I don't think it was her intent to give us in the Advertising World new tools for selling our strategic expertise. The book is basically an attack on advertising and a wakeup call for consumers.

Advertising and marketing is a curious thing because to have a powerful message to sell you have to know your customer really well, you have to find that truth and make it matter. Sometimes that truth is a vulnerability, an insecurity that when exploited can be lucrative for the advertiser. Advertising can shine a very bright light on our frailties.

Powerful, effective advertising reaches in to our subconscious mind because the marketers behind these campaigns have done their work to understand deep seated ideas and beliefs, hopes and ideals already in the mind of the audience. Advertisers then create ways to align the product, within its category or industry, to those deeper ideas. Smart, effective advertising works to build an emotional connection with the consumer. This is true for all products, not just B2C, but also for B2B products. Good advertising/marketing tells us a story or offers us an experience executed through a creative idea. These stories when aligned with existing perceptions help to forge a uniqueness for the product in the mind of the consumer.

So now we have a "Chicken or the Egg" question. Does advertising create the problem or perpetuate the problem? If we are already feeling insecure, not good enough because those ideas have been ingrained into our core beliefs that are set in childhood, then can we only blame advertising? Or is advertising the ice cream to the sensitive tooth?

When it comes to young children and the molding of their minds we parents sometimes leave that to the TV. As a mother of a young daughter I realize that my years of influence are short. I saw that when she was quickly swept up into the Webkinz movement (we have many of those creatures in our house) because of the influence of her peers and her need to acquire more characters in this digital world (brilliant piece of marketing). And although that was hard on the family budget, it's  nothing compared to what we will get swept up into as she becomes a preteen. I want to get ready for that so I picked up Kilbourne's book So Sexy So Soon: The new Sexualized Childhood and what Parents can do to Protect their Kids. I find my 7yr old daughter drawn to music videos on Youtube and some of the concepts of what it means to be female are quite denigrating there. Her peer group pulls her in to these sexy story lines as part of their maturing process. As a parent I have to help her forge her core of self esteem.


Ultimately I believe that Dr. Jean Kilbourne's effort to draw awareness to the issue of negative stereotypes is critically important. Until we are faced with a problem we do nothing about it and I do believe that false, unrealistic ideals are a problem. First and foremost we have to ask ourselves the question of why do I feel a need to try and measure up physically? How can I learn to accept myself for who I am? Are my core beliefs as a person flawed and creating expectations that are unrealistic? I don’t think we can make advertising or media a scapegoat. We all have individual research work to do to know ourselves better in an effort to stop negative stereotypes.