In my search of advertisements to ‘deconstruct’ I came across many beer advertisements from earlier years. This “Cristal Cerveza” advertisement is from 2014, and upon looking at all of the other shots from this campaign, I have to wonder, is the advertisement about Nina Agdal or the beer? This was the case with many beer advertisements, where half-naked, or at least, cleavage-bearing women are the main focus, and the brand of the beer is in the background somewhere. I feel that a lot of advertisements targeted at men use women to attract their attention, but it really makes me wonder, what does this tell us? I believe that using women in this way in advertising is extremely objectifying and ultimately what these advertisements are portraying is the fact that women can be something men “own” or “can have” maybe if they just drink this beer!! Advertisements as such also really prove the heteronormativity of the advertising industry, as rarely do you see anything catered towards well, anyone other than a heterosexual man or woman. To me this advertisement is somewhat saying, if you drink this beer, then women like this will hang around you, and that is based off of the assumption that the target consumer is a heterosexual male (or less likely, a homosexual female, etc.). Essentially, this advertisement, along with others, leave out a large percentage of consumers of beer, as women too drink beer, along with homosexual males, along with just about anyone else (of age of course). On a final note, this also includes a very subjective ideal of what a heterosexual man might be attracted to, which excludes a large percentage of the female population. So there we have it, a woman who meets beauty standards from a Western point of view, appealing to heterosexual men, advertising a beer which you can barely see in the picture. Sure makes you want to drink the beer, right?
In my remaking of this advertisement, I switched the focus of the advertisement back to what it should be about, the entity that it is meant to advertise. Companies should pride themselves in the product that they are selling, and in my opinion, should not need to use strategies such as “attractive females” in their marketing. Moreover, I added some sarcasm to reiterate the fact that the focus is and should be on the beer itself, as a nod to the former advertisement which is unfortunately the “norm” and to raise attention of this issue to the audience. I think this portrays my message quite clearly, while taking away from the objectification of the model, and actually even empowers whoever this blurred woman is, as she is more than a model in a beer advertisement. Finally, focusing on solely the product being sold takes away from the stereotyping in beer advertisements, as only focusing on the beer essentially does not exclude anyone. This is the way it should be as, once again, beer is a drink which is universal, across nationalities, sexuality, gender identification, and ideas of beauty. I upped the clarity of the label being advertised, as this allows the beer to be the star of the advertisement, and especially if I had gone so far as to completely remove the model, it focuses on the quality of the product, which should be the main selling point. As opposed to how much money was put in to the advertisement and the model selling the product.