Original Advertisement Analysis
This is a magazine ad for IBM’s Lotus development group to promote its virtual classroom e-learning platform. In the ad, a man and a woman are sitting in an airport and appear to be waiting for their boarding times. The man has just learned discounted cash flow techniques on his laptop with 40 of his classmates in a virtual classroom. The woman is solving a crossword puzzle on the newspaper and has just learned the word “navel” from the puzzle. By creating a comparison between the outcomes of learning with and without the virtual classroom platform, the intention of the ad is to show how the platform can make learning more efficient on the go. However, there are a few problems with the ad that create an unnecessary gender division. In the ad, the man actively pursues knowledge using technology in his spare time in a connected classroom setting. On the other hand, the woman is playing a game of crossword puzzle on her own and unintentionally learns something from the game. The difference in their methods of learning implies that men are more diligent and more efficient at learning because men understand how to use technology to connect with people around the world. In addition, the ad is indirectly suggesting that women are less intelligent than men. As an opponent of this advertisement points out, “The ad suggests that men use technology to gain access to important information for their business deals, while women concern themselves with finding fourth-grade-level words for crossword puzzles.” (Raine, 2012)
Raine, G. (2012, February 2). DUBIOUS DISTINCTIONS / Women’s group singles out IBM for ad it find sexist. Retrieved from https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/DUBIOUS-DISTINCTIONS-Women-s-group-singles-out-2943813.php#item-85307-tbla-2
Jammed Advertisement Analysis
The jammed version of the ad exposes the unnecessary gender division by emphasizing the contrast between the biased portrayal of men and women. In the original ad, the man and the woman are both in an airport. In the jammed version of the ad, the man is still in the airport, but the woman is sitting in a building in a residential area. The deliberate change of the woman’s background environment is intended to highlight the stereotypical message that men are more connected to the world, while women stay home and have less access to information. In order to make the ad’s attempt to make women look less intelligent more apparent, I have changed the text next to the woman from “Just learned a five-letter word for belly button” to “Just learned a four-letter word for coffee”. Next to the man, the text has been changed from “Just learned discounted cash flow techniques with 40 other analysts” to “Just learned multi-threaded programming in Java with 40 other programmers.” The woman has learned a 4-letter word “Java”, while the man is learning an advanced topic in the Java computer programming language. Since the intended audience of the original ad is people in the tech industry, I have made the assumption that the audience have heard of the programming language and would be able to understand the connection and the word play. The jammed version of the ad subverts the original ad by making its problems more apparent to the intended audience.
Original image source:
Residential background image source:
https://www.realosophy.com/listing/15-pythagoras-dr-highland-creek-toronto/e4452847
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