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Lowell Reagan
English 101
Ms.Bolton
1 October 2014
Advertisements or Mind Games?
Ads, no one has to ask if youve seen them, theyre everywhere. They appear on
magazines, TV, radio, movies, public transportation and are absolutely everywhere else. Most
people might say the effect they have on our lives is less than trivial. Jean Kilbourne would beg
to differ. In her documentaries Killing Us Softly, she brings up major effects they have,
specifically on women. Three recent ads in different issues of Town and Country magazines have
recently caught my attention in support of Jean Kilbournes fight against the degradation of
women in modern media. These ads focused on the mirage of the necessity of beauty products
and the strive for the ideal look.
Our first example comes from the September issue of Town and Country. The magazine
features an ad for makeup titled, The Beautiful Fall. It puts a point on the fact that many different
products are needed to achieve a sense of beauty. The ad shows an array of differing cosmetic
beauty products from multiple manufacturers ranging from perfume bottles, lipstick, powder, to
makeup brushes being displayed on a gray metallic background. A long text column dominating
the right side of the page begins with emboldened, Smart new suggestions for your vanity
case. What first catches my eye is the sheer number of products being advertised. This
associates the usage and purchasing of multiple different products all to achieve a sense of
beauty. Their portrayal of all the different products intermingling with other competing

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companies also tells us something. While they are indeed advertising certain products, neither
the way they display the items in the ad or their attention to the individual products suggest this.
This ad isnt just selling a physical product, but an idea. The idea that the ideal image of beauty
can be sold in a bottle, tube, or powder and that it is necessary for one or more of these products
to achieve it. Then, theres the bold text proclaiming, Smart new suggestions for your vanity
case. This immediately refers to the reader in a demeaning manor, almost putting the reader in a
defensive mental state. By portraying a potential consumer in contempt, or at least their fashion
sense, the passage draws their attention and then to the products themselves.
In addition to the September edition of Town and Country, the 2014 June and July issue
of the magazine show an ad for a regenerating crme that pushes the ideal image of a woman.
The ad at a first glance seems harmless. It is simply the image of a woman on a white
background smiling next a bottle of the product, Olay Regenerest, with the text I want to look
good, not good for my age floating off to the side. On the surface, one might find this to be an
ad of surprisingly little negative aspects. However, after reviewing some of Jean Kilibournes
work on modern medias effects on the female image in America, I am forced to take a closer,
more scrutinizing look. First, we look at the most direct visual indicator of the ads overall
message, the slogan, I want to look good, not good for my age. Once again, seems harmless
but lets take a look at what this really implies. Not good for my age brings to the fore
negativity the ad associates with someones age. This may make the reader, whos targeted as a
woman, self-conscious and thought of as on the opposite spectrum as the valued ideal woman
by todays media, which pushes more and more a fear of aging. The personal strive to look
young forever, no matter how old you are, is an ideal that we all know is very impossible. My
second point in support of Kilibourne is almost fact of the matter, this being a lack of evidence of

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effectiveness. Of course, there is nothing criminal about this. It is simply an ad for a product
someone wants you to buy, but lets look at how with this lack of evidence or demonstration,
how the company actually intends to sell you on the product without it. If the buyer cannot
actually see the effects of the product, what is their incentive to buy it? My thoughts: a
preexisting instilment that someone should be ashamed to look their age. The hardly subliminal
suggestion that without continually trying to hide the real you, how can someone feel good about
their appearance in relation to thier age? The incentive presented in this ad is meant to feed off
the self-conscious mentality and personal insecurities brought by the reader.
The third ad is from the August edition of Town and Country sports an advertisement for
+Olay Covergirl that features celebrity Ellen Degeneres to better help endorse their regenerating
cream and associate it with medias positive image. The ad shows well known Ellen Degeneres
from the waist up, smiling in a sports coat using her hands to seemingly tug the sides of her face
with the text Need a lift? across her on the left two thirds and a close up of the Olay facelift
cream on the remaining right third of the page. Using a well-known celebrity whom media would
consider one of Hollywoods beautiful people would better associate their product in a positive
way. Consumers logically connecting Degeneres socially accepted image and look with their
product. Posing the question Need a lift, also works as an effective marketing tool. It targets
the audiences mental image of themselves and tendency to scrutinize their own appearance
against media celebrities to better facilitate their drive to achieve the idealistic look.
In conclusion, we find that advertisements are in the very business of trying to affect your
lives and habits, whether subliminal or explicit the objective remains the same. These three ads
form Town and Country demonstrate the medias portrayal of beauty products to push the ideal
image of a woman. The worst part about this situation is the fact that most people have become

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blind to it and dont even notice the disgrace put on these women. So next time you are flipping
through a magazine, check some of these ads out and form you own opinion.

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Works Cited
Killing Softly 4. Dir. Sut Jhally. Perf. Jean Kilbourne. Media Education Foundation.
2010. Film.
Olay. Advertisement. Town and Country (June/July 2014); Pg129. Print
Olay, Advertisement. Town and Country (August); Pg54. Print
YSL, Narcisso, Diana Vreeland, Sisley, Sonia Kashuk, Givenchy, Nars, Chantecailli,
Marc Jacobs, Charlotte Tilbury, Lipstick Queen, Christian Louboutin. Advertisement. Town and
Country. (September 2014); Pg146. Print