Demonstrable Demographics

           Companies nowadays do an incredible job reaching their target audience through advertising.  After reading several of my fellow male classmates blogs I noticed a common theme within the majority of the blogs.  They talked about how the companies exploit the insecurities of the young male population.  They recognize the mass desire among the demographic to be a ‘manly man’ and use manly men in their advertisements to exploit these insecurities.  This tactic is called hypermasculinity.

            In Tyler Nakamura’s blog, He compared an ad produced by the National Hockey League to an ad produced by Nintendo, the creators of the video game Joanna Dark.  The tagline for the video game was; “Are you man enough for Joanna Dark?”  Tyler said,  “In the case of the ad for Nintendo they questioned the manhood of the people that played the Tomb Raider game and not theirs.”  This quotation perfectly describes hypermasculinty.  Nintendo recognizes the desire to be manly and they use that to their advantage.

            In Adam Tusin’s blog, he reviewed the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad produced by Old Spice.  Adam discussed the aspect of hypermasculinity used within the ad. He said,  “Throughout the entire duration of the ad a comparison is being made by how he (the model) presents himself in such a glorified fashion, while the consumer (myself) is just referenced as an Average Joe.”  What Adam meant was that during the ad, the model continued to build himself up as such a manly man while at the same time putting the viewer down so their insecurity will grow. 

            In Simon Turkel’s blog, he analyzed a commercial created by Gillette.  He observed that throughout the commercial there were half-naked, and muscular men socializing with recognizable female celebrities.  He said, “The commercial ends with the head honcho actor saying “the night is yours”.  That last statement relates to the masculinity discourse, that all masculine men can conquer the world, be successful, be strong and tough, party all night and get any woman he so desires.”  In other words, Simon was talking about how manly men can do and get whatever they desire, and that by Gillette is saying if you use their product, you’ll be well on your way to manhood.

            Hypermasculinity is such an effective advertising tactic. The insecurities of the male population are well known by the advertisers and they use that to their advantage.  They target the males by using overly manly men in their advertisements, and by saying that their product is the first step in becoming a man, and it works.  I know it works because the aspect of hypermasculinity has been used time and time again in advertisements and will continue to be used.

Blog URLs:

Tyler’s Blog: http://tylersmediaandsocietyblog.blogspot.ca/

Adam’s Blog: http://at12nk.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-the-hail/

Simon’s Blog: http://turkelsimon.wordpress.com/