Impacts On Audience
When popular culture is represented in advertising, it can result in one of three specific impacts on audiences. The audience can either be impacted or affected in a positive sense, a negative sense, or in some cases the representation has no effect, or a neutral impact. In some cases the impacts on the audiences are quite clear, while in other cases the possible impacts are quite subtle.
In some cases, when popular culture is represented in advertising, the affects and impacts on the audience are quite clear. Many advertisements are designed to impact the audience in a positive way, and popular culture is often represented in order to achieve this aim. Many people often associated the use of popular culture as having only negative impacts on audiences, but in some cases, the persuasive power of popular culture is used as a technique to impact audiences positively. In advertisements such as the ‘Got Milk’ campaign and the ‘Free Vibe’ advertising campaign, popular culture is represented to have a positive impact on the audience. In these particular advertisements, popular culture is represented to persuade the audience to pursue a healthy diet and lifestyle. Both of these advertisements represent popular culture, through images and texts to emphasise the importance of healthy lifestyle choices, which results in a clearly positive impact on the audience.
Both of these advertisements have a particularly strong positive affect on the environment. Popular culture is represented through the use of visual images on elements of popular culture, celebrities and sport, to result in a positive message. The ‘free vibe’ advertisement, in particular, is an excellent example of how popular culture can be utilised and represented to achieve a positive impact this advertisement cleverly uses images and words to appeal to a young, male, surfing audience. The very powerful and persuasive tool that is popular culture is used in a strong positive sense, to advertise that a great life can be achieved without the aid of drugs such as marijuana. The representation of popular culture is used in punctuation with a strong anti-drug campaign or message, which results in a positive effect or persuasive message for the audience.
On the other hand, popular culture in advertising can have negative effects on audiences. Advertisements advertising products such as makeup and perfume usually sell the product by featuring a model or beautiful women. On specific audiences, such as young women, this representation has a negative impact. Images of popular culture such as these place particular stress on the importance of body image and appearance in today’s modern society. This negative impact is achieved due to the reoccurring images of beautiful, impossibly perfect women. This representation of models, fashion, and beautiful people as part of popular culture in many advertisements such as campaigns from Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, and Chanel, emphasise on societies obsession with the beautiful, and this places particular stress on certain audiences, such as young women and teenage girls. By placing these images in advertisements, composers have a negative effect on certain audiences, by emphasising societies obsession with body image and outward appearance.
This particular negative effect not only affects female audiences, but also on particular male audiences. The importance of body image and appearance for many males is also subtly emphasised in many advertisements which feature elements of popular culture. However, this effect s often subtly emphasised to cater towards the male audience. Unlike women’s fashion magazines, many men’s advertisements do not feature a good looking model to advertise products such as skin care and men’s beauty products. Instead, the male interest is catered for by featuring elements of male dominated popular culture such as sport, as was seen in the ‘Clearasil For Men’ advertisement. Essentially, however, both men and women’s magazines are achieving the same thing, just catering towards a different audience. For male audiences, the emphasis on the importance of body image and appearances is created through the façade of sport or other stereotypical male interest areas. Advertisements such as these have a negative impact on the audience, as it shows how body image is an emphasised element in society, and how it has become an important factor in many people’s lives, both male and female.
Another negative affect r impact on audiences of these particular advertisements is the continued emphasise on the importance of celebrities in society. The appearance of many celebrities and famous to represent popular culture can also have a very negative effect on audiences. Composers of advertisements today have tapped into the influential and persuasive power of celebrities, and today, we continue to see them advertising products ranging from underwear to perfume to soft drinks. These continued images of celebrities in advertising from Nicole Kidman to Beyonce Knowles, have a specific negative effect on audiences, which can range from young teens to fifty year olds, both male and female. These representations of popular culture place particular stress on society’s obsession and lust for celebrities and famous icons. The presence of celebrities in contemporary Australian society is everywhere. By featuring celebrities in advertising also, the importance of these people in emphasised to a wide range of audiences. This concentration of celebrities in Australian media could have a very negative impact on audiences of all ages, as it could create an unhealthy obsession with the ‘beautiful people’ of Hollywood and the celebrity scene.
In some cases, popular culture in advertising can have a neutral or unknown affect on audiences. Popular culture may simply be represented to catch the reader’s attention without having any particular impact on the audience. Although every advertisement has a purpose of selling a product or service to a target audience, in some cases popular culture can be represented with a neutral effect on the audience. In some cases, popular culture is appropriated and represented into an advertisement, and has neither a positive or negative impact on the audience, as popular culture is simply used as a base to build a successful advertising ploy.