Advertising Standards Canada has released their 2012 annual report and one of the interesting things discovered was that Canadians are more likely to believe advertising shapes society than our American counterparts. If this is the case, it’s only logical that we take a closer look at what advertisers are using to sell materials as well as the messages they are sending.

“A different cultural mindset exists in Canada, with a more strongly held view that advertising shapes society as well as a greater belief in the need for standards around such activity”  —– Davie Herle, Gandalf Group

79% of Canadians believe advertising offers them some value. But, as consumers it’s our job to question what that value might be. Stores like American Eagle and Hot Topic have launched brands (Aerie and Blackheart, respectively) that closely resemble Victoria’s Secret ‘Pink’ merchandising. Pink targets women between 18 and 30. More commonly it’s 15 and 16 year old’s purchasing the products and essentially buying into the aspiration to look like the sister company’s famous Victoria’s Secret models. Young women who purchase Pink products are developing a relationship with the company which ultimately the company hopes will parlay into a lifelong brand loyalty to Victoria’s Secret.

In the 1930’s women became the target consumer in terms of advertising, the art of pitching products to women was perfected in capturing their essence as housewives and ultimately the term was coined ‘born to shop’. Ultimately, ‘Mrs Consumer’ is ‘born to shop’ and this notion naturalized the act of women as primary household consumers.

Through time, shopping went from being a functional activity to one of leisure reserved for mainly those women with time and money. We need only to look at a few back issues of Chatelaine or Ladies’ Home Journal to see this. Editorials, not unlike what we see in magazines today, encouraged women to buy brand name, packaged products. Fashion and beauty advertisements also began to feature repeating ideals – a certain body shape, a type of haircut or color, and a certain degree of whiteness.

“For the past few centuries, we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we’re biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures with femininity and white skin,” said Cameron Russell, Victoria’s Secret model. “This is a legacy that was built for me, and that I’ve been cashing out on.”

The idea, that lean, white, women confer status on a range of beauty products and services has been around since and before Marilyn Monroe and Ave Gardiner’s time. After all, in the fifties Marilyn Monroe was the quintessential sex symbol. With her blonde hair, red lips and big laugh she represented a luxurious, fun lifestyle that appealed to both men and women.

Women in certain advertorial images, particularly white women, are imagined as light, blonde, beautiful and therefore the entry point of the product, and if women buy the product, is a higher state of female grace, or in Victoria’s Secret’s case – sexuality.

Interestingly enough the models that embody this ideal are not entirely free of insecurities.

“The thing that I have never said on camera is that ‘I am insecure.’ And I am insecure because I have to think about what I look like every day.” Said Russell during her TEDxTalk.

“If you ever think, ‘If I had thinner thighs and shinier hair, wouldn’t I be happier,’ you just need to meet a group of models,” she said. “They have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes and they are the most physically insecure women, probably, on the planet.”

Television series like America’s Next Top Model glamorize an industry that masks its demons well. Model’s who have “graduated” from the show have admitted they are not taken seriously when they show up for runway shows by models or by designers.

The media has a unique way of interacting with the masses, namely by transmitting information using both imagery and information.  For a long time media has been deeply influential in politics, but have we ever stopped to really consider the way the media not only affects the way we vote but also the way we spend our money, and shape our personality to some degree.

So if young women see their gender as skinny, sleazy or stupid on magazines and on websites, what are they going to aspire to?

Victoria’s Secret model Cameron Russell advises young women against getting into the industry and encourages them to aspire to something more professionally based.

“What I really want to say to these little girls, is: why? You know, you can be anything. You could be the President of the United States or the inventor of the next Internet or a ninja cardio-thoracic surgeon poet, which would be awesome because you would be the first one,” she said.

“Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up. It’s out of your control and it’s awesome — and it’s not a career path,” Russell said.

Subconsciously the viewer is influenced whether they buy into the message or not said, Shari Graydon, director of the recently re-launched Media Action, a non-profit organization, in an interview with Canada.com.

“They basically define what we consider to be normal, acceptable, desirable, ideal,” Graydon said. “We may individually reject this billboard or that magazine ad or this television show, but the fact that women are portrayed as sleazy, stupid and skinny affects us all,” she said.

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