Britni Daniels

Jessica Arellano

Krystin Llanes

Professor Gardella

English 205

09 August 2018

Revision to Empower

For years, companies have used sex to market their brands and products. Dating all the

way back to the beginnings of advertising industry, the allure of sex appeal – specifically the

sexual exploitation of women – has been used to increase consumer interest and achieve higher

sales. The inclusion of sexism in the ads we see every day has become so prevalent, that we often

fail to even notice it and the potentially negative affects it has on our culture. In today’s

progressive and ever-changing society, what’s alarming isn’t the inclusion of sexual appeal to

promote a product, but the degrading, and at times pornographic way advertising companies

portray women in ads, as well as the depiction of stereotypes that reinforce negative gender and

cultural perceptions. For the purposes of this project, our group has created a company called,

“Revision to Empower”, who’s mission is to promote social change by calling attention to the

way media, specifically advertising, perpetuates the violence, sexualization, and objectification

of women. In viewing the original version of our chosen ad by the clothing brand, Billabong,

from an analytical perspective, the gender stereotyping, cultural bias, and objectification of the

female body become strikingly obvious. In our revised ad, we aim to depict the female body in a
positive light, to show that empowered women are sexy, and to break down the barriers that false

portrayals of gender and cultural stereotyping cause.

The benefits of sexually exploitative advertising and its potential were realized early on

by companies in marketing their products. Tom Reichart from the University of Alabama,

identifies an example of the use of such advertising techniques to raise brand popularity in an

article stating, “To increase cigarette sales in 1885, W. Duke and Sons inserted trading cards into

cigarette packs that featured sexually provocative starlets. Duke grew to become the leading

cigarette brand by 1890.” (Reichert, 241) While it is clear that the sexualization of the female

body is commonly used in advertising to men, it is also important to realize that men are not the

only consumer in which these ads are targeting. Gizem Tokmak, a Turkish professor, presents

to us the notion that, “Sexually Objectified advertising tries to draw attention of not only male

consumers but also female consumers” (Tokmak, 467). The use of sex appeal has become

increasingly prevalent in brands marketing to women, including clothing, fragrance and makeup

brand advertising. While there have been a variety of studies that confirm the common notion

that sex sells, it might be surprising to know that the more disturbing and sexually exploitive the

ad, the more damaging to the company. In a recent study it was shown that, “as the sexual

content in advertisements became more intense, attitudes, memory and intentions to buy the

brand all decreased” (Furnham, Mccelland, Toverljani, 199). This shows that although the

attitude has always been that more sexual content equates to higher sales, over time brands have

pushed the bar on sexual advertising too far It is evident that the influence that these

advertisements have over us, especially the younger generation, is far more damaging than we

may realize, and impacts the way young men and women view themselves and each other.
 The advertisement we chose to revise was an online ad for the widely popular surf

apparel brand, Billabong. The ad, which is split down the center dividing the “Men’s” and

“Women’s” section, depicts both a man and woman on the beach, but that is where the

similarities end. To the left on the “Men’s” side, we see a young man, presumably sporting

billabong swim trunks, catching some waves. He is jumping mid-air on his surfboard in an action

shot that would impress even the most avid surf enthusiasts. The “Woman’s” side on the other

hand, paints a far different picture. The woman in this photo is in a bikini lying on the sand,

posed in an uncomfortably awkward and provocative pose, head arched back and tilted upwards

towards the sun. While Billabong produces surf wear for both men and women, they chose to

portray the male in their ad as a powerful athlete while the woman is merely a sex object, placed

on the beach to be admired. The woman is clearly the highlight of the ad, she’s featured in a

closeup while the male is off in the distance, his features hardly distinguishable. Her face is half

cut off, and her body is obviously the main display. Her legs are spread open in a vulnerable

sexual position and her back is arched, accentuating her extremely slim, perfectly tanned figure.

She appears to be “ready for action” so to speak, and the surfboard in the male section of the

photo appears to be pointed right in between her legs as if he is preparing to dive in, further

insinuating to the sexual nature of the ad. It should even be noted that the pink, floral print of the

woman’s swimsuit is symbolic of her being no more than something pretty and feminine to look

at while the man has all the real talent. Billabong sponsors some of the biggest names in female

professional surfing, but rather than display any of these women in their ad, they chose a thin,

white model to lie seductively in the sand to promote their brand. Not only does this go against

what the brand stands for, it is extremely damaging to the female psyche and not at all exemplary

of the very real, sexy, and athletic woman who wear and promote the brand.
 Our revisioned advertisement aimed to embrace diversity in representing all types of

people to show that the brand is inclusive, in an effort to resonate with a wide audience. We also

wanted to place emphasis on the strength and empowerment of women of all sizes and colors, in

a way that does not sexualize or objectify them. We found it of utmost importance to show

average sized men and women in our advertisement, to challenge the societal expectation of

what “beach bodies” should look like. Body display is a type of sexual advertising content, that

often showcases bodies of “physically attractive models wearing clothing that accentuates well-

defined physiques” (Reichert, 244). This frequent type of body display is damaging to women’s

self-esteems, ingraining the idea in their minds that only physically fit women are considered

attractive. In our ad, we aimed to still include body displays and show that sex appeal can be had

by anyone of any size.

Throughout the process of recreating the ad it was important to stay true to what

Billabong wanted to represent all while demonstrating diversity through our ad. The changes that

were made were necessary to create an equal playing field for both men and women that would

want to represent the Billabong brand. We decided to make the center of the ad both men and

women in action shots to accurately represent the capabilities of the brand. To create diversity,

we added the other four stills to show that Billabong is not only a brand for surfing, but also a

lifestyle brand. Placing an emphasis that regardless of size, gender, or skin tone, the brand is a

lifestyle and an all-inclusive one at that. We are attempting to spread a message that women will

no longer be paraded around in advertising simply serve as a platform promoting derogatory sex

appeal, this ad is an attempt to prove that women strength and women empowerment is sexy.

Studies have shown that women are very opposed to their own sexual exploitation in ads,

“women in particular dislike the gratuitous use of sex in advertising, an effect that is most
prominent under constrained processing conditions,” yet even still the exploitation continues

(Dahl, Sengupta, Vohs, 216). Our vision for this ad is one that does not make women

uncomfortable with the way that they are portrayed. We used the feedback from these studies, to

keep our ad sexy, but not harmful. The diverse group of ethnicities that are presented in the ad

also helps us reach a greater audience. Traditionally, Billabong ads only include fit white

models, we are attempting to show that other models can be included in major ads. Creating a

more diverse cover, so that more people feel welcomed into the Billabong brand is one of the

major purposes of this ad. We want to reassure consumers that Billabong is not only for a

particular circle of people. In media there has been a push to incorporate minorities in ads to not

seem discriminatory, “This increase has undoubtedly been stimulated by social demands to

ensure that minority members are adequately represented in visible media positions” (Briley,

Shrum, Weyer, 1). That is, social demands are calling forth an increase of minority members in

advertising and we wanted to be a part of adequately representing all members of society in our

revision ad. Overall, our changes were made to break the chain of disgusting, borderline

pornographic images of women in media and create present a more diverse image from a

normally bias brand.

Ultimately, sex has been at the center of advertising since the beginning of time and will

more than likely continue to be so. The hope is that the more empowered women become, the

further we move towards breaking down the biases in ads such as the one that was originally

created by Billabong. We created “Revision to Empower” to combat societal standards of the

exploitation of women and the violent undertones that are found within the media. In our revised

ad we have not only empower women but have created an inclusive ad that shows the diversity

and versatility of the brand.

 Works Cited

Briley, Donnel A., et al. Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 17 Issue 1, Taylor & Francis Ltd.

2007, p36-48.

Dahl, Darren W., et al. Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36 Issue 2, August 2009, p215-231.

Tomak, Gizem. International Journal of Management Economics & Business / Uluslararasi

Yönetim Iktisat ve Isletme Dergisi, Special Issue, 2017, p467-475

Reichert, Tom. Annual Review of Sex Research, Vol. 13 Issue 1, 2003, p241-273

Toverljani, Anita, et al. Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 31 Issue 2, Mar/Apr 2017, p199-

206