analysing Ads.. (THREE) sexual fantasy

Ahem.. today we are going to look at this perfume for men. Tom Ford is famous for his bold moves in using sexually explicit images in his advertisements.

let’s take a look at this men’ fragrance Ad from Tom Ford for Men. (there is actually another Ad from this campaign.. however, that Ad is too explicit.. way over the limitations i set for my blog, therefore i decided not to post it here.. if you wanna see that other Ad, you may Google the images for "Tom Ford For Men perfume")

Clearly, female image is used and exploited to promote this product. The woman in this Ad is objectified and be gazed at, as a sexual toy, which pleases men for sexual pleasure.

This female model is portrayed as in an excited state, with the bottle of perfume placed “strategically” between her breasts. (remind you all of something?)

This Ad is suggesting sexual imagination- sexual fantasy. Moreover, if the bottle is signifying male’s sexual organ, this Ad is conveying a clear sexual message “use this brand and you will get an experience as this one- conquering women beneath you.” This woman in the Ad is not taken as a respected individual, but as a “sexual object”. So what are women to men?

Take a look at alcohol printed Ads; again, women are constantly seen as objects in fulfilling men’s sexual desires and fall victim to conquests that any man can have if he just consumes a certain drink.

Advertisers are trying to make media audiences believing that they are going to experience the fantasy as portrayed. From analyzing semiotics in alcoholic Ads, we can see that advertisers often use sexual symbol implicitly to convey sexual messages. capturing female model using sexually suggestive facial expressions and their body to advertise, leading false impressions of getting drunk equals to conquering women.

but then... media audiences don't really care about all that right.. haha coz people gets excited when we see sexually explicit images. haha

analysing Ads.. (ONE)

analysing Ads is always fun. i like to analyse Ads whenever i set eyes on Ads.

this is just a normal alcohol Ad.. (normal in the sense that there are no sexually explicit images) and well, i guess it dated a while back..

let's look at this text and see what is in the discourse.

main participants of this text: Man, Skyy Vodka, glasses.

invisible participants: women. (do u see any women in this Ad?)

Some Ads used signifier and signified to represent male and female sex symbol.

This is a good example which used the signifier (alcohol bottle and glass) to represent the signified (male/male sexual organ and female/female sexual organ respectively). don't understand? well, think about the physical characteristics of general alcohol bottle and the glasses. this is the common characteristics in alcohol Ads to represent male and female.

This Ad connotes: with Skyy Vodka in hand, this man conquers all women (represented by glasses).

or you can also say, this man can buy drinks for all women in the club.

Consume Skyy Vodka then there will be women waiting in line for him.

So what idea is this Ad suggesting?

Even though women are absent from this Ad, they are part of the discourse, backgrounded as “victims” for men to conquer.

consume Skyy Vodka, you can have sexual experience the way you fantasize it- conquer women's body.

no sexually explicit images, but the meaning is present.

so wow, look at that. the power of alcohol, as advertised. No? you think about this.

(p/s: this Ad is analysed based on its semiotic symbols used, and yeah, this Ad is analysed by me ^^)