The word ‘advertisements’ would not sound unfamiliar to us anymore. They have been a part of our daily life since the 18th century (Wikipedia). Now we could find them literally everywhere in various media mass such as on the billboard, television, social media, magazines and radio. Advertising is the most powerful way in today’s industry to introduce or promote companies’ products by using different techniques in order to attract their target audiences. One of the most involved techniques is related to language. The focus of this research is to evaluate the language that is used in advertisements directed to women and men. It appears that both advertisements have differences in their choice of words.
To begin with, they are using different slogans in order to make their products stand out more. Men’s products tend to use muscular catchy slogans that would make men who use or consume the products feel tougher and be more attractive to the opposite sex. Some of the slogans are ‘Love at first sniff’ used by a deodorant company, ‘The best a man can get’ in a razor advertisement, and ‘The breakfast of champions’ in a whole wheat flakes cereal box. While in women’s, the slogans would sound more empowering and classy. The slogans are ‘Because every color suits the glowing skin’, ‘Reveal the goddess in you’, and ‘Skin first. Makeup second. Smile always.’
In addition, we are going to look further to the part of speech used in advertisements which will be the nouns, gender nouns to be more precise. Gender nouns are divided into four groups, masculine, feminine, common, and neuter. According to a research done by a Kristianstad University English Department’s student towards 18 advertisements in male and females magazines. It is shown that more non-neutral nouns are being used in male advertisements compared to females’ with the percentage difference of 11.4%. While on the other hand, the female advertisements have bigger percentage in the usage of neutral nouns by 79.8% (Jie Yang et al., 2010). Neutral nouns that refer to non-living objects and not to any particular gender are much more used in females advertisements to give more detailed information about the products in terms of their ingredients and effects. However, in accordance to the result shown (Jie Yang et al., 2010), there are more neutral nouns associated with the products in male magazines than in females’. It is found that 3 different watch advertisements contain 16 neutral nouns wherein only 12 nouns found in females magazines. There is a potential factor which cause this to happen that the usage of the neutral nouns depend on the products. Watch advertisements would require more nouns to describe the products’ components.
Furthermore, the advertisers are more likely to assume the interests of their audiences and influence, therefore they tend to provide more detailed description in females’ products than males’. Nowadays it is not only found in the description but also the name of the products. Skin care products that are spreading for the past few years are mostly named after the ingredients contained. Giving the examples of a one Korean skincare brand called COSRX AHA/BHA Clarifying Treatment Toner, Good Genes All-in-One Lactic Acid Treatment by Sunday Riley, and Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution by The Ordinary. Females would want to know what is going into their skin and are more tempted to buy products which contain safe ingredients. Through this, females, despite of not being professionals, are being more educated with chemical ingredients and the side effects over the years. Hence it is not a rare thing anymore to hear a same-sex conversation between females talking about chemical products contained in their cosmetics or skin care products.