Advertising and Us

Guiltless Mothers: Can it Get Any Better than This?

It is around 5:30 am when I wake up to get ready for work. After an eight-hour journey, I leave work to pick up my daughter at day care, and so my day is at its half. Between grocery shopping, prepping and cooking a healthy meal, the guilt for not dedicating more of my time to my offspring pushes me a little further to entertain her or take her for a walk, followed by bath time and, finally, storytelling and sleep. Then it is time to focus on myself; nevertheless, share “me time” with homework and more assignments. This often exhausting routine is not unusual to many working mothers, and along their physical and mental exhaustion, it comes guilt for apparently not doing enough for their loved ones. The reality among busy mothers who juggle to manage their careers, families, educating and raising their children, is that time has become a rare asset, and the slight idea of cooking a healthy meal that may take away another hour of their days, can be easily filled in with the promises of a healthier fast food alternative. And with so many options on the prospects worthy filling up our children’s tummies, the food industry and its advertising campaigns seem to know exactly how to appeal to their more avid consumers, namely women.
In the U.S., traditional gender roles assume that the woman is the caregiver, the homemaker, even when working in a full time job, while men are typified the autonomous, powerful and aggressive individuals, which would normally infer they are the decisions makers when considering the purchasing decisions in a household. However, as Businessweek magazine illustrates through the article “I Am Woman, Hear Me Shop”, in study by the Boston Consulting Group, "Today's woman is the chief purchasing agent of the family and marketers have to recognize that” (qtd. Michael Silverstein). Adding to this statement, data from the U.S. Department of Labor, shows that the influx of women in the workforce reached out almost 60% of in 2004, helping us to infer woman have also earned financial means to consolidate the decision making power when considering overall purchases. As household managers, women supervise the budget for and purchase of many items consumed by their families, and within those, is food. Because women traditionally engage in more of the family food shopping, and are the routinely the ones preparing the family meals, they are consistently aware of what constitutes a healthy meal.
The food industry and its advertisers are aware of such informed consumer and their respective deciding power. The evidence is that food ads in magazines are mainly targeted to women. In ad extracted from Parents Magazine, assuming that its audience is, in fact, parents, men and women, isn’t difficult to find out women are more likely to develop a further interest for what affects their children and families. I assume that, because in my household, after discussing what publication could help guiding raising our daughter, my husband and I decided to subscribe to the magazine. While I was the one actively looking for options and making the purchase, I noticed that, even after the first publication arrived at our home, my husband only took a glance at its cover.
Not surprisingly, when looking through the pages of May’s Parents magazine, an ad from Oscar Mayer, a very well known meat and cold cut production company famous specially for its hot dogs, therefore not the healthiest meal options one could conclude, calls my attention. It shows a boy apparently six years of age, appearing to be a happy and healthy child on his normal weight as he voraciously eats a hot dog, expressing a certain delight while savoring his meal. In the ad’s background, figures a barbecue pit under the rain, in what seems a day that could’ve been a bad one, except for the hot dog that saved meal time. Attached to the ad, the message “100% chance of smiles. Introducing Oscar Mayer Selects hot dogs. Made with 100% pure beef and no nitrates or nitrites except those naturally occurring in celery juice.”; in the sidelines, as a slogan for the ad (possibly a campaign?), it says “it doesn’t get better than this”, and “Let it rain all it wants”, make me reflect on why that ad seemed so appealing. The answer, or at least a significant part of the explanation for it, is that the women have a natural need for nurturing, and that comes into play as an appeal that helps selling fast food, dismissing any possible guilt homemakers or full time working mothers may face against themselves. Suddenly Oscar Mayer hotdogs made with 100% pure beef could be the winner of lunch or dinner marathons. Yet, the sole fact parents are givers may contribute to “healthy” fast food selection when it comes to simply feed their little ones, as Jib Fowler points out in his article “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, “Akin to affiliative needs is the need to take care of small, defenseless creatures – children and pets, largely.”(78) Thus, a hotdog ad may just be enough to unite both worlds, the fulfillment of the nurturing need and the practicality modern life demands from parents.
Equally important when analyzing the ad, and following Fowles’s approach, is the ad appeal using the need for autonomy. In exercising autonomy by feeding their children hotdogs, mothers can delegate the meal elaboration to the makers of this product, namely Oscar Mayer hot dogs. The enforcing aspect of the ad, the guarantee that the mouthwatering item is made with 100% pure beef, free of neither nitrites nor nitrates, facilitates the mother’s’ decision on making the right choice when feeding their children. According to Fowles, “An appeal to the need for autonomy often occurs with one for the need for escape, since the desire to duck out of our social obligations, to seek rest or adventure, frequently takes the form of one-person flight.” (82). And, again, such statement seems perfectly obvious when the selling product is fast food. Inevitably, mothers become their children’s heroes, pleasing their palate with an all timer kid’s meal favorite. Women are also, in this ad, everybody’s heroes, since the setting, a rainy day where barbecue was supposed to be the meal, is substituted by a hot dog that doesn’t necessarily demands cooking or grilling, assuring the entire family happy day.
The actual fact the hot dogs are a handy meal to have at home, can also be explained by the need of feeling safe. One more time, Jib Fowles is assertive when stating “We take precautions to diminish future threats.” (83). As natural nurturers, women want to be certain of their families’ well being, and food availability is a key element that allows the exercise of feeling safe.
Hot dogs do not only satisfy the need of feeling safe, but this hot dog ad specially, also goes beyond an alternative meal that allows women to escape, to nurture. The vivid red color of the hot dog, topped with more red (ketchup) and yellow (mustard) help emphasizing the focus of this ad. But also the blue of the boy’s shirt, indicates the character in evidence, and more intriguing is that the boy’s ethnicity in, isn’t easily identifiable. According to the author of “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, “Advertisers know there is little chance of good communication occurring if an ad isn’t visually pleasing.”(83) The choice of a neutral looking child, since the little one in the ad could be Middle Eastern, Hispanic, white American, yet original of many different ethnical groups, provides the magazine reader with a non-threatening image, where the aesthetic sensations are satisfied
When we look at a cute child, in an apparent regular weight, devouring a hot dog that pledges the use of better and more natural ingredients, takes all the possible guilt away from busy parents. “It doesn’t get better than this”, says the ad; and advertisers know it doesn’t.