Representation Analysis

The "Close the Loop" ad by H&M is an excellent example of how to represent your entire audience. The ad featured people of all races, ages, genders, social classes, body times and more. For example, senior citizens, who are often portrayed as boring and tasteless because of their age, were shown wearing extremely trendy and exciting clothing, with pops of color, crazy fabrics, and interesting shapes. A man was also shown wearing a skirt, which is also rare considering the gender roles placed on men. Men typically are judged if they are not dressed in a more 'masculine' way, because society puts men and women in their own groups, making it hard to try out different styles of fashion. The ad is very successful in portraying that regardless of who you are, you can wear whatever you want.

However, the Axe commercial poorly represents women. While there are women of all races, including white, hispanic, black and asian, their body types are really what misrepresents them. All the women in the video are tall, toned and have large breasts and butts. This causes the female audience to become insecure, as it portrays this massive group to only have one 'perfect' body type. Seeing something representative of yourself in media builds confidence in a sense of belonging, so this only leads to an unrealistic expectation of women. Additionally, this creates a negative effect on men as they will believe that these are the 'golden standard' of women, as they are all chasing the very happy male character. The ad also over-sexualizes the women in their choice of minimal clothing and degrades them to just being an object of a man's desire.