Download Selling Truth: How Nike`s Advertising to Women Claimed a

Selling Truth: How Nike's Advertising to Women Claimed a Contested Reality
Jean M. Grow
Joyce M. Wolburg
The Role of Advertising in Society
Historically, the role of advertising in society has been hotly contested by scholars across
several disciplines. In the 1980s, two advertising and marketing scholars debated whether
advertising merely reflects existing cultural values or also constructs them. There was
little disagreement between Pollay (1986) and Holbrook (1987) that advertising reflects
culture. Their dispute concerned advertising's ability to construct or shape cultural
values, with Holbrook (1987) arguing that advertising was nothing more than a "mirror"
of culture and Pollay arguing that advertising was a "distorted mirror" that both reflected
and shaped the culture.17 Though their debate was then—and still is—significant among
academics and individual members of the advertising profession, the industry as a whole
has positioned advertising as a mirror that reflects what already exists, not a shaper.18 One
benefit the industry enjoys from this perspective is that it deflects blame for negative
consequences away from advertising to other elements in pop culture (e.g., films,
television programs, news coverage).
Further, when Pollay and Holbrook debated advertising's role in society, they assumed
what Cultural Studies scholars call a reflective approach to representation—that meaning
lies within "the object, person, idea of event in the real world, and language functions like
a mirror to reflect the true meaning as it already exists in the world."19 Nowhere did either
Pollay or Holbrook acknowledge the possibility of a constructionist approach—that there
is nothing absolute to represent in the first place, that meaning doesn't exist until it is
represented, and that meaning is constructed using concepts and signs.20 The
constructionist approach does not deny the existence of the material world but maintains
that meaning comes from the symbols (e.g., language, ads) that represent the material
world rather than from the material world directly.
We can also infer that the advertising industry stance toward communication privileges a
transmission view over a ritual view. Carey maintained that communication not only
disseminates information (the transmission view), but also portrays and confirms a
particular view of the world (the ritual view).21 Using news coverage as an example,
Carey observed that audience members see news as the portrayal of contending forces in
the world with a continual shift of roles rather than a simple dissemination of
information. Accordingly, "news is not information but drama ... It does not describe the
world but portrays an arena of dramatic forces and action ..."22 Likewise, most ads do
more than transmit information. They invite us to participate in a ritual contest between
opposing forces where certain depictions construct new institutional roles and others
maintain the status quo.
Depiction Issues in Advertising
Ads typically position products and services as solutions to problems and needs, even the
path to happiness; thus, advertisers select certain depictions of people, products, and
events for their ability to signify a preferred meaning. Conflicts occur if these depictions
offend members of society, for various groups have gone to great lengths to leverage
their demands for favorable depictions, even to the extent of boycotting products. Such
was the case when Hispanics protested the Frito Bandito of the 1960s23 and Taco Bell's
Chihuahua in 1998, claiming that such depictions left Hispanics out of the "economic,
political and racial dialogue in this country."24
The history of portrayal issues in advertising for women occupies a vast body of literature
that is beyond the scope of this article. However, it is important to examine a few issues
affecting the portrayal of women in the 1990s, given that this study offers an evaluation
of Nike's advertising to women in campaigns that ran from 1990 through 2000. The
1970s saw a social trend in which women actively protested ads that they found
demeaning.25 As women became more vocal in their dissatisfaction with portrayals they
found negative, advertisers struggled to decide whether the ads alienated only a small
group of "radical" feminists—whom they felt they could safely alienate—or whether
advertisers were alienating mainstream customers whose purchasing power made them
too desirable to lose.26 Some advertisers began to experiment with portrayals of women
that they thought would resonate with feminists.27 Reebok spouted lines such as "I believe
babe is a four letter word" and "I believe high heels are a conspiracy against women."28
Finding a way for advertisers to appeal to women in the 1990s was difficult. Advertisers
began to realize more fully that there was not one role depiction that accurately reflected
the majority of women. In the 1970s and 1980s, advertisers believed women assumed
only one of two main roles: homemakers devoted to family and career women climbing
the corporate ladder. However, by the 1990s the roles of women were more complex and
variable (e.g., more women chose to stay single or to marry later, and women chose
occupations from a wider set of options). There were more ways that marketers could go
wrong.29 Ad campaigns typically erred on the side of caution and avoided "cutting-edge"
representation, thus earning most advertisers the reputation of being behind the times.
Despite the changes over time in the depiction of women, one constant has been the
emphasis on beauty. Standards have changed over time from voluptuousness to thinness,
but cultural norms continue to promote the importance of beauty.30 Furthermore, most
women strive to attain the ideal of beauty prevalent in the culture, even if they feel that
their efforts fail.31 Unfortunately, those who cannot attain the idealized standard run the
risk of becoming invisible,32 being portrayed negatively,33 or being presented as tokens.34
Feminist Critiques of Advertising
Given that gendered representations are a primary driver in this study, a brief review of
feminist literature and the impact of feminism on advertising offers an insightful point of
reference for analyzing early Nike women's advertising. Feminist theory generally
suggests that women's experiences are different from men's, and that women's
experiences are not accurately reflected because some form of patriarchy dominates the
cultural, social, and economic landscape. From that basic premise, a schism emerged in
the late 1970s at the end of the "second wave" of feminism. The result was two very
broad schools of thought that categorized the wide array of feminist concepts that existed.
One focuses primarily on the "beauty myth," to use Naomi Wolf's 1991
characterization.35 This position contends that the essence of women's issues is rooted in
the ideals of beauty, which condition a woman "to view her face as a mask and her body
as an object."36 To understand the artificial construction of gender, we must study how
the patriarchy manages this construction.37
The other school also focuses on inequities that women have suffered but articulates
feminist perspectives within a broader context, one that more actively integrates the
economic landscape. Unlike the former group, these feminists do not ground their
arguments in Marxism, for, as Scott contends, "capitalism is not the cause; it is merely
the current circumstance."38 Though they are aware of the physical double standard to
which women are often held, they view capitalism as offering a way to improve the lives
of women.39 They generally look at feminism as a way of working within the system to
promote equity at a more fundamental level and look for ways to use capitalism to
women's advantage. In fact, the history of feminism has multiple examples of how the
market advanced the cause "through the media, through products, through book
publishing and lecturing, through employment practices or through advertisements."40
While there are clear differences that divide feminists, all agree that "politics is inherent
in feminism."41
The former group of feminists contend that "advertisements serve a political function in
reinforcing notions of men as naturally dominant and women as naturally subordinate."42
This articulates a focus on constructions of physicality and beauty as central to feminist
critiques. The latter group argues that women have had an impact on marketing since
they entered the professional workforce, albeit a small part in the early years, and that
feminist influences on marketing gained prominence by the late 1970s.43 They contend
that while objectification of women is still commonplace, more images of women exist as
equals than the former group is willing to concede.
Scott and Nava both contend that capitalism has the potential to advance feminists' causes
precisely because of the focus on consumption, and that marketing and advertising
functions in ways that can activate women's ability to empower themselves. Scott further
states that marketing can advance feminism if women are willing to "act under imperfect
conditions."44 Nava� argues that advertising heightened awareness of women's
intelligence beyond the sphere of consumption in large part because of women's
"expertise" as consumers.45
What many do not know is that women working in the advertising industry have
leveraged the depictions of women in advertising throughout most of the twentieth
century. As early as the 1920s, Helen Lansdowne Resor headed the women's department
and formed a women's editorial board within the J. Walter Thompson agency. Resor had
nearly complete autonomy in the management of product design and marketing as well as
major control of leading national accounts, including Woodbury soap, Pond's cold cream,
and Cutex manicure products.46 In the 1950s, copywriter Shirley Polykoff was charged
with selling hair dye to women at a time when the prevailing morality still held that
respectable women didn't color their hair. Using a headline that was initially rejected by
the all-male executive staff at Life because they found it too suggestive, she successfully
challenged the highly sexualized context for hair color with Clairol's Does She or Doesn't
She campaign.47 By the 1970s, brands from Dewar's to Right Guard spoke to women with
empowering themes.48 Women who work in advertising today are more able to
acknowledge the importance of portrayal issues, the impact on society, and their own role
in shaping culture. Denise Fedewa, senior vice president and planning director for Leo
Burnett's subsidiary, LeoShe, made the following comment:
Advertising is so fascinating, because it's both a mirror of the culture and it moves culture
forward. I think the best advertising ... taps into a direction that we are moving in, but we
are not there yet, and it helps take us there ... I think we've gotten a lot better at doing that
... in tapping into where they [women] are moving next ... I am in a position to have an
impact on how women are portrayed in mass culture through advertising.49
Stern and Pe�aloza suggest that women also view advertising very differently than men
do. In a 2000 study, Stern argues that women tend to see texts as stories where they can
either "lose themselves" or find their own voices reflected.50 Pe�aloza contends that
advertising is a dialogic and participatory means of engaging consumers, particularly
women.51 In fact, both Stern's and Pe�aloza's propositions articulate what happened
between consumers and Nike through its early women's advertising. Thus, the common
thread among these feminist scholars is the idea that capitalism and the consumption that
drives it offer opportunities for change in women's lives if women are willing to act—and
act is precisely what the creative team did.
Jean M. Grow
Jean Grow's research is underpinned by a passion for exploring controversial topics in the
advertising industry from untold, inside stories to direct-to-consumer advertising of
pharmaceuticals. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Communication Inquiry, the
International Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Education and others.
She recently co-authored a book on creative with Tom Altstiel, an ad industry
professional, Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics From the Outside/In. She has also
won numerous teaching awards and continues to remain active in the ad industry through
her consulting firm, Grow Creative Resources. Prior to moving to Wisconsin, she worked
in Chicago as an artists' representative with agency clients including Foote Cone &
Belding, J. Walter Thompson and Leo Burnett; and corporate clients including CocaCola, Kellogg's and Zenith. Professor Grow is an Assistant Professor at Marquette
University in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. She earned her Ph.D.
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her B.F.A. from the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago.
Joyce M. Wolburg
Joyce M. Wolburg is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the J.
William and Mary Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University and an
Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. Her research
interests have included cultural values in advertising, college students' responses to antismoking messages, the ritual meaning of binge drinking among college students, risk
communication strategies, and portrayal issues. Professor Wolburg has published articles
in journals including the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Communication, Journal of
Advertising Research, Journal of Consumer Affairs, and Journal of Consumer Marketing.
She received her Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Copyright © 2006 by The Advertising Educational Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.