Representation of women in advertising

This print based advert, which is for Covergirl make up, featuring the image of actress Sofia Vergara, specifically targets women. In this advertisement we can see a young, woman with flawless looking skin, with an image of the make up placed over her hands. The target audience would naturally be women, as the brand is being represented by a woman, and it is most often women who wear make up. This advert has the features of a typical make up or skincare ad, it features a young, attractive woman, with perfect teeth, sin and hair which would be the main image of the ad. The brand is shown in writing and an image of the product is also shown.

This advert is following the stereotype that all women wear make up, and want to have flawless skin and look like the woman shown in the ad. The advert includes text which says; 'introducing a longwear that will keep you fabulous from 9-5.' This is referring to the stereotypical job time for a woman, working the hours of nine to five. For most women this is clearly not the case, as their hours will mostly be longer. This advert portrays the ideology that women want to wear make up and they want it to say perfect through out the day.

Another ideology is that women want to be seen as attractive, beautiful and desirable. The text on the advert also states that the actress representing this brand is wearing the make up featured, however they are leaving out the fact that the image has also been photoshopped and airbrushed. Women are being presented with the idea that if they wear this foundation they too can have a flawless looking complexion like Sophie Vergara, however it may be the case that some women don't desire this. It is a well known stereotype that a woman's appearance is what matters the most to her and that they are obsessive about make up and fashion. This advert tells us that this is what being feminine and a typical woman should look like, that women should wear make up and want to look pretty - although this factor may be true for many women, this is not the case for the entire female population.

The audience of this advert would be women, from the ages of around fifteen and above as this is the ages that some women become interested in make up. As this is a print based advert, it is likely that it would be featured in a magazine or on a billboard.