Sofia Vergara Kmart Commercial - as seen on Oxygen
Sofia Vergara Kmart Commercial - as seen on MTV
In Sophia Vergara's commercial for Kmart, she advertises her new clothing line for women inviting them to "be proud, be sexy," and finally, to "dress like a woman." Based on her commercial, what does it mean to dress like a woman? How does she appeal to a female audience? Does she appeal to a male audience? If so, how? Is her commercial empowering for women—why or why not? Is she trying to market empowerment? Is she successful? Why or why not?
Additionally, as you can see, I've included two versions of this commercial. One version appeared on Oxygen and the other version appeared on MTV. Watch both videos with particular attention to the ending sequence with Sofia. There is a distinct difference that is hard to miss. Why do you think Version 1 appeared on Oxygen and Version 2 appeared on MTV? How does each version appeal to its respective audience? Do the differences between the two undermine or affirm an empowering representation of women?
The commercials have the same messages, but they do differ a bit. The commercial that is played on oxygen is structured to reach that audience which is boarder and different from those who watch Mtv. Oxygen is owned by Nbc, which has a different outlook then Viacom which owns Mtv. The MTV commercial focus on one other woman besides Sofia Vergara, and for that women they chose an African American. Where as in the oxygen commercial, they not only show more women, but first a white women, then two women that are racial different, then finally going back to Sofia Vergara. This advertisement shows that all women can wear the clothing and look good doing so. The ads focus a lot on Sofia's body and on the women's curves. Even at the end of the commercial she has to grab the attention of the camera person which is assumed to be a man. To not focus the camera on her chest but to her face.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Aaron. Both commercials strive to focus on a woman's sex appeal by showing Sofia and the other women in nice clothing that is somewhat revealing. They even include a picture/painting in the background of Sofia in a shirt that shows off her chest. I also noticed that in the Oxygen commercial, all of the workers on the set are men. This made me feel like Sofia was above the men since it was her commercial and they were just working on her set, giving her power over them and showing that women can be powerful. I also felt that the Oxygen commercial was aimed more at women since mostly women watch Oxygen and the commercial was longer. Therefore I think that the MTV commercial cut the commercial and made it shorter so it would appeal to both women and men.
DeleteI agree that the first one was aimed at women, but disagree that the second one was aim at both women and men. The way that women in the first commercial talk is obviously talking to a women; “If you got this, show this.”, “You are a woman, so dress like a woman.”, “Be proud, be sexy”. In the second commercial, it cut the first and the third line, but still talking to a woman. I think it just cut down for the specific kind of women who watch MTV, not for man.
DeleteIn response to both Peyton and Xuan, I would say that it is obvious that the target audience for her clothing line is women. I disagree with Xuan saying the second one does not target men. I think both make an effort to target men, doing this through Sofia's attractiveness and the other women as well. The mtv version also goes to further lengths to attract a male audience. Sofia's attractiveness is the central element in the commercial to try to sell the product. This appeals to both women, who may want to look like her, and men, who view her has attractive. The point of attracting men is another way to try to get a woman to buy the product, as a result of her significant other wanting her to dress like Sofia in the commercial. In this way, I would say both commercials appeal to men and women, and the differences in how each channel does this are quite noticeable as well.
DeleteI agree with both Aaron and Peyton, We all know that Sofia is a beautiful woman. She would be able sell anything, just because of her looks and her voice is very intriguing. Both sexes find that she is very attractive and fascinating. Women enjoy the way they feel when it comes to the way they look it gives them a sense of empowerment. The clothing shows all of her curves and shows woman everywhere that they too can look that beautiful wearing her clothing line. Although both commercials where almost identical the one that was totally geared toward woman was longer in length. Anytime there is woman involved in purchasing items the advertisers make sure to go to great lengths to show us why we need those items. It makes us feel better when we to can have things that make us look like the stars.
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ReplyDeleteI think by using Sofia Vergara and the other curvy actresses, the clothing line becomes appealing to women that could be thin or heavier set. This is a very different way to advertise considering the models from Victoria's secret. I think the commercial itself is aimed more at women but appeals to both men and ladies in the fact that women would watch the commercial and want to dress to look like the actresses where men would want their women to buy the clothes to make them look like the curvy sexy women portrayed in the advertisement. Also, I feel the target audience for the oxygen commercial is older women. The actresses are older and the oxygen channel is watched by an older generation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Becca in the sense that the commercial was marketed with the idea that these clothes are for more than supermodels. I also agree with the idea that the men would want the woman in their life to wear these clothes in order to look more like Sofia, but I think the idea behind using Sofia is simpler- men just like to look at women like Sofia Vergara. When thinking about how each version is marketed, I agree that Oxygen's commercial was marketed mainly at older women, but that it's more obvious that the MTV commercial is marketed toward both women and men, especially an age group closer to our generation. The fact that Sofia is physically more prominent in the MTV version makes this obvious
DeleteRebecca, I'm not sure if I would agree with you when you say the actresses are older. They look rather young to me. As your classmates have pointed out, there are more women in the Oxygen commercial than the MTV commercial, but that would be the only difference between the two commercials' choice of actresses.
ReplyDeleteGood work so far guys! Food for thought: a few of you have pointed out that at the end of the commercial, Sofia has to scold the camera man for panning down rather than up. This is true. However, did anyone happen to notice the difference in Sofia's body position in relation to the tv set in each? Take another look. Spot any differences?
In the Oxygen commercial, it seems like Sofia's body is slightly covered by the TV panel. In the MTV commercial, it seems like her body is more centered and the audience's view of her is less obstructed than the Oxygen one. Don't know if this is what you were looking for, but if it is, then it could tie into the idea that MTV has a more diverse viewing audience than Oxygen. Men would be more focused on how good Sofia looks, so by showing "more" of her on MTV, the MTV commercial could be targeting men more than the other one (although so subtly that a good number of viewers wouldn't even know it's happening)
DeleteI agree with Chris about the camera position changing based on the station that the commercial was playing on. To look closer at the backgrounds, in the oxygen commercial you can clearly see the women going through the work place and then she ends up in the home setting as opposed to the mtv commercial where the home background is nonexistent. By using this, I believe the commercial is suggesting that the clothing line is for the successful woman that goes to work in an office and also comes home to a family. When I suggested that the commercial was geared to older women, I simply meant that it isn't aimed at teenagers but more of a woman with a career.
DeleteI agree with Aaron, Peyton, and Juanita. About dressing like a woman, both commercials talk about wearing clothes that show off a woman's curves (and obviously targets women). Women watching the commercial may see how beautiful Sofia looks in her clothing line, and shop at Kmart in an attempt to mimic her looks (making the commercial successful). At the same time, I believe the commercial appeals to men because they want their wives to look as beautiful as Sofia. As a result, they may influence their wives to shop at Kmart or actually go in themselves to pick stuff out. The Oxygen commercial is also twice as long as the MTV commercial. As others have stated, this may be because Oxygen's audience is predominately women, while MTV's audience is more balanced. Obviously women would be more "into" the commercial than men (since they're the target audience), so the Oxygen commercial could be longer to further engage the women. Men wouldn't be as engaged, so the MTV commercial could be shorter to account for male "needs."
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ReplyDeleteIn both commercials, the idea of "dressing like a woman" is portrayed as accentuating your best physical features that you possess. She markets toward women by being a strong, central, proud woman, which is the current trend of how a woman should behave. To market to men, Sofia is dressed to show off her best assets, and it is obvious which those are. To me, she seems successful in marketing empowerment. The commercial was able to use other women to help prove her point, especially in the Oxygen version where women are more likely to be watching.
ReplyDeleteThe MTV version, as well as being shorter, featured only one woman besides Sofia and used sex appeal in a much stronger sense than the Oxygen version. It was hard to see the first few times, but the MTV commercial kept Sofia in the center of the shot with less things physically in the way of her. This represents that it is more likely that men will be watching on MTV, and using a commercial that has sex appeal from a female will keep MTV in as a popular television station. Oxygen is a station centered toward women, and will spend less effort trying to gather male viewers.
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ReplyDeleteA common marketing ethos is that people are interested in things they either like or identify with. These commercials exemplify those two themes very well. Oxygen TV has an obviously almost exclusive female audience. Each of the women portrays a stereotypical image that viewers can identify with: The voluptuous spanish/latin woman, the long blond caucasian woman, the full bodied black woman, and the smaller skinny asian woman. They could all literally be coming straight from a casting of Sex and the City:10 or some movie about traveling pants. The theme is that each woman is strong, confident, sexy in their own way, beautiful, and in control. It also has a unifying feeling that all women can feel this way, and that they're part of something larger than themselves. The commercial needs to be the full 30 seconds to get the message to all the viewers.
ReplyDeleteConversely, the MTV commercial only needs to be fifteen seconds to get its message across. I would argue that the average MTV viewer doesn't want, or perhaps isn't capable of implied thought,so the directors of the commercial go for the lowest common denominator. They remove any context of the other women, and focus solely on the fact Sofia is attractive. The CGI effect of her removing her clothes no longer is a transitory effect, but now alludes to her getting naked. This is only reinforced by the fact at the end of the MTV commercial, her breasts are much more visible (I had to watch it a couple times, just to make sure). So people are also interested in things they like (attractive women) captures a much broader portion of an MTV audience, the first commercial would not have.
Oh yeah that’s true, I've watched a couple times too. Her breast looks larger at the end of the MTV commercial. It’s a funny difference between the two ads. Anyways, I believe it’s a fairly impressive commercial. Lots information is stuffed in the relatively compact ads. It tells women to tress like women and at the same time, showed it by some representative (different race, figure) hot models. I don’t know if it is persuasive to women or not. But I do enjoy watch the ads.
DeleteAlthough both commercials contain the same content, they both project two very different messages catering to both audiences. Oxygen, a channel primarily viewed by women has many shows that can appeal to many different women such as Girlfriend Confidential, Bad Girls Club, I'm Having Their Baby, and Tanisha Gets Married. Kmart plays on this diversity in female viewers saying that any woman can and should be proud and sexy (if they wear clothes from Kmart) no matter what their size or race is(See the Hispanic, thin white, and curvy black women.)
ReplyDeleteThe audience that Kmart is targeting for Mtv is a younger one with many more men watching. For that reason sex appeal is used to attract and gain the attention of the audience. As Matt said, the transition from Sofia to other woman in the commercial now seems more like her just taking off her clothes. You can even hear someone cheering after she does this. For this reason, it seems as though the empowering statement in the first commercial of working with what you've got and, i guess, being yourself is diminished.
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DeleteI would agree with Justin on the topic of empowerment being diminished in the MTV commercial. The first commercial does a good job of not only diversifying the women but also the message being portrayed. It better represents that woman should be proud to express their figure and their personality. These qualities are shown through who Sofia is as a person. She doesn’t cover up her curves or hide her loud crazy personality. The whole concept of her clothing line is based off allowing women to express who they are. The second commercial failed to highlight these same notes by only reflecting on the sex appeal of Sofia. This was done through bringing her to the forefront of the scene, and the quick changing of her clothes. This made the MTV commercial one noted. It ended up misrepresenting her intended message for the clothing line.
DeleteIt also seems that the commercial is making women feel confident about there appearance. This commercial is saying women do not have to look like Sofia to be able to wear her clothing line. They can wear her clothes and still feel good about themselves even if they do not look like Sofia. To me the second commercial seems to be more risqué and attention grabbing so it will attract the men’s attention more then the first commercial. Its going to make the men want their wives or girlfriends to look like Sofia does and the other women that are wearing her clothes in this commercial. Also they will see how happy the women look and they would want there significant other to feel the same way and they will think Sofia’s clothing line will do that for them.
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