Advertising is a powerful force in American

culture.

It exists to sell products and

services.

In 1750 BC, the Code of Hammurabi made it a crime, punishable by death, to sell anything to a child without first obtaining a power of attorney.

Starting in the 1990’s, selling products to

American children became a standard

business practice.

• The use of celebrities and other endorsers in advertisements is a standard marketing technique aimed at promoting new products and enhancing market share of existing brands.

• Audiences feel that they personally know these famous personalities and often develop an “illusion of intimacy” with them.

• Advertisers are well aware of the positive influence that celebrities can bring to a persuasive message.

• Celebrities are individuals who are symbolic icons, popular in the culture, and transfer their symbolic meaning to the products they endorse in advertising.

• Marketers hope that consumers accept and consume the meanings celebrity endorsers represent and then link these meanings with their products.

• Sneaker companies routinely use celebrity athletes, like Michael Jordan, to help position and market their premium brands.

• Young consumers often look upon celebrities as their role models.

• The false advertising is that purchasing the product will elevate the consumer to the same level.

I wanna be like Mike!

It’s gotta be the shoes!

• Deceptive Advertising involves the use of false statements or inaccurate information related to cost, amount, and quality of the product.

• Athletic apparel advertisements featuring high-profile athletes take advantage of youth by deluding them into “thinking they can achieve their dreams by putting out good money.”

• To further increase the persuasive appeal of advertising, manufacturers have come to rely heavily on the use of celebrities and well-known individuals as endorsers of their products.

• In their preoccupation to develop ads that are persuasive, some advertisers may pay inadequate attention to other criteria such as informativeness and truthfulness.

• The youth are more vulnerable to mass persuasion and deception than adults, and they constitute both “the audience with the greatest gullibility and the least amount of money.”

• Everyone is hurt by deceptive advertising and harmless bluffing, but those most susceptible to such techniques are children, the uninformed, the less educated, the poor, and the ill.

• These individuals are considered vulnerable; they may put their faith in the advertised product, be ultimately hurt by the deception, and suffer the wrath of false advertising.

• Deceptive advertising is not persuasion, but manipulation that violates the principle of maintaining respect for others.

We discovered that if a woman is violent, she’s

too harsh. And if she’s ‘active’ (i.e., an aerobics

nut), she’s too light. We realized we wanted

them somewhere in between—they have to be

violent and still be feminine.

-Terry Sullivan, CEO,

Women’s Professional Football League

I don’t think women will ever totally mimic

male athletes, not because they are morally

superior but because of sexism. We won’t

allow women the same degree of freedom.

Mary Jo Kane, director

Tucker Center for Research

on Girls & Women in Sport

• As girls grow up, they often want to see what is possible before they experiment with and develop their own athletic skills. This is the case because many of them still receive mixed messages about becoming serious athletes.

• The visions of being an athlete can be clouded by swimsuit models in Sports Illustrated.

• Female athletes have begun to be featured in ads and marketing campaigns with high levels of sex appeal.

• The promotion of these female athletes focuses not only on their sports acumen, but on their bodies which serve as an obvious endorsement of sex and sexual appeal.

• Young athletes are led to believe that they can only take part in that sport, if they too are sexy and beautiful.

• The USA Women’s Beach Volleyball team created widespread attention during the Olympics.

• Whether intentional or not on the part of the camera operator and producer, viewers did see players’ backsides throughout all games, and these buttock shots included a large number of instances when players made uniform adjustments.

• These media outlets chose to select the images that showcased the women as sexual objects, not their strength, athleticism, or power.

Female athletes appear to get more coverage if they are physically

attractive and scantily clad, which tends to deemphasize their athletic

prowess.

When it comes to marketing female athletes and sports, sex sells better

than athletic skill..

Winning just doesn’t matter as much as it used to…There are other ways these athletes can capture the public’s

attention: by being gorgeous or by being a ‘bad boy.’ And getting the public’s attention is all these companies really

care about.

The real winners in advertising are not the

consumer or athlete, but the advertisers

themselves.

• Bissel, K. L., & Duke, A. M. (2007). Bump, set, spike: An analysis of commentary and camera angles of women's beach volleyball during the 2004 Summer Olympics. Journal of Promotion Management, 13(1/2), 35-53.

• Bryant, J. E., & McElroy, M. (1997). Sociological dynamics of sport and exercise. Englewood, CO: Morton Publishing Company.

• Choic, S. M., & Rifon, N. J. (2007). Who is the celebrity in advertising? Understanding dimensions of celebrity images. Journal of Popular Culture, 40(2), 304-324.

• Coakley, J. (2001). Sport in society: Issues & controversies (7th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

• Desensi, J. T., & Rosenberg, D. (2003). Ethics and morality in sport management. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.

• Eitzen, D. S. (2003). Fair and foul: Beyond the myths and paradoxes of sport (2nd ed.). New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

• Kertz, C. L., & Ohanian, R. (1992). Source credibility, legal liability, and the law of endorsements. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 11(1), 12-23.

• Wilson, B., & Sparks, R. (1996). It's gotta be the shoes: Youth, race, and sneaker commercials. Sociology of Sport Journal, 13, 398-427.