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Contemporary men’s advertising: differing reactions to male role portrayals using Dolce & Gabbana campaign European Institute for Advanced Studies in Managements 4th Workshop on Interpretive Consumer Research Marseilles 26-27 April 2007 Jonathan Elms*, Lancaster University Management School, UK Ronan de Kervenoael, Sabanci University, Faculty of Management, Istanbul, Turkey and Aston Business School UK D.Selcen O. Aykac Sabanci University, Faculty of Management, Istanbul, Turkey *Contact Details: Jonathan Elms Department of Marketing Lancaster University Management School George Fox Building. Bailrigg Lancaster. LA1 4YX. UK +44 (0)1524 594033 +44 (0)1524 593928 [email protected] Abstract This paper seeks to explore the visual representation and identification of masculinity in a contemporary advertising campaign.

Although masculinity is not necessarily a visual

concept, advertisers increasingly represent ‘visions of masculinity’ to entice male consumers. The contribution lies in the expansion of previous literature on the portrayal of masculinity and male body image in advertising imagery, seeking an understanding of the construction and negotiation of masculinity via advertising and consumer culture. Through the use of the Dolce and Gabbana campaign, the representation of male gender identity in print ads is explored and consumer reactions are investigated. A two-stage methodology was employed to gather data regarding masculinity and its portrayal in print advertising. Firstly, sixteen indepth interviews were conducted. Secondly, netnography was used, collecting data from three web forums, each constructed by consumers specifically to discuss the ad campaign used in this study. The very nature of the campaign allowed for the exploration of views and effects of homosexual imagery in mainstream advertising media. We argue that masculinity is a spirit or character that can be expressed and identified visually via physical body image, yet a truer portrayal of masculinity can be identified through body language. The need to demonstrate masculinity by ‘proving’ heterosexuality is scrutinised, implying, for some men at least,

homosexuality may not be regarded as masculine. The Dolce and Gabbana campaign main features are to (a) exclude females, and more importantly, (b) display no sign of any interest in females, using men surrounded by other men in various states of undress. A possible explanation could be that masculinity and femininity are in fact entangled in someway, a view held by Fischer and Arnold (1994) who depict femininity and masculinity as ‘orthogonal’ rather than ‘bipolar’ to one another in the sense that men and women will identify with both genders to various degrees. This view is reinforced by Social Role Theory (Eagly, 1987 cf. Putrevu, 2001), declaring individuals possesses differing levels of masculinity and femininity depending on the social situation at hand regardless of biological gender. Askegaard (1991) maintains that socio-cultural identity concerns questions such as ‘who are we and who are the others?’ and ‘how are we related to each other?’. Questions such as these can both be created and answered through the images advertising portrays, thereby enabling the construction of both individual masculinity and culturally accepted masculinity. Advertising images have changed their portrayals of masculinity through male body image from being the hegemonic, muscle bound, ‘cowboy’ image of stereotypical masculinity, to the ‘New Man’ of the 1980s, a sensitive, warm soul in touch with his feminine emotional side (Patterson and Elliott, 2002). The ‘New Man’ has recently been reinvented, taking the form of the ‘metrosexual male’, and is increasingly being used as marketing ploy (Hyman, 2004) to target products at young men (Simpson, 2002). With the views of those such as Patterson and Elliott (2002), there has been a growing feminisation and ‘queering’ of hegemonic masculinity, through increased male participation in consumption, and encouragement of visual consumption such as ‘men gazing at men’. Thus in print advertising it could be argued that the tangible masculinity has more importance over the intangible masculine spirit. This is presented in Figure 1, the Masculine Identification Loop.

Low Importance Tangible Masculinity • • •

Body Image Actions Pose

High Importance in Print Media

Figure 1: The Masculine Identification Loop References:

High Importance Intangible Masculinity • • • •

Spirit Personality Character Attitude