Female Sports Advertising in Relation to Hegemony

Rhetoric, by very definition, is a message that relies on verbal and non-verbal symbols

that influence attitudes, values, beliefs, and actions. Rhetoric is important because persuasion is

important. It is everywhere and is unstoppable. Throughout this semester we have discussed

many scholars and theories that relate to rhetoric. One particular chapter in our book, however,

stood out to me the most. As we discussed the theory of ideology, I found myself connecting

with it. Becoming aware of this theory and the idea of hegemony sparked my interest and made

me want to investigate into how these ideas relate to me in my life. In order to learn more about

how hegemony exists in our daily lives, I decided to explore how it is used to persuade people

through marketing. Hegemony affects advertisements in a huge way, and because of this, I

chose to analyze the history of women in sports advertisements, and how hegemony has played a

role in them over time. What I found was incredible. The use of women in sports advertising

has developed in many ways over the past decade, and while hegemony may always exist in this

type of marketing, it has certainly come a long way.

In order to understand how ideology and even more specifically, hegemony affect sports

advertising, one must look back at the history and origin of these ideas. Ideology refers to the

culturally shared beliefs about how the world is and how it ought to be (Stoner-Perkins, 2005 ).

This term refers to how the world is structured, ordered, and created. When we think of

ideology, the word “ideal” comes to mind. By using an ideological approach to live, one thinks

of what an ideal world would be like. Ideology develops an ideal culture as a whole. Included in

this is race, religion, body type, political views and so on. The idea of hegemony takes the idea

of ideology event further. Hegemony was developed by Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist of the

1970’s. Hegemony, by Gramsci’s definition, is the everyday means by which a dominant belief

system, practice, custom, or people prevails within a culture (Stoner-Perkins, 2005). Hegemony

favors the most dominant ideas of a culture, anything else being completely marginalized. In

Gramsci’s eyes, by examining his own culture, certain classes had succeeded in persuading the

other classes of society to accept its own cultural values. By this class’ persuasion, the majority

of a population consented to the ideal cultural beliefs. To some degree, hegemony can be seen as

"common sense", a cultural universe where the dominant ideology is practiced and spread. It can

also be seen as a way for a dominant group of society to use its influence to secure itself in

society, and completely marginalizing any minority group that disagrees (Stillo). While the idea

of hegemony can be emerged out of a class struggle, Gramsci believes that hegemony serves to

shape and influence people’s minds, and ultimately a society as a whole. Gramsci has been

merited for his idea of hegemony because his distinction of culture was a great advance for

radical theories, and it called attention to the routine structures of everyday 'common sense',

which work to sustain class domination and tyranny (Stillo).

These terms are quite old and stem from ideas and scholars that existed long ago, but the

fact of the matter is that these ideas and theories can still be seen today. One of the best ways to

examine how a culture is structured is by investigating its media. The purpose of media is to

inform, but also to influence. Advertising is probably the clearest way to see how hegemony is

used in a society. It is everywhere, and unavoidable. It is not only used to market a product, but

it keeps a society’s ideas and culture in check.

By examining advertisements, one can find out what hegemony really is and how

prominent it is in our culture. It is easy to see that in most beauty, fashion, and family focused

print ads, the same sort of hegemony exists. All of these advertisers wish to appeal to all women

by placing beautiful, thin models in their campaigns. They do this because they know that even

women who do not look like their models will want to buy their product because of social proof.

We learned this year about social proof through the eyes of Robert Cialdini, and established that

everyone wants to fit in or at least fit a profile. Advertising uses hegemony in order to put forth

an ideal persona, body type, or way of living, and hopes that its audience will buy into social

proof and purchase their product. If a beauty advertisement marketing a skin cream used a

model with terrible skin, the audience would never buy it. It is less likely to see a broken home

family in a Stouffer’s advertisement. Our society is used to certain ideal situations and ways of

life, and even if changes are starting to be made in a society, advertisers want to keep that ideal

culture.

As we can see, hegemony is quite present in the world of advertising, especially when it

comes to femininity, but what about advertisements that historically have not been aimed

towards women? Feminism is the idea that women should have equality with men. We live in a

patriarchal society in which males are most dominant. Our ideas of feminism have greatly

changed over the past century. What began with liberal feminism, the idea that women are

equal, therefore they deserve the same rights as men, has evolved into cultural feminism, the idea

that women have feminine qualities, but culture must change in order for women to be

completely equal (Stoner-Perkins 2005). What we are facing in regards to feminism today is

post-modern feminism. This is the idea that women shouldn’t be assumed to all be the same and

that there should be no broad feminization (Stoner-Perkins, 2005). In regards to advertising,

post-modern feminism is still a challenge. The perfect example of this is sports advertising. For

years sports magazines have attracted male readers and very few female readers. It is a part of

our culture for men to read about sports and for women to read about fashion and beauty trends.

Over the past decade, however, this has begun to change. Some of the change appears to be

based partly in public perceptions toward Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which

mandated that institutions receiving federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of gender

(Fawzy-Arsenault, 2001). After this law was created, more and more female sports programs

developed, and over the course of the 1990’s, women became increasingly more active in sports

as a whole. Research shows that young women have become more active participants in the

sporting goods market due to these changes. Women’s sports in general became more popular

with the development of leagues such as the WNBA and Women’s Professional soccer. These

developments began to change the ideas of advertisers, knowing that they needed to begin to

market the female population. During the 1990’s, a large amount of research was conducted in

regards to women in sports advertising. The pages of Sports Illustrated began to include active

women actually playing sports, rather than sitting seductively in a sports car, clad only in a

bikini. In 1993, Nike Athletics began trying to find ways to promote their products not only to

women in general, but a broad range of women. They teamed up with Jazzercise and Jennie

Garth, the Beverly Hills 90210 star, in order to shift the ideas of women’s sports advertising, and

create advertisements that made every woman feel like she could be an athlete (Magiera, 1993).

The only problem was, however, that Nike still had the opinion that unlike men, women don’t

aspire to be heroes. While this company was making a change and empowering women to

become fitness oriented, it still fell to the influence of hegemony. Nike was starting to get the

reputation of being a company that showed women as feminine athletes, rather than competitive

athletes who are just as strong as men. All that this did was create a feeling of feminine equality,

but not a reality. It is thought that by having more women’s advertisements in sports magazines

we have accomplished the goal of counter-hegemony, when in reality; we have only scratched

the surface.

Anna Kournikova is known to many as a young, attractive, professional tennis player

who can be seen endorsing a number of products in today’s market. Her looks have earned her

an estimated $11 million to $15 million in endorsement contracts, all despite a less than

impressive record on the professional circuit of the tennis world (Stamler 2000). Kournikova is a

prime example of how hegemony is used in sports advertisements. While she is only ranked 19th

in the world, her income is just about equal to those of other female tennis champions (Stamler

2000). How could this be? The answer is that Anna Kournikova’s endorsement income is

almost the award money other players have obtained by winning prestigious tournaments.

Kournikova’s influence on an audience is effective due to her sex appeal, not her athletic ability,

and this proves what most of the motives of female advertisements are. It can be put very

simply, “For an advertiser, the most important element is visibility (Stamler, 2000)."

Hegemony is so dominant in sports advertising, and while so many developments have

been made, it feels as if they still fall short to real change. There is some research, however, that

proves that further development in the field of counter-hegemony actually exists. An early form

of this counter-hegemony in sports advertising can be seen several Gatorade advertising

campaigns. In 2000, Gatorade introduced a campaign titled “American Woman.” The campaign

produced a television commercial which featured Mia Hamm, Chamique Holdsclaw, Billie Jean

King, and Marion Jones. According to a New York Times article, The Gatorade campaign was

aimed at all consumers, not just women, as were other ads for Gatorade that featured male

athletes. (Stammler 2000) Gatorade’s campaign shows their audiences that sports are for

everyone, and that all athletes, whether male or female, need to stay hydrated and replenish their

bodies after athletic activity.

Another way that Gatorade has show development towards counter-hegemony is through

a commercial featuring only Mia Hamm and Michael Jordan, two of the company’s most

frequent celebrity endorsers. The ad begins with the two athletes showing off their talents in

their respective sports. The first shot is of Jordan towering over Hamm in a basketball match off,

and the second is of Hamm, showing her skills on the soccer field. They are then seen drinking

Gatorade followed by Mia Ham asking “Had enough?” Jordan replies with a laugh and a

competitive “Lets go.” The rest of the commercial shows the pair equally competing in activities

such as fencing, running, tennis, and even wrestling. The key part of the commercial is the

playing of “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” in the background. The commercial takes

two athletes, one male, and one female and puts them on an equal playing field. The ad is

entertaining to the audience, because it is so funny to see Michael Jordan get beat at wreslting by

Mia Hamm, and to see Hamm attempt to compete with Jordan in a game of basketball. The ad,

while humorous, brings a serious outlook on how sports advertisements should be. Like many

other Gatorade ads, this commercial focuses on people being athletes, not just men and women.

Another case study I have found that encourages counter-hegemony is Under Armour’s

advertising approach to marketing women. Under armour has built men’s-sports-apparel empire

on the back of sweating, chest-thumping, testosterone-fueled creative, and now it's betting

heavily that same approach will sell just as well to women (Mullman 2007). According to the

Under Armour website, since it’s founding in 1996, the company has always had the same goal:

To provide the world with technically advanced products engineered with superior fabric

construction, exclusive moisture management, and proven innovation. Every Under Armour

product is doing something for the athlete; it's making the athlete better. The official brand

mission of Under Armour is “To make ALL athletes better through passion, science, and the

relentless pursuit of innovation.”

Under Armour has recently decided to try a new approach to their advertising strategy in

order to present their mission in a better way to all of their female customers.

In 2007, the company began shooting what they thought would be the biggest advertising

campaign in company history (Mullman 2007). The campaign would feature a series of ads in

which women would be presenting Under Armour apparel in the way it was meant to be. Female

athletes and models would be shown sweating and dirty in grueling physical activities. This new

strategic plan is in response to the female feedback Under Armour had been receiving after the

company’s first attempt at advertising to women in 2005. The ad featured U.S. soccer player

Heather Mitts working out to the song "Goodbye Girl." The commercial’s overall lightness was

so different compared to the traditional, dark “Click, Clack” commercials that made Under

Armour so famous. These commercial had been famous for ending with an intense athlete

screaming, "We must protect this house," and the Heather Mitts ad was the complete opposite.

According to Steve Battista, Under Armour’s VP-brand, women came to the marketing

department and petitioned that their advertisements be just as intense and dark as the male-

focused ads had been (Mullman 2007). According to a New York Times Article entitled “No

Sugar and Spice Here,” Under Armour’s new push towards female marketing will encompass

cable and network TV, internet, print, and in-store media. In response to this new plan of action,

John Fraser, executive Vice President of Omnicom Group’s Element 79 Sports, said “"What

we've found is there's a pretty good percentage of women who are ultra-competitive and who are

likely to respond to a competitive appeal like this (Mullman 2007).”

These advertisements aren’t meant to be attractive, because that is not the aim of the

Under Armour mission. The company is more concerned with showing real athletes what their

brand can do for them. Under Armour has confidence in this new way of advertising, simply due

to “the brand's history of catering to serious athletes who care more about how much sweat an

undershirt can wick than whether its sleeves match their pants.” (Mullman 2007)

As we saw earlier, over the past decade, Nike has aimed to change its marketing strategy

in order to adapt to the changes of women in sports. While its earlier attempts fell to the

influence of hegemony, Nike has yet again restructured its marketing and is now a female-

friendly advertiser. In the past decade, Nike has formed the Nike Women Campaign, an

advertising series that focuses on female athletes and women in general. One of the first

examples of Nike’s campaign is a print ad that brings a real woman’s attributes into the

advertisement. The first sentence of the new women's sports print and digital ad campaign is a

bit jarring. "My butt is big and round like the letter C and ten thousand lunges have made it

rounder (Brennan, 2005)." The campaign uses real women to discuss their size XL bodies.

According to Nike marketers, no gymnasts or figure skaters were invited to the photo shoot. If

someone admitted to a dress size of 2, 4 or 6, she was laughed out of the room (Brennan 2005).

This portion of the campaign is telling its audience that female athletes come in all shapes and

sizes, and sometimes the most unattractive parts of their bodies help make them even better in

athletics.

Another form of Nike’s new approach to female sports advertising is its Nike Women

Campaign commercials. One of the commercials in the series features professional and college

female athletes, as well as young girls declaring “I am an athlete.” They declare that it doesn’t

matter what they look like, or if men are physically stronger, what matters is that they are

athletes. Some of these featured women are wearing the Nike Women Campaign’s branded

“Athlete” t-shirt, a piece of Nike clothing that sends out a message that everyone can be an

athlete.

A second commercial in this campaign shows a female boxer who is working out against

a punching bag while wearing Nike clothing. She is sweaty and muscular, but the way she

punches the bag suggests just how strong she really is. The aim of this ad is to how a female

athlete who is strong, not afraid to sweat, and who could easily beat a man in a boxing match.

I believe that is essential to understand the way the world around us works. The first time

our class discussed the term “Rhetoric” I couldn’t seem to understand its meaning and why it

mattered to me. As members of society, we often conform to what we see the most. As a

female, I have always fallen to the hegemony that exists in advertisements and marketing.

Seeing unordinary messages and print ads have always puzzled me and I never knew why. Upon

investigating the topic of the presentation of females in sports advertising, I have discovered just

how important rhetoric is. People are easily persuaded, and our society is based off the theory of

ideology. We want to fit in, and therefore consent to the ideal. In the first half of this course,

our class realized the importance of knowledge, specifically in regards to Cialdini’s weapons of

influence. We realized that knowing these weapons could allow us to be smarter consumers and

never again fall to the weapons that marketers place in their advertisements. Just like the

weapons of influence, knowing about rhetoric and the act of persuasion allows us to make our

own opinions about what the ideal should be. As a former athlete, upon discovering that

advertisers are now breaking barriers and relating their products so much more realistically to

females, I have realized just how important it is that counter-hegemony continues.