The Creation of the Athletic Identity



While this ad is selling the WTA, many ads geared towards athletic women take the same approach of selling an identity of beauty.



It is a scary thought how much advertisement plays a role in your daily life. The average person is subject to 5000 ads a day, with many passed over, or simply forgotten, and some influencing a new purchase. It should be noted that some ads even play on a person’s identity, impacting their thoughts and actions, as they are influenced by the company to buy their product and ultimately become their identity.

For women, capturing the audience is not difficult, as gender specific hails allow the ads to zero in on their target audience. For athletic women looking to get into shape, it is easy to create an identity of the ideal woman that not only men desire, but also women want to be. It is no secret that women are exploited in advertising for their looks, as advertisers look for the best possible way to market their product. The sex appeal, by far the most effective, draws eyes immediately to the media, whether the product being marketed is for women or men. For women wanting to tone up their body by getting into shape, ads specifically use good looking women to market this desired look. In essence, many advertisements geared towards young, athletic women have a heavy focus on physical appearance. It is no longer just enough to be active, but also be beautiful.

One of the raciest ad campaigns that worked in this fashion that I could find was Rebook’s Easytone shoes. Their hail strongly focuses on the sex appeal, as their ads essentially just show the woman’s breasts or butt (WARNING, this ad is for MATURE audiences only). Simply put, their hail states, “Hey, imagine if you were as toned as this. Buy our product and you can be.” This type of advertising, though many women may see it as ridiculously sexist in theory, taps into the appellation theory. Women will see the nicely toned body in the ad and want to be that way as well. Obviously wanting to look their best, women buy into this process, accepting the hail and participating in the conversation. Risqué as it may be, women that may find themselves out of shape feel confident that the product will help them because they advertiser too the time to talk to them. Just by engaging with the audience, as well as the audience accepting the hail, women are able to buy into this identity of being an athlete by being beautiful. Easytone focuses strongly using the directed action theory, showing clearly who you could become (or the butt you could have) by wearing their shoes. They create an identity of a beautiful athletic woman, which is possible to attain after purchasing the shoes.
 
Nike also plays on this theory of creating an identity of beautiful physically fit women in their commercials. However, they also play on the hard work ethic that goes into becoming the best that you can be. In this ad featuring United States Women’s Soccer star Alex Morgan, there is not one soccer ball or field in sight, but rather Morgan working out in a gym. Nike does extremely well at selling the identity of an athlete to people worldwide. Morgan’s story of hard work has led her to international success on the world stage, and allows for other women to buy into this identity of an athlete. Nike offers their product to these women striving to take the next step in life, wanting to enhance their identity as an athlete. As well, Nike also offers hard work and determination to a growing list of what and athletic woman is. It is through commercials like these that the company intrigues athletic women everywhere to #makeitcount. Looking at this from the process of interpellation, buying Nike essentially makes you an athlete, according to this commercial, as well as labeling you as a hard worker and determined being, just like Alex Morgan.

Nike does wonders for all athletes, and it isn’t shocking that their brand is among the leaders in athletic apparel. Nike likes to play on overcoming human struggles and obstacles, so it should come as no surprise that they create an identity of women overcoming men in sport. One of the common hails for women athletes in ads is, “Hey, you seem like a struggling athletic woman. I’m an athletic woman, and I’ve struggled to get where I am, let me help you out.” Looking at the Nike “Voices” ad, each woman explains their struggles growing up in a male dominated sports world. Nike creates the identity of an athlete able to come over anything, including sexism. Looking at Gillian Rose’s visual level of appellation, this ad works though the implied absences, as no men are shown ‘dominating’ these women in sports, but rather they speak of their abilities and their challenges to overcome them. This implication allows for the audience to view the situation as they see fit, making it more personal. Women fill this theory in with their own challenges, and purchase Nike clothing to symbolize their struggles, joining the millions of other women who have also taken on this identity.

Just looking at these three ads signifies how much advertising really does impact the identity of a human being. When people want to distinguish themselves, they look for products to purchase, as they say a lot about the identity of the person wearing or possessing them. All three of these ads create the identity of the athletic woman, caring about her looks and beauty, working hard to be the best she can be, and overcoming the adversity that stands before her. Or maybe this is just the identity Rebook and Nike have created for her, because she said yes to the hail.

As Jacques Derrida explains in his theory of bricolage, your identity consists of everything around you. Surrounded by ads, and the products that you purchase, your identity is ultimately determined through advertising. Women looking to be defined as athletic purchase these products so that society views them as such.