Introduction
It has been argued overtime, that advertisements fulfil two basic purposes, which are to inform and to influence. Advertisements are made by using different appeals to create brand image, for selling products and services that are difficult to differentiate on functional attributes(Pede and Lisa2010) . The depiction of female roles in television advertising has raised a number of provocative researches. Research in this area has been fostered by the observations of female role portrayals relative to social norms. While the content of female roles in television advertising is well understood, the factors which influence viewers’ perceptions of these roles have received less research attention. Central to this issue is the determination of which factors explain the role of women in advertisement.
1.1 Background Of The Study
Modern advertising is only about 100 years old and the use of advertising actually dates back at least to the 10th century BC(Minh,1991) Advertising began in the colonial times and could be traced to have started in 1928 with the birth of West African Publicity Limited. Derived from UAC ,it was established to cater for the needs of the
colonial masters in Nigeria and West Africa. This company later became an advertising agency in 1929 named Lintas with two other subsidiaries namely Afromedia, the outdoor medium and PearljDean, the cinema arm. In the 1950’s new advertising agencies emerged. The medium of advertising was in its infancy in those days Federal Government owned National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) were the only television stations that operated in the four regions of East, West, North and later Midwest(AduragbemiJay,2010). With the increase in number of practitioners and agencies, a regulatory body had to be formed to standardize their practices. A meeting of the agencies held at Ebute Metta, Lagos in 1971 was to metamorphose into Association of Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria (AAPN) with the objective of protecting practitioners against unfavourable business. The association was later renamed Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria. The need to establish an institution to regulate advertising practice became apparent. This gave rise to the establishment of Advertising Parishioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) by Decree 55 of 1988, later renamed Act 55 of 1988 by the civilian administration in November 1989(wikipeidia.org).
1.1 Statement of Research Problem
Women portrayed in advertisements have evoked many perceptions and have much impact on advertised products in our modern days (AduragbemiJay,2010).The commercialization of the role of women in advertisement has been largely responsible for different perception both from old and young people alike and has had immense impact on the society. On the other hand, there is increasing use of women being used in advertising products which bears no relation either to their physique, product advertised or needs of the audience. Some other times, the advertised products may have positive impact on the audience and the product due to the level at which women are being portrayed and used in advertising the product. Hence, influencing the perception of the masses. Since there is an increasing use of women in advertisement, there is need to evaluate the role and impact of women used in advertising products and the influence such could have on the product being advertised. Therefore, in regard to this, the present study shall focus on women in advertising using delta soap television advertisement as a case study.