A book report on “Real Men Want To Drink Guinness, But Don’t Expect Them To Pay For It”. I’ve edited down and re-organized the original post to make it easier to understand. Part of that process involved removing some of the author’s references and tangents.
Principles of Ad Analysis
All ads are aspirational, not representational, and for sure not inspirational.
Aspirational = “I want to be that sort of person…” (think identity)
Inspirational = “I want to do what that person is doing…” (think action)
An ad thinks it will work on it’s target demographic because it describes an aspirational image for the demographic. In other words, the ad has made several important assumptions about the kind of person who would like the ad — not the product, the ad.
Ads do not try to directly sell you a product. Ads target a specific demographic, and tailor an aspirational message/image for that demographic. If the ad works you will consequently want the product no matter what it is.
The Three Principles of Advertising
1. Ads do not sell a product, they sell an identity.
2. The target demographic of an ad is the group of people who will have the greatest reaction to the aspirational content presented, not the group of people most interested in the product being sold.
3. Ads get viewers to buy products by associating their product with the identity presented in the ad.
The Three Questions of Advertising
1. Who is the target demographic?
2. What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
3. What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
Case 1: Guinness Wheelchair Ad
According to social critics around the internet this ad is “such a refreshing change”, “great to see sensitivity and strength combined”, “promotes a new kind of masculinity.” I’d like to know what was wrong with the old masculinity? The one featured on Game Of Thrones? Was it too masculine?
In 1990, the ad would have shown the masculinity and heroism of the crippled guy: him, in his chair, keeping up with the bipeds, both physically and mentally, taking shots and landing zingers.
But this ad does the exact opposite: it shows a bunch of “men” playing down to the level of the crippled guy, not as a one time offering, but as a regular weekly game.
Get ready for a super-sexist comment that is nevertheless 100% true: reducing yourself because you think it’s a show of solidarity is a straight up chick thing to do.
I can hear the grumbling, so I’ll make a slight modification: only a woman would allow another person to reduce themselves in a show of support.
What is the target demo? Who are the people the ad is trying to attract? The ad doesn’t comment on Guinness drinkers, it is making assumptions about people who like the ad.
Remember, aspirational — look at the ad: who is not those men, but considers them masculine, sees something more masculine than themselves?
Who is the target demographic?
It’s beta males. What is a beta male? He is the kind of man who anxiously looks for something to identify him as a man, while doing nothing to become a man. For him, there’s Guinness.
“Hold on. You’re saying that Guinness assumes if I like this ad that I’m like, a… loser?” Yes. Or a girl.
What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
Tagline: Dedication. Loyalty. Friendship.
Usually “male” values are the things you have to teach or encourage people to do, like bravery, or sacrifice, or stoicism, where the default, the easier thing, is to not do those things. Dedication and friendship don’t code for men, they are too basic for men, they code for person, although women get associated with them because… not much more is expected of women. It’s not that these values are inferior, it’s that you can’t imagine someone else needs to praise them — or that any person alive or dead would feel good about themselves for having them — or would seek to be described this way. This Guinness ad is for the demographic that aspires to positive experiences and pretend challenges buried in rhetorical cover so as to avoid the guilt about its meaninglessness.
What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
Wheelchair basketball is nice but it has nothing to do with being a man or masculinity, or females and femininity, or anything, and the point here is that the public’s desire to link it to masculinity is a sign of three things: a) a pervasive sense of insecurity and inadequacy in many men b) another example of the media teaching people how to want, how to think, in this case about themselves; c) the general public’s exhaustion with masculine men who don’t deliver on their masculinity, i.e. and e.g. getting the check.
1. Who is the target demographic for the ad?
Men who identify as masculine but do nothing to develop themselves (beta males, losers) and women.
2. What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
This ad presents a new definition of masculinity. It tells the viewer that all you have to do to become a true man is be a good friend. The ad is presenting this “new masculinity” as low-hanging fruit for insecure men and as an appealing alternative to old, “Game of Thrones” masculinity for the women watching.
3. What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
There is a growing proportion of men who feel insecure and need an external source to define and validate their masculinity. The public is tired of these men who put up a masculine facade but can’t deliver.
Case 2: Cadillac SRX Ad
Here’s an ad that is the female analogue of the Guinness ad, i.e. it played on the same show and time. Let’s run the experiment.
So? How do you feel? Here’s the tag line: “it’s all in how you get there.” Well, how did she get there?
Here’s one interpretation: she’s a cunt, by which I mean a woman. The commercial represents a reality about women, hopping from guy to guy, taking, taking, taking. And that sigh at the end was what she really thinks of men.
You’ll observe that she never said thank you, she never even said excuse me. She just assumed it was ok, she was entitled, the world belongs to women, and when she got as far as his five and a half inches could take her, she was off to the next guy. Even better, she is proud of how she pulled it off, because getting to her car isn’t the only goal, learning how to manipulate emasculated men is just as important, note she never used a woman. The tag line reminds women that they shouldn’t feel too guilty about it, men are dispensable.
That’s one interpretation, but the striking thing about the ad is how she explicitly did not slut her way from man to man. All she did was ask to use their umbrella — and got it. That’s the Female Power. What’s enraging isn’t that women are sluts, but that they are not sluts — that they are able to manipulate men, get what they want, without paying for it. That message to female viewers is what gets men angry.
Who is the target demographic?
The problem with this analysis is that it assumes the message is for women only, as if women are the ones who buy themselves Cadillacs, and as if men would not be exposed to this commercial except by a wife who drags her husband over to it, “oooh, look at this great ad! I want a car!” But this ad was on at 4pm on ESPN, the same time as the Guinness ad, for the specific male demographic that… is home watching ESPN at 4pm, e.g. guys home at 2.
“Hold on. You’re saying that Cadillac assumes if I hate this ad I’m like, a… loser?” Etc, and so forth. Love and hate are opposites for lovers, not ads, for ads the goal is to stimulate want through any emotion convenient.
Ok, but why does she need to manipulate men? What does the ad assume that women assume about men?
There’s a gigantic error in the ad, and if this error was corrected this ad would have never been possible. Do you see it? Why didn’t one of these “men” just walk her to her car? She’s under your umbrella and your natural instinct was not to protect, to help? So wrapped up in what it all means and power imbalances that you couldn’t just… behave? Ok, forget about chivalry — out of sheer selfishness, a hail mary longshot? Sure, no expectations, but what the hell, let’s see where it goes, maybe she’ll ask you out for a Guinness? Were you so insulted by her “entitlement” that you couldn’t just try? Or so flustered because a woman that you have stripped of her ordinary humanity and forced her to be a symbol of value chose to be near you, your brain couldn’t figure out what to do next? In which case her decision to leave you for another umbrella was astutely correct, odd how she and the commercial knew that. All men are good for is an umbrella because she cannot rely on men to act like… men.
The point is not simply that those men should have walked her to her car, the point is that the ad knew with 100% certainty that it would not occur to any man watching to do this; that it would not occur to any woman watching that it’s weird no man thought to do this.
What is the aspirational content of the ad?
What’s the aspirational message to those men? She’s exactly the kind of woman they wish was in love with them. “I want the kind of woman with max female power, that can get anything she wants, and that everyone wants, but no one can get — and she picked me.” See also female superheroes.
What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
Tagline: Ladies, it’s all in how you get there, because you’re on your own.
This is what the ad is telling women, and you, its foundational assumption: the public’s exhaustion with men who don’t deliver on their masculinity, their general loss of ambition, drive, respectfulness… and purpose; coupled with men’s haunting suspicion that their true worth — “in other people’s minds” — is signaled by women’s opinions of them, after all, money, jobs — all that is fake. Hence the need for something to redefine masculinity, to make it real.
1. Who is the target demographic for the ad?
Men who identify as masculine but do nothing to develop themselves (beta males, losers, men who watch ESPN at 4pm) and women. These are the men who cannot be relied on to act like men, the type of men who never would’ve considered walking the woman to her car in the rain.
2.What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
“I want to be the guy who gets picked by the woman with max female power”
The ad presents another way to define masculinity: As what women think of you. The three men in the ad are losers because they were used by the woman. The viewer may see himself as one of these men but aspires to be the man that this woman picks in the end.
3. What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
There is a growing proportion of men who feel insecure about their masculinity, who have lost their ambition, drive, respectfulness, and purpose. With nothing to define them, these men think that their worth is determined by what women think of them.
Case 3: Hooter’s Ad
Who is the target demographic?
Look at the guy in the chair, gentlemen of 4pm football, that guy is aspirational you.
What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
The fantasy for the viewer is that to talk to a girl like her he doesn’t have to be interesting, engaging, witty or cool, let alone young or attractive. You don’t have to woo her on her terms (whatever they may be), she’s ready to meet you on yours.
What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad tell us about the target demographic?
At this point you will no doubt think that the fantasy here is to be able to score a Hooters waitress or a 36–24–30 but this is neither true for you nor for the ad. The point for the ad isn’t her as physically attractive but her as a type — a Hooters Waitress — if she was thirty pounds heavier but still had the same attention to her appearance (makeup, etc), and adopted the style and mannerisms of hot girls then she would still cause that kind of approach anxiety, she would still be such a symbol, I’m pretty sure this is the entire gimmick of the Kardashians. I know this is going to sound like madness, but 8/10 that approach anxiety is defensive, you think you want something you really do not want, that person is not for you, I don’t mean not good for you, I mean you do not really want this; but anyway the point here is that the ad mixes up the symbols as humor, to fool you into thinking that what’s humorous is that this type could play against type; but the reality is that the symbol ceases to be a symbol for you the moment she violates her own symbolism — the moment you get to know her — and then the want DISAPPEARS.
1. Who is the target demographic for the ad?
Men who watch ESPN at 4pm.
2. What aspirational content is being presented to the target demographic?
The fantasy for the viewer is that to talk to a girl like her he doesn’t have to be interesting, engaging, witty or cool, let alone young or attractive. Since you’re smart, she’ll want to talk to you.
3. What does the aspirational message, target demographic, and reaction to the ad say about the target demographic?
Men who watch ESPN at 4pm see women as women, they see women as symbols of value that dictate their self worth. They’ll use this ad to assure themselves that since they’re smart, hot and smart women should be lining up to talk to them sometime soon.
In Conclusion
You’re going to be infuriated at this blonde Hooters Waitress for only being attracted to chiseled abs and a commanding phallus,
She doesn’t want a smart guy like me?! (Hooters Ad)
but even if she miraculously chose to come under your umbrella, you’d see suddenly she was only a brunette, huh, and you still wouldn’t do anything about it.
She ceases to be a symbol of value since she wasn’t a true blonde. (Hooter’s Ad)
And off she goes, a missed opportunity. And before that ignites your amygdala into a blinding self-hatred, you will remember that it’s all the cunt’s fault,
She didn’t choose you, therefore you are not a true man. (Cadillac Ad)
and besides, never mind all these girls, the fact that you’re a good friend to your less fortunate friend is what makes you a man;
I am a true man because I’m a good friend! (Guinness Ad)
But the truth is that you’re the guy sitting on the sofa watching ESPN at 4pm. You’re a loser, and no amount of redefining what masculinity means or fantasizing will turn you into a true man.
As an aside, drink Guinness.
