What makes the American consumer buy certain products? Many opinions may arise from this question, but no one can the fact that clothing companies in particular know exactly how to weaken their consumers-or should I say “victims”-through catchy advertisements and presentations. These companies are so successful in their pursuit because of the simple fact that Americans are obsessed with their image. Clothing companies such as Tommy Hilfiger use the world wide web and other such venues to promote cultural “signs” that play right into the image obsession. These “signs” or signals show exactly how a company like Tommy Hilfiger wants to be promoted through the company’s choice of website layout and advertising, implications of their consumers, and target age group. These signals prove that Tommy Hilfiger is geared towards selling clothes to citizens making up the white, middle / upper class , petite and youthful portion of America.
After typing in the website, web and seeing the opening page, all of my expectations were met. I expected to see an eye catching intro with a layout designed in such a way as to lure me to click on their product line icon. I expected to see pictures of beautiful women modeling clothes in sizes that I could never fit into because of what society considers beautiful. Clothing companies thrive on this because they know how much image is valued, so they show you pictures of what you could possibly look like if you bought their clothes, giving hope millions of insecure citizens.
Society Lack of Tolerance in Body Image
Tolerance is the realization that there are other people in this world, and we may have our values and views on different topics but must respect others’ opinions and have an open mind. Our society is lacking tolerance in many ways but one way is how society expects women to be perfect and live up to the media’s expectations. Women attempt to dress and look like celebrities to stay “in-style”. ...
Towards that middle of the webpage, pictures of celebrities flashed on and off the screen right above a caption that read “Look who’s wearing Tommy.” The celebrities included Beyonce Knowles, Jason Biggs (from American Pie) and Hilary Duff, which is very ironic since all three of them are at the height of their careers and are rarely seen in Tommy clothing. These signs make the assumption that seeing a celebrity wearing Tommy will automatically make someone want to buy the product, implying that we as Americans are influenced were easily into buying unnecessary materialistic items. Another “sign” that Tommy Hilfiger throws out is that of types of social groups the company would like to be associated with. The website seemed to target men, women and children between the ages of about 8 to 25. As far as the race being targeted, it was pretty one-sided. With Tommy’s colors being that of red white and blue, it would appear at first glance that Tommy Hilfiger wants to be viewed as the “all American” clothing line.
The problem is that based on the website, it is obvious that Tommy must view America as he views himself; white and rich. He wants Unfortunately for Tommy, America is nothing like that. America is filled with many races and different social classes. I feel that Tommy wants his If Tommy really wanted to portray America truthfully.
