Feminist Literary Theory and Advertising Research: A New “Reading” of the Text and the Consumer

Abstract

This paper proposes feminist literary theory as a source of additional insights into two interrelated areas relevant to advertising research: the text and the consumer. Specifically, a variety of approaches drawn from feminist literary criticism will first be used to provide a framework for an in-depth study of a single advertisement as text: a Mr. Clean print advertisement from 1959. Second, reader-response theory will be used to generate innovative concepts about women readers of advertisements. Since feminist scholarship may be somewhat unfamiliar to advertising researchers, the paper will begin by presenting a short summary of relevant theory. Next, the theory will be applied to analysis of a single advertising specimen in a demonstration “reading.” Last, feminist reader-response criticism—the study of the influence of gender on a reader's interpretation of literature—will be examined for concepts applicable to increased understanding of how men and women consumers may respond differently to commercial text.