e earner in the family, and I think that could be a reason for the male gender emphasis in current marketing.It would seem that the TEAC adverts are a large step into the past. In the current age of sophisticated visuals across all ages and genres that these adverts are stylistically simple and basic. They are also unsophisticated and when you really look at them are badly designed and low budget. For example the circles to indicate what the man is thinking look as if they have been put in as an after thought, because it could have been anyone thinking it without the circles. The positioning, weight of type and colour of the word ‘Systems!’ Is also poorly thought out. It is a badly designed advert which defeats the point of having a sexual selling point when it is done badly and cheaply. To my mind they also brought to mind the old Tennent’s lager cans of the early eighties that had similar women on them, and as this idea was dropped by Tennent’s approximately fifteen years ago to reinvent itself successfully, it does not bode well on TEAC for the present.To conclude, I think that gendering of stereo systems is, especially in the case of the TEAC adverts, partly to do with the explosion in the market for lad’s mags and the lifestyle that they are selling, which is being reflected in the adverts. But however, the result in the TEAC adverts is that they are badly designed and automatically discriminate or alienate half the market without showing that, in fact, there are very good reasons to buy their stereos as some of them are the best in their respective fields. I did find some examples of gender neutral adverts. However, I did not find anything related to stereos that was gendered towards women. Which, to myself, seems like a huge mistake and could be a niche market for whoever takes the step to aim some stereos primarily at the female gender. BibliographyLorbur, Judith, Paradoxes Of Gender, New Ha...
