Moderndog Essay

Beauty and grooming ads don’t stop with humans, they often target others, namely, our pets. With an estimated 60 million households in the United States owning at least one dog, and 47 million households having at least one cat, (both numbers still increasing), (Facts + Statistics: Pet statistics[1]) the pet market has also increased to cater to the needs and conveniences for the animals and their human companions. *The products are to be used on our pets, however, the advertisers still need to win their owners over. In order to execute this, they target at the owner’s empathy, want to fulfill social norms, and their want to create and establish a mutual relationship between themselves and their pet(s).*

Throughout the Moderndog magazine,

This is an important detail because as Dotson explains in his article, “evidence points to the role that dogs play in satisfying human needs for companionship, friendship, and affection -- which have all become increasingly hard to satisfy in ‘our nuclear families living impersonal suburban lifestyles.’” Out of the traditional gender stereotypes, women are said to be more emotional, more actively seeking physical affection, whereas men are supposed to be less so in both areas. While this statement of course, doesn’t necessarily apply to all women and men, this is one of the things advertisers aim for. “On current statistics that show women as the primary caregivers for dogs in 72.6% of US households (US Pet Ownership and Demographic Sourcebook, 2002), it is intuitive that women will score higher on all the dimensions of dog companionship”, making women in general a better target in comparison to men. [Even on another survey, the results were similar, where women were one of the highest ranked groups that claimed to own a dog.] Many of the advertisements in the Moderndog magazine have women in them; in fact, there are around eight times the amount of women present throughout the magazine in comparison to men and around. And while there are more children in general present, women still appear more times in comparison. Women may be able to picture

The choice of using a Chihuahua model may insinuate further what the advertisers define as a prosperous life. This “inflates the viewer’s perceptions of what others have, and by extension what is worth acquiring” (Advertising and Consumer Culture [3]), or in other words, because of social pressure of being a part of something, may persuade the audience further to buying this product. In addition, for the pet owners