Gresosky 1

Patrick Gresosky
Ashley Humphries
ENC 1101
19 March 2015
In a particular advertisement from the 1970s, from Silva Thins Cigarettes, states
that Cigarettes are like women, the best ones are thin and rich. You dont even have to
see the ad in order to recognize the issues that it entails. The ad is not only sexist, but it
also takes a shot at the body image of women. This statement contains the stereotype that
society views the best women to be thin and rich. It correlates money and women to be
a necessary possession for men. The quote above presents other problems including
treating/viewing all women as objects and not people, and it simply compares women to
a thin cigarette, which doesnt make sense and is disgusting. Through my anti
advertisement, I targeted men to show them that looking at women as objects and not
people is unbecoming and disrespectful. I also targeted women in my anti advertisement
by implying that women shouldnt make themselves appear as objects or behave like they
are objects, rather, be prideful in who they are and be confident towards other men.
The original ad from Silva Thins contains a large image of a pack of cigarettes
and a smaller overlaying image of a man and a woman. The woman is resting her head on
the mans shoulder and the man is smoking a cigarette. They are both looking up and out
into the distance and above them lies some text that reads, Cigarettes are like women.
The best ones are thin and rich. Below this text to the left it says Silva Thins are thin
and rich, thin so they taste light, lighter than other 100s, and to the right it reads,
Lighter than most kings. Rich because Well, because rich is better. And at the very

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bottom of the ad it says, Silva Thins are thin and rich. Obviously, this advertisement is
targeted towards anyone who smokes and is interested in finding the strongest or best
tasting cigarette type. By saying that women are like cigarettes, and that the best ones are
thin and rich, implies that all good cigarettes are thin and rich and that all Silva Thins are
thin and rich, so therefore Silva Thins are the best cigarettes. More specifically, I think
the original ad is targeted towards men who smoke because they will appeal to the
comparison of a thin and rich woman to a thin and rich Silva Thin. I think that the
original ad does a great job of putting their product above the competitors and getting
their product to a certain audience (men). The ad completely stays away from the true
aspects of cigarettes including severe health risks and addiction, and uses the images
along with the text to present their product as the best and rich. However, I think the
ad is unsuccessful in that it uses a false fact to try to make their cigarettes look nice,
applies a flawed stereotype of society that the best women have wealth and are thin, and
uses a simile to compare women to an object which is indecent and wrong. I dont think
that the creators intended to make the images the focus, but I think they purposely
combined the images with the claims made in the text to make Silva Thins seem
appealing and the best cigarette on the market. The color of the original was tan and had
no effect or meaning.
My anti advertisement was not much different from the original ad. All of the text
remained the same and in the same place. The the layout of the two images was the same,
but however the box of Silva Thins is empty. Three women, representing the cigarettes,
are sticking out of the box. I tried to take the advantage of the fallacies already present in
the original ad. The outrageous and false claims made in the text of the original ad were

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only furthered by the images and text in my anti advertisement. By changing the original
image in replacing the cigarettes in the box with women, the ad became even more
disgraceful in that now the cigarettes werent like women they were the women. I kept
the false claims made in the original ad and spoofed the image of the cigarette box so that
it would be clear to the audience that my ad intentionally was abominable to emphasize
that the original ad was wrong. By changing the cigarettes in the box to women I literally
put the words cigarettes are like women into an image for the audience to see and take
notice of how foolish it is to make such a comparison. Also, I made the color scheme
black and white to show how evident the issues are in the original ad and how easily they
are exposed in my anti ad. There was no gray area in the original ad as it made false
claims, and I further showed that in my anti ad by making the image directly related to
the text. I wanted my audience to see the problems with the original ad and further show
them through my anti ad by making them more apparent.
The audience I wanted to reach out to through my anti ad included both men and
women. My anti ad replaced the cigarettes in the box with women, which only made a
mockery of the original ad and highlighted a second issue: viewing/treating women as
objects. Just by saying women are like cigarettes, the original ad put women on the same
level as a tobacco product. This in itself is rude and makes no sense. So, in my anti ad I
spoofed the cigarettes in order to make the wrong so obvious that men would understand
how stupid and disrespectful it is to look at a woman as an object. The original ad
definitely attempted to catch the male crowd because it used both riches and the thin
physical appearance of a woman to persuade them that Silva Thins were the best you
could get, and through my anti ad I tried to make it clear that the claims made by the

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original were defective. I literally made the women objects in a pack of cigarettes to
emphasize that this was what creators of the ad were really saying. I wanted to target men
through my anti ad by showing them that women are not and should never be treated as if
they were objects or a materialistic possession, rather they should be treated with the
upmost respect. I also targeted my anti ad towards women because through the claims
made in the text and the spoofed image I created, I wanted to, once again, show how
flawed the original ad was to such an extent that it would be obvious to women that they
should never make themselves appear as an object or behave like one. It is inappropriate
for any woman to behave in such a way that they would appear to others as an object or
somebodys possession. Women should never dress and behave like they are for sale or
a product, because it will only sexualize them and make men look and treat them as they
appear. Our society has a stereotype that good looks and big money are all that men care
about in a woman. The original ad took complete advantage of this stereotype and used it
for the basis for most all of the statements made, and through my anti ad I tried to expose
this issue by making the original ad a joke in changing the image so it would further its
ignorance.
I think that the original ad is also flawed in that it makes the claim that the best
women are thin and rich. Obviously this is a stereotype and part of the opinion of the
creators of the ad, and is wrong because there are plenty of good women who are not thin
and rich. Women who dont fit into this group would see this ad and view themselves as
no good, which is not true at all. I exposed this issue in my anti ad through the new image
I created with the women in the cigarette box to show that it is shallow, as a woman or
man, to view yourself as a physical object and limit your abilities based on your looks. In

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my anti ad the woman replacing the cigarettes in the box makes a joke of the original
statement that cigarettes are alike women and the best ones are thin and rich.
I think my anti ad is successful in targeting both men and women because it
makes the original ad even more absurd to the point were both will understand that the
claims made were false and are based on ignorant stereotypes and opinions. When the
audience views my anti ad and sees the image of the women inside of the cigarette box,
they will view it as a joke and see that women are nothing like cigarettes. Also the fact
that there are numerous women that are great and are not thin and rich proves that the
statement that the best ones are thin and rich is wrong and therefore the entire is wrong.
Women should never be viewed as objects or sexual possessions because it is simply
inhumane. The original ad combines both money and women in the text and image to
portray them as possessions of men, which is wrong, and in my anti ad I put the women
into the cigarette box to target men to show them that they should never view women in
the same materialistic category as money or cigarettes.
I think that my anti ad was successful in both getting the message out and getting
that message out to the correct audience. The original ad had so many problems in it
including comparing women to cigarettes, combining both wealth and women to be a
material belonging to men, and relying all of their claims on the stereotype that the best
women are thin and rich. In my anti ad I purposely left all of the out right claims alone
and only changed the image by replacing the cigarettes with women in order to increase
the absurdity of the ad so it was clear to the audience that it was a mockery of the
original. Treating and looking at women as things that we can take or buy is
completely disrespectful and should never be done, but at the same time it the

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responsibility of women to take pride in themselves and not stoop themselves down to the
level of an object and behave like one. Through my anti ad I showed that women need to
be confident in who they are and men need to respect that and treat them as so.