What is Distorted Mirror

According to Pollay's metaphor, advertising works like a distorted mirror showing to society a slanted image of the reality. This means that, in spite of this reflected image being predominantly conservative, the advertising should pay attention and incorporate the changes that appear in the sociocultural and political contexts in order to impact on the target audience. In Spain, for example, “new” ideologies like ecologism or feminism have found their echo in advertising, although in most of the occasions as a mere pretext to sell goods. Thus, the purpose of this article is to analyse the background of recent Spanish advertising in consonance with the so-called “new” ideologies to check how the messages represent the changes claimed by society.