Abstract

This paper investigates how ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) can help to retain the Tanzanian culture in advertisement. There is substantial evidence that many ladies in Tanzania has been used in advertisement. As a result the women that are used in advertisement have been deteriorating psychologically and facing societal alienation.

This paper also looks on how ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) can be used instead of using model of women in advertisement. Innovation of ICT(Information and Communication Technologies) give rise to the use of multimedia, which is the use of data in different media forms such as voice,video,text, and animation. Multimedia help the simulation to be used rather than using actual image of the women.

INTRODUCTION

Advertisement is a notice, picture or film telling people about a product, job, or services. The innovation of Information Technology has led to a new way of advertisement in Tanzania. The innovation of Information Technology has led to a new way of advertising, where tools like billboards, lightboxes, trivisions, videos, computers, audios and street identification signs are used.
Business Organizations uses advertisement and promotion to make their products known to the society.
In Tanzania both image of men and women are used to advertise products, but it have seen that a lot of women are used in advertisement compared to men.
Although advertisement aims at, making the society aware of the products, sometimes the image of people used bring problems to the society.
The following are problems or effects of using image of women in advertisement in Tanzania;

· Humiliation
Tanzanian women, who are used in advertising some products like condoms, are seen as cheap and of no value to the society.
Other women are advertising while exposing their body parts, which is against Tanzanian culture and norms.

· Loss of self esteem to female viewers
Sometimes thin women are used to advertise the sliming materials, so when the fat women watch television and see billboards of that advertisement they can do their best to be like the image they have seen. Also the effect of using thin "imagery" of a woman in billboards, magazines and television lead to the issue of dieting, because women especially young ladies in Tanzania believe that women must be slender to be attractive, so women become dissatisfied with their bodies.

· Superiority complex
The women who are used in advertisement see themselves as superior, confident and of higher class than others. This is because they have become popular to the society. The issue of superiority makes them to despise their fellow women because they feel there are no longer in the same class.

· Low payment
Although you can find ladies advertising products by exposing themselves, the payment in return is low.

· Societal alienation
In Tanzania, women who have been used in advertisement have found themselves alienated from the society. This is due to their superiority or the advertisement they make which bring negative perception to the society. For example, in Tanzania advertising condoms is seen as sin and it is against Tanzania culture.

· Sense of materialism
Advertisement create the culture of materialism, whereby when women see their fellows, advertising clothes, cosmetics and other products, viewers will demand those products, regardless of their income.

· Poor impression to kids
Kids will not see the importance of education, because they think you can just be a model or beautiful and make some advertisement.

ROLE OF ICT IN ADVERTISEMENT

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a major role in advertisements, where multimedia can be used to make advertisement effective. New developments in computing and communication technologies are at the forefront of multimedia revolution.

Almost all advertisements and marketing pieces on TV and in the film industry can be developed with multimedia authoring tools and workstations. Presentations that incorporate logos, morphs, video transitions, animations, walkthroughs, sound and image manipulation, and all kinds of special effects are elements that can be used in composing or authoring a multimedia advertisement.

Todays television programmes and movies are heavily supported by the use of multimedia technology. Animations, digitized videos, simulations and computer graphics overlays have greatly enhanced the whole visual experience. Movies like Titanic and the more are breath taking in their visual imagery due to the use of multimedia.
The success of any business not only depends on the quality of products manufactured or the services rendered but on the advertisement and promotional techniques employed as well. Even your letterhead or your logo speaks volumes about your company.

With multimedia, you can design your company's logos, letterheads, print, radio and even television advertisements, brochures, visiting cards, pamphlets, and presentations.

According to the problems or effects of using image of Tanzanian women in advertisement, it is suggested that Tanzania can use ICT in order to retain its culture.
Multimedia can help the society of Tanzania to use the image of products rather than using image of women. Multimedia presents the simulation of real situation.

For example multimedia help the product to have voice, gesture etc. For example the advertisement of Jambo Lotion, there the products present themselves.
Multimedia uses a lot of software features to make it effective.
For example authoring systems are designed to provide the tools for creating and organizing the data for a variety of media elements such as text, graphics,images animations, audio and video in order to provide interactive application. These applications can be education, professional training and retail marketing. Authoring software is designed to support creation of an interactive nonlinear experience in the sense that there are several pathways through the materials, so the end user can make choices about where to go in the presentation, as well as how long to view each screen.

Multimedia systems have artificial intelligence that help it to represent the gesture, images, sound and motion of real products.

Other software that can be used with multimedia are;
· Vox Proxy, which works through an add-in program for Microsoft PowerPoint (2000 or newer) that allows you to use Microsoft Agent Technology to provide talking, animated characters within your slide shows. Vox Proxy uses a highly simplified, yet very powerful script to control agent characters and other features on each slide. Scripts are created using Vox Proxy's click-simple wizards, where everything is available in drop-down lists. Scripts are simplified by defaulting nearly everything necessary for Agent control. You can change slides or call up PowerPoint animations within the script.

· Ace Easybanners 2
EasyBanners is a powerful yet simple CGI banner rotation program. It is easy to install and easier to work with. It comes with an administration page where you can edit all the ads and their properties, keeps track of all the clicks and impressions for each banner, comes with lots of options you can configure for each banner, and provides a stats page for each of your advertisers, with all the information they need. Its a very complete program with lots of new features in version 2.0

· Photoshops and Dreamwaver are also software that can be used with multimedia.

SOME BOTTLENECKS

The advertising companies will face some problems due to the use of ICT(Information and Communication Technologies) in advertisement, for example by using multimedia.

Instead of using image of women to the advertisement, now the image of products themselves can be used.

The software, multimedia authoring tools and packages that used to make the advertisement are very expensive, compared to when a person used to advertise. This will make the advertising companies to react against those ICTs.

Many organizations in Tanzania uses advertisement to make awareness of their products to the society. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has bring a new way of advertising where tools like billboards, video,audios can be used, to show the image of people ,men to women advertising a certain products.
A lot of women in Tanzania are used in advertisement image of women can be used to advertise some cosmetics, new fashions.
In Tanzanian society using the image of women has led to many problems to both women and viewers (women).
Negative feelings such as frustration and anxiety to women, when comparing themselves with the women with the women used in advertisement.

Sense of materialism, which make women to demanding everything they see on advertisement.

Women can be alienated from the society due to the type of advertisement she makes, for example by advertising condoms. T his is because condoms are seen as sin to our Tanzania society.

Due to the above problems that women will face, it is suggested that the business organizations should use ICT tools like multimedia to make advertisement. By doing so the identifiable image of women will no longer be used.

Also to use women decently in advertisement in order to retain Tanzanian culture.

REFERENCES:

1. Advert International-Dar es salaam Tanzania
2. Robert Schultheis and Mary Sumner, Management Information System
3. John F.Koegel Buford, Multimedia Systems
4. Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), conducted in Bolivia by WACC in 2000.
5. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Information and Communication Technologies "Impact on Women and Proposals for a Women's Agenda"
6. Kaveh Basmenji, Religious constraints check Iran's renascent advertisers
7. A recent study at Arizona State University "Effect of using image of women in advertisement".
8. www.voxyprox.com
9. www.redada.org
10. www.womenspace.ca/confer/
11. www.yahoo/internet and computer/multimedia