We all like commercials and ads. I’ve had a good laugh or enjoyed a well produced campaign for a particular product. But as marketing and advertising becomes more and more a channel for sending messages to the masses, there is a fine line between selling your product and being respectful. There are times when ads or commercials take you by surprise by the use of the female form to grab your attention. Most of the time, I can make the connection between a slender waist and a new brand of yogurt (though this should not be dictating how skinny a woman’s waist should be). But there are other times when it’s blatantly obvious that advertisers are simply using the female form to take advantage of the old adage that “sex sells”.
The problem, as I see it, is
how advertisers use women to grab the viewers’ attention. Take this ad from Melbourne, Australia for example…
The caption says “She loves a cockatoo. Cockatoo Ridge Wines. Why wouldn’t you.” The ad was originally run in the 1970’s and has recently been reposted during a vintage posters campaign. What...? So to be sexy like her, I should drink the wine? Or… to get a sexy girl like her, a man should drink the wine?
It’s definitely not new that women have been linked to wines and beers… take a look at this one from Heineken:
This Heineken ad has a whole series of ads and commercials around a sexy blonde robot who serves you beer from a keg in her abdomen. Does that even make sense? What bothers me most is that the underlying message seems to be that the ultimate woman is a robot who “dumbly” serves you a beer.
Here’s a real atomic bomb BMW "recently" put out which got women all over the world in an uproar. It’s an ad for used BMW cars.
The caption reads “You know you’re not the first.” Since the young woman in the ad has nothing to do with used-cars, you can put the offensive pieces together. Personally, this one definitely crosses the line of appropriateness.
Even the most well-intended organizations can fall victim of using sexy pictures to grab the viewers’ attention. Take this ad from an organization in the USA:
This ad copies the famous U.S. Army recruiting advertisement with a picture of Uncle Sam. But I don’t recall ever seeing Uncle Sam’s chest.
Here’s just one more… one that took me by surprise. Here’s the ad:
The caption is translated as “Is smoking your only pleasure?” - Mihaela Radulescu, followed by contact information to help people stop smoking. The first time I saw this ad hanging larger than life from a bloc near where I live, I thought it might be an ad for lotion, or maybe even laundry detergent (if you really stretched the imagination with all the white around her)… but anti-smoking?? So is the message that this beautiful woman is better than taking a drag on a fag?? Call her and she’ll give you reasons to quit?? I couldn’t help but feel offended being compared to a cigarette and all the other implications of the ad. (For those of us not familiar with Mihaela Radulescu, she is a famous Romanian woman who started using her wealth and fame to fight smoking as well as other unhealthy habits. If you're interested in the other ads she has put out there, you can google her name. But warning... this is the nicer of the two ads I've seen so far. And out of respect for those from Romania, this adverstisement as well as its companion has been highly controversial. I'm not the only one objecting.)
So what can we do as women to improve the way the media and advertisers use our image to promote their products? How can we get the respect we deserve as women? And what can we do for future generations so they can enjoy messages that are more appropriate and respectful?
