Sexist Super Bowl ads.

Oops they did it again!

The ladies over at Momlogic.com give us a look at this year's misplaced Super Bowl ads.
It's interesting to note that Dove - for years at the vanguard of gender equality and a beacon of light in the banishment of stereotypes - is on the list too!

Dove recently launched Dove Men+Care a range of personal care products for men. With it, Dove again uses positioning based on gender peer identification to attract men to the brand. I understand why the ladies at momlogic.com don't particularly like the Dove Super Bowl ad (nor do the guys over at Guardian.co.uk, by the way). It's not original nor creative, and it does go through the whole list of stereotypes - for both genders - in less than a minute. But it does have a positive, empowering take-away, so we'll give them credit for that.

Come on Dove, we're still looking to you to go beyond the standard cut-and-paste approach, to inspire us and to break new ground! Don't loose us now!

Thunderstorms in marketing-to-women land

We're not having an awfully good week in marketing-to-women land.

First there was L'Oreal, which was this week found guilty of racial discrimination by a French court over its all-white recruitment policy for its shampoo sales teams. In 2000, the company briefed its recruitment agency to find "BBR" (an acronym for the colours of the French flag and widely known to signify a person of white, French descent) women sized between 8 and 12. And this comes from the company that last year was accused of whitening Beyonce Knowles' skin in an ad. Indeed: because you're not worth it.

And then....then ladies and gentlemen, there's the Barcardi "Ugly Girlfriend" campaign brought to you this summer compliments of McCann Digital in Tel Aviv. Of course, by the time you read this, the company/agency has already taken the microsite of the campaign offline. Things go quickly these days. However, thanks to Copyranter, I've been able to get a few campaign visuals and some copy used in the campaign.



Bacardi, through Tel Aviv ad agency McCann Digital, launched a promotional mini-site (in English and Hebrew) for their fruit-flavored Breezer drinks with four "ugly girlfriends" for you to choose from, depending on the activity. Upgrade your trips to the beach with Sally." She's "97 kilograms of femininity, strength, and double chins." There's also Lucy, who's "rubbing thighs...and drooping breasts will turn any trip to the mall into an unforgettable experience."



As marketer the number of times presumably educated marketing people would have had the opportunity to pull the plug on this campaign along the chain of command, yet somehow didn't, doesn't cease to amaze me. In fact, it reminds me of this BMW ad.

I'm sure this campaign was made with the best of intentions. But laughing at someone else is always much easier than laughing at yourself, isn't it? And that's were this campaign goes wrong. This is school-bully humor. Humor to hurt and belittle people around you to make yourself feel better.

And really, I had hoped that we'd moved beyond that kind of humor to sell products. And even if Barcardi's target audience may still be trying to shake off their high school sense of humor, surely we shouldn't be encouraging it?

Sex sells chocolate, right?

This launch campaign for "Fling" the new chocolate bar from Mars is raising quite a storm in cyberspace right now.

Everything about this product and it's launch is about sex. And sex sells, right?
The products name: "Fling" (as in "I feel like having a fling with a chocolate bar")
The description of the product: "chocolate fingers"
A tagline that invites you to "Pleasure yourself"
...And then there's the fact that the product's website seems to lead to....a porn site according to this article

Says Lisa Johnson, co-author of Don't Think Pink: "The language of it has so much sexual innuendo, you could pack it into a trashy novel." Johnson says marketers are taking the connection that women often make between chocolate and sensuality too literally. "There are other things you can do that can hit this note without banging on it."



As those of you who know me can attest to, I'm no prude, but all this talk of fingers and pleasuring in relation to a stupid chocolate bar does feel a bit weird. Not only does it shout "trying too hard", it also feels pushy and forced. There's certainly nothing about the product's name, packaging or positioning that makes me remotely want chocolate. And as a blogger commented "that packaging looks to me like a feminine hygiene product. Whoa, pink overload!"

Now that you mention it....

Marketing to women: getting it wrong.

It is still amazing to see how many brands get it wrong in their effort to attract female consumers. I've blogged about Philip's USB-stick necklace before, and now Dell is creating a storm with the launch of their site aimed at women, called "Della".

I'm not sure which consultancy helped Dell develop the strategy for this project (not to mention the look & feel or content of the site), but marketing-to-women wasn't one of their strengths. One of the comments on the "Tech tips" page says it all:

"Does anyone else find that these so called "tech tips" are incredibly simplistic? ... This is a load of fluff that only serves to provide insight into how Dell perceives my demographic. Essentially, we women will buy anything if it comes in pink and fits in our purse. Come on Dell! Treat us like intelligent consumers and not like trained monkeys."

Here are my suggestions to Dell in order to reach their female consumer effectively:

1. Marketing to women doesn't mean marketing to all women.
Before you start, make sure you understand who the women are that buy your product. Who are they? What are their purchase motivators? How does your product integrate in their lives?

2. Gender exclusivity doesn't work.
Women don't demand a separate, overtly female-focused website (that speaks to them in a condescending manner!). Like any consumer, they want ease-of-use, relevant information and respect.

3. Don't stereotype.
And certainly don't 'dumb-down' your message because you think women won't understand. "5 Ways to use a laptop" is an insulting way to speak to any customer, let alone the over-simplified tips that are offered in this section. There's more to women than planning a vacation or going shopping.

My advice? Take the site offline and start all over again. There's no saving this sinking ship.

And as Lydia Sung says: Now if you'll excuse me, I need to give my Asus Eee PC a well-deserved hug.

Friday fun: Because I like to ride my bike in my bikini

Just came across this great blog and a post I could resist taking over for the Muse blog.

No Sex Please, We're Women.

I was recently asked by De Morgen's weekend supplement WAX, to write an opinion piece on the use of gender stereotypes and nudity in advertising. I called the article "No sex please, we're women".


No Sex please, we’re women.

I’m a woman and I don’t like sex. I want everything around me to be nice, perfect and clean and I want it to be completely politically correct. And above all: no sex, please.

That at least, is the way I understood women to want things after reading a press statement by the European Parliament’s women’s rights commission stating that all stereotypes in advertising should be outlawed and a few days later being confronted with a recent study by KU Leuven about the effects of nudity in advertising.

It’s interesting to see how our lawmakers and ad-makers alike still grabble with what it is that women want.

European lawmakers, under the watchful eye of Ms Svensson, on the one hand, call for a ban of all gender stereotypes in advertising. A woman cleaning the kitchen, a man polishing his car. Svensson wants us to realize that these images play up (or down) to stereotypes about the role of men and women - and in doing so undermine equality between the sexes. I agree with Svensson when she says that "gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting them to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes".

Boys should be allowed to play dress-up with their dolls without Dad having a heart attack. Girls should be allowed to come home with a blue eye after a scrap in the schoolyard without Mom becoming hysterical about the reputation of her little girl. Women should be able to admit to enjoying one-night stands, and men should be allowed to cry during Sex in the City.

While I agree with Svensson that stereotypes can help confine people to boxes they don’t fit into, I don’t support her solution to the issue. The recommendation that governments police the advertising industry by creating regulatory bodies to monitor ads and introduce a “zero-tolerance” policy against stereotyping and degrading imagery fills me with a faint sense of George Orwellian dread. I wonder how the concepts ‘stereotypes’ and ‘degrading’ will be defined for me, and by whom.

What if the government doesn’t like the ad for Opium perfume featuring a stunningly naked size 42 Sophie Dahl in a pose suggesting masturbation? Provocative? Yes. Degrading? No. And will they disapprove of the legendary Diet Coke commercial featuring a bare-chested male construction worker? This ad too plays perfectly to a gender stereotype – but it worked oh so tantalizingly well...




Having grown up in South Africa during the apartheid infested eighties, it may be my fear of an overbearing authority speaking, but the question of who will decide what is acceptable or not, and whether these definitions will change with the government of the day, keep me awake. Government-sponsored media control not only affects freedom of speech, it also strips us of our personal responsibility as individuals to help effect change. That is much worse for society than stereotyping a woman fawning ecstatically over her whiter-than-white washing.

The problem with the acceptability of stereotypes lies in this: many stereotypes are in part based on reality. Is a stay-at-home mom a stereotype or a reality? Is a young, muscular construction worker a reality or a perpetuated reality? Distinguishing between reality and what is perpetuated as reality is a very grey area I would rather not have policed by the government du jour.

Which brings me to that other famous grey area in advertising: nudity. A recent study researched the impact of nudity on economic behavior and found that – surprise, surprise: nudity works. Well, at least it does for men. When it came to the way it affects women’s behavior, answers became a lot more vague. From “…een belangrijke groep vrouwen is ook gevoelig voor beelden van schaars geklede mannen” to “…[vrouwen] zijn even goed opwindbaar, en zullen wellicht ook veranderingen in hun economisch gedrag vertonen, maar dat zal eerder gebeuren in situaties waar de seksuele prikkel via de tastzin wordt geleverd in plaasts van via het oog.”

I’m still trying to understand these findings. Which women exactly fit into this “belangrijke groep vrouwen”? And if, as the study says, women are sensitive to images of scantily clad men, then what about me liking the Opium ad featuring a squirming Ms Dahl?

…And God forbid we consider the implications of women being more affected by a sexual impulse delivered through touch. I’m just not ready for a sensual fondle by the sales assistant at the local Zara!

But seriously: does nudity in advertising affect women? Yes, it does. I know the stereotype says that women don’t like sex or that women are not affected by nudity, but the reality is: we do and we are! We like our Diet Coke Man as much as we like our naked Sophie Dahl. But for us, nudity for nudity’s sake doesn’t work. It must add value to the message. If it sells us an empowering emotion, if it makes us giggle, if it holds up an inspiring, sensual mirror, if it conveys unabandoned freedom or playful eroticism, then yes, we are affected.

So instead of heading down the slippery slope of government-sponsored media censorship or silently allowing misperceptions about women to persist, here’s my recommendation: let’s support Ms Svensson’s suggestion that the advertising industry instead give prizes to companies who do the most to break down what it sees as gender 'straitjackets'. But let’s also take up our own responsibility as individuals and speak up about what we will and won’t accept, what we like or don’t like.

Do I like degrading images of women? No, I don’t. But I like the fact that some government could be deciding for me what is acceptable and what not much less.
Shouldn’t we as women and consumers be wielding our own conscience and using our wallets to show the advertising industry and big business what we do and don’t like, what we will and will not tolerate? For although it is a government’s task to draw global boundaries, it remains our individual responsibility to stand up and count in shaping positive and constructive images that accurately reflect our society.

Wanted: second-hand woman for sheer driving pleasure

Every time I look at this ad for BMW's selection of "Premium Used Cars", I just can't believe my eyes. (hat tip to Copyranter, where I found the ad)

HELLO? Is there anyone home at BMW Marketing...?

The questions that keep popping up (please do excuse the pun in this case) in my mind are:

WHO THE HELL SIGNED OFF ON THIS AT BMW?
a) Is this guy really in marketing?
b) How many of his brain cells were actively participating in helping him make the decision on this one?

WHO IS THE CREATIVE GOFER THAT DELIVERED THIS LITTLE PIECE OF MENTAL MASTURBATION?
Do they really pay him at BBDO Greece? And was there no-one more strategic to review this concept?

In my opinion this ad is the perfect example of "how stupid ads are made". The answer? One long chain of unbelievably short-sighted decisions made by people who really shouldn't be paid to be in marketing or advertising.

The last person to leave the BMW marketing team, please: switch off the lights.

Marketing to women by Philips: You win some, you loose some

Philips Electronics recently announced that it is launching a campaign to appeal more to women by making their electronics more fashionable and elegant.

Now there's good news and bad news.

The good news is the 'Design Collection' - a series of home entertainment products such as TVs and audio systems that "will make a statement about personal style". Looking at the few pics I could find, we're talking ultra-slim, sleek products that indeed will appeal to the style-conscious - whether you're a man or a woman.

Now for the bad news:
If its up to Philips, we (women) will soon be wearing (wait for it...) heart-shaped Swarovski pendants that hold USB drives. According to Philips, the "Active Crystal range combines high fashion design with the best in technology, creating a fusion of fashion and function". Sure. I'm totally up for wearing my USB stick around my neck all day.

A woman's verdict? The journalist who wrote this piece, asked is wife if she would like one for Valentine's Day. Her hillarious response says it all: "I'll stab you".

Heart-shaped Swarovski crystal USB drive case closed.