Tag Archive for "Advertising"

Posts Tagged Advertising

Dr. Pepper 10 response more patronizing than ad

Remember a certain soft drink company that decided the best way to peddle their low-calorie sugar water was with an ad campaign that proclaimed “It’s not for women” and “No girls allowed”?

Well reader Katharine, like many people, wrote in to complain, and the auto-response she received from the company was, incredibly, more condescending and patronizing than the original ad. Commenter Nicole noticed this as well back in October.

Company response reprinted in full after the jump.

Remember a certain soft drink company that decided the best way to peddle their low-calorie sugar water was with an ad campaign that proclaimed “It’s not for women” and “No girls allowed”?

Well reader Katharine, like many ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Norway considers disclaimers on retouched ads

Norway’s equality minister is pushing for advertisers to begin disclosing when their billboards have been retouched. The goal is to create “warning labels” that will help consumers, and particularly young people, distinguished between digitally altered images and unaltered ones.

Making the connection between unrealistic images of women’s bodies in advertising and poor body image in young women, equality minister Audun Lysbakken called for a dialogue between the advertising industry and the government to create new standards around this issue.

Lysbakken said hundreds of thousands of young girls endured eating disorders while living with a distorted self-image obtained partly by hopeless comparisons with “cleaned-up” beauty ads. Women’s rights groups in North America and in Europe have long allied with psychologists and sociologists ...

By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

The feminist blog revolution will be paid

Courtney published a vital article in The Nation yesterday about the feminist internet’s money problem. I highly recommend giving it a read if you’re at all interested in the future of feminist organizing.

Online organizing is like the “women’s work” of the feminist movement – it takes an incredible amount of time and energy, it’s necessary work (if we want to win!), but we don’t put a monetary value on blogging.

Feministing is a labor of love – we all have the equivalent of full time jobs in addition to our blogging duties. This shouldn’t have to be the case. Online organizing needs to be sustainable so we can continue to be impactful, and that means we need blogging ...

Online organizing is ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

23 flavors of sexism

Writing about bullshit sexist advertising on a feminist blog can be tricky.

On the one hand, bullshit sexism makes me mad. So I want to condemn it, shame it, and deconstruct it to take away whatever power it might have developed in the course of its million-dollar-ad-campaign life.

On the other hand, we’ve all heard the saying “Any publicity is good publicity.” How can you call out a bullshit advertisement for its negative qualities without inadvertently contributing to the product’s visibility, and thus the success of the ad campaign?

I think I have come up with the perfect solution to this heretofore unsolvable feminist blogger’s quandary.

Writing about bullshit sexist advertising on a feminist blog can be tricky.

On the one hand, bullshit sexism makes me mad. So I want to condemn it, shame it, and deconstruct it to take away whatever power it ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Reebok backs that ass [claim] up

Imagine you are a Reebok ad executive facing flat sales and an even flatter image problem. Do you:

a) design an ad campaign based on the product you were given and its proven benefits

b) quit your job because it’s too hard

c) spend the whole day watching episodes of Mad Men on Netflix Instant to channel inspiration

d) based on little to no scientific evidence, claim that EasyTone footwear will measurably strengthen the muscles in the legs, thighs and buttocks, and then design a sexist and objectifying ad campaign based on this faulty claim that promises the shoes will, among other things, “make your boobs jealous of your ass”??

If you chose d), congratulations! You did the same thing as ...

Imagine you are a Reebok ad executive facing flat sales and an even flatter image problem. Do you:

a) design an ad campaign based on the product you were given and its proven benefits

b) quit your ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Transphobic ad campaign puts gender anxiety on full display

A really disturbing and transphobic advertisement showed up in Canada’s National Post the other day, pictured above. I won’t link to their website because they don’t deserve the traffic, but suffice to say it has “stop corrupting children” in the title. Because as we all know, trans folk, gender non-conforming people and allies are all viscous baby-haters who hope to corrupt children with their message of “love yourself for who you are” and “express yourself freely” and “you don’t have to be something you’re not”. Scaaaaarryyyy .

The paper has since apologized, stating that it did not follow its own “procedures in place for vetting the content of advertising, especially advocacy advertising…intended to ensure that such ads meet ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Quick hit: NOW NYC’s new tumblr targets offensive advertising

Sometimes when I’m walking down the street or waiting on the subway platform, I see an ad that makes me want to whip out a marker and scrawl “This insults women” or “Sexism sells!” all over it. Then I remember that graffiti is a crime and that defacing public spaces isn’t a good idea.

Luckily, NOW NYC has started a new tumblr called “That’s Not Cool,” which is meeting all my graffiti wish-fulfillment needs. And you can join in the fun by submitting your own picture of an ad that’s sexist, racist, homophobic or otherwise not cool. The result looks a little something like this.

And you should go ahead and submit – it shouldn’t be ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Restore your fragile masculinity with deep fried factory farmed chicken!

This spectacularly subtle ad is currently airing on Australian TV, reminding men that their masculine identities are so fragile that they can be destroyed by one single sweater, and so insubstantial that they can be restored with a bucket of chicken.

Yeah! Dudes! Manly dudes in t-shirts! Dudes eating fried chicken! Dudes denigrating vaguely feminine things, and each other! Dudes being portrayed as so deeply insecure that they can’t handle wearing a pink sweater without freaking the fuck out! Dudes, how are you not insulted by this shit?
Transcript below the jump.