"Pregnant" Passat ad delivers absurdity and controversy

Noah shared with me a post from Art Threat titled "Why is CBC running sexist Volkswagen ads?", because he knows I can't walk away from a good ad outrage.

Here it is:




And here is the rage:

"The story’s focus quickly turns from the pregnant woman to silly interactions between the husband and the paramedic on different features included in the new Passat. While the viewer is naturally curious about the pending child delivery that launched the ad narrative, the camera cuts to extended interior car shots, completely erasing the pregnant woman from the visuals. 

Cutting back to the unfolding scene, the woman cries out for help as the guys incessantly confer on the car. “Starts with a button?” asks the paramedic. “Sure does” responds the husband, continuing on in blatant disrespect to a woman in need of support. 

The ad finishes with the husband swinging the driver seat door closed on the pregnant partner calling for support. “Guys? Having a baby here!” cries the pregnant women as the men stupidly admire the car. 

This Volkswagen ad, rooted in a overtly sexist storyline, clearly crosses a red line in celebrating an automobile over human life."

The author, Stefan Christoff, then proceeds to talk about the toxicity of (North) American car culture, referring to the Passat vid as a "disturbing ad celebrating a new car over childbirth".

But me, I'm just not feeling it. For all my ranting about sexism in advertising, cultural cancers like car obsession, and threats to the sacredness of motherhood, I just can't conjure up any outrage over this ad. None.

The ad, by Toronto agency Red Urban and director Jean-Michel Ravon, certainly does cross a line. But it's not a line of sexism, for me, it's the line of absurdity.

Online ads, like this one, need to be entertaining to hold viewer attention. This one is comedy. And I think there are both men and women in the target audience who will find it funny.

The concept could have used someone in another urgent hospital situation, but that would not have been as funny. The very fact that we so cherish motherhood, that for the man this should be the most important day of his life, that the paramedic is supposed to be 100% focussed on the patient... all the kinds of wrong that this scenario is are essential to its entertainment value.

Does it trot out the tired old "clueless husband" trope? Definitely. That's the most sexist thing about this ad, the way it treats the men. The woman, on the other hand, is the "straight man" in all of this. Her awareness of the seriousness of her situation anchors the complete absurdity of the guys' reactions.

It's not a great ad. But I think it is an effective one. And I don't think any women were harmed in the making of it.

Then again, I'm a man. What's your take?

These ads were created by a bunch of heels

From the submission to Ads of The World: "High Heels are uncomfortable and inconvenient. So how does Deichmann convince women to wear them? Prove to women that men over 180 cm are more successful and that they should wear high heels to keep up with the guys."

As a short guy, I have three reasons to hate this campaign.

The first is the manipulative sexism. For years, I've been complaining that painful fashion is something women have been imposing on themselves and each other, and there is no patriarchal conspiracy behind it. This campaign seems to indicate otherwise.

This one also offers some awful German-to-English translation.

Second, the ads claim that height is essential to success. I've always thought being a mere 5'7" has been a big part of my success, because it forces me to compensate with a big personality.

Third, I don't want women to be tall! It was hard enough finding partners of my scale when I was single, without pressure for them to be taller...

Thank God for short women!

Postmodern beer advertising from Molson?

This is kind of hard to believe, but also quite remarkable.

After years of serving up ads that insinuiate that drinking their brand of beer will make you attractive to the opposite sex, Molson has decided to go meta.

The above ad, according to Sociological Images, appeared in Cosmopolitan. Just look at that sensitive, but ruggedly manly, dude with the adorable puppies and matching sweater and cap. A fine catch for any heterosexual woman! And look here! He's drinking a Molson!

While not very credible in its forced cuddliness, this ad probably went unnoticed between all the photoshopped boobs and bums that make up most of the ads in a women's mag.

But then someone caught wind of the other side of the campaign, that ran in FHM and Playboy:

Copy:

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN.
PRE-PROGRAMMED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. 

As you read this, women across America are reading something very different: an advertisement (fig. 1) scientifically formulated to enhance their perception of men who drink Molson. The ad shown below, currently running in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a perfectly tuned combination of words and images designed by trained professionals.  Women who are exposed to it experience a very positive feeling.  A feeling which they will later project directly onto you. Triggering the process is as simple as ordering a Molson Canadian (fig. 2).
…
Extravagent dinners.  Subtitled movies. Floral arrangements tied together with little pieces of hay. It gets old.  And it gets expensive, depleting funds that could go to a new set of of 20-inch rims. But thanks to the miracle of Twin Advertising Technology, you can achieve success without putting in any time or effort. So drop the bouquet and pick up a Molson Canadian…

Sociological Images editor Lisa Wade (a respected blogging ally, I should disclose) was offended by the ruse, writing "The second ad, then, portrays men as lazy, shallow jerks who are just trying to get laid (not soft and sensitive at all). And it portrays women as stupid and manipulable."

But I think Molson was on to something here. And it has to do with the nature of the trick.

There is no way any male reader of those magazines would take the "Male" ad seriously. It is a parody of the many "how to pick up girls" ads that have been gracing those kinds of publications since the '60s.

It also needs to be seen in context of the culture of pranking Millennials have grown up with. While some women might be offended by the goofy trick, others may get as much of a laugh out of it as the men.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Åsk, from Adland, tells me this campaign is old. Like, real old. (It's always good to know the internet's longest-running ad blogger!)

Antiperspirant strong enough for a man who cheats on his wife

Also, apparently, strong enough for a man who hates his mother-in-law.

Apparently it is still the 1950s at Lowe, Turkey.

Via IBiA

F'd Ad Fridays: Underwear models show off their intellect

This video Christmas card from Victoria's Secret isn't doing any favours for the dignity of the modelling trade.



What a bunch of boobs.

Via Illegal Advertising

F'd Ad Fridays: Beer versus Wife

As awful as the message of these Australian ads is, the execution is quite hilarious:

By BBDO. Via Ads of The World

"Degrading" Lynx ads banned in UK

According to Adfreak, a series of online ads for Lynx (Axe) deodorant have been banned by the UK's ad authority for implying that "using the advertised product would lead to more uninhibited sexual behaviour" and concluded, "we therefore considered that the poster would be seen to make a link between purchasing the product and sex with women and in so doing would be seen to objectify women."

While I find the ads juvenile and tasteless, I'm not sure I buy the ASA definition of how women are objectified in the ads. For example, in the ad above there is no doubt in my mind that the model, Lucy Pinder, is being sexually objectified. But I don't think it's Lynx's laughable claim that it will get you laid by ladmag models that does it. It's the way the model presents her T&A to the camera with a porno stare, with the joke about premature ejaculation. (Which I find pretty funny, given the youthful target market.)

I'm sure anti-rape groups will also be outraged at the implication that it's okay for a man to "lose control" when he sees a woman sexualized like this. But in context of the other ads in the campaign, the pun is made more clear:

I just find the ads irresponsible and degrading to their young male masturbathlete target market as they are to the model (who is at least getting paid). But I still think banning them is the wrong idea. Better to just expose this crap for what it is — lazy, sexist advertising.

F'd Ad Fridays: Now even treehugger cars are being sold as sex

This has to be a joke. According to Green Car Reports, a group calling itself Pump Rebels have decided that it's time to sex-up fuel efficiency.

According to their site,

"Sports cars aren't the only sheet metal who deserve sexy calendars. Horsepower is old news. Big MPGs are what it's all about. Despite the cliché images of daisies, leaves, and fluffy clouds—fuel efficiency is badass, and long overdue for an attitude update. 

$1 from every calendar sold will go to the Blue Green Alliance. BGA is a non-profit dedicated to expanding the green economy, jobs, alternative energy, and mass transit."

Women as cars. Cars as women. Objects of desire. I've ranted about this once already today, so I'll let it go at that.

The calendar is available online for $17.99.

F'd Ad Fridays: A woman's heart, according to some Victorian dude who got dumped

click to enlarge

"Pyramids of fashion" may be my newest favourite euphemism.

Thanks to Jezebel for an awesome find.

Lowbrow casino ad is about as classy as you would expect

Sexist jokes. Fat jokes. Stupid man jokes. Blonde jokes. Potentially fatal injury jokes. This Fallsview Casino ad really hits all the worst ad tropes on the head (so to speak).


Fallsview Casino Resort - Coconut from Holiday Films on Vimeo.


Via Adrants

Monday morning Danish comes with a cup of sexual objectification

Helloooo, target market!

This softcore pornvertising video for Denmark's JBS underwear brand manages to insult men and women at the same time, by limiting (t)its appeal to adolescent boys. Whatever.



Via Illegal Advertising

American Apparel shoe ads take all the joy out of sex

Dominated, humiliated, detached, impersonal... I guess some people are in to those kinds of things in the bedroom. But these ads (via Ads of The World)
don't feel sexy at all. They just feel wrong.

Shoe fetish, or ass kicking?

Reminds me of Puma, except it's a real ad.

"The shoes are doen here!"

Note that she is always there as "his" plaything.

Yeah, yeah. I know. By talking about how awful these ads are, I become part of the problem. But I really do believe there's such a thing as bad publicity. We need to talk about what we like and what we don't like so that, as consumers, we have a more informed relationship with the brand.

Ladmag interactive wants readers to tug their Halloweenies

Zoo Magazine uploaded this YouTube interactive last week, but I just saw it today.



It basically has three of the magazine's busty models show up at your door and offer to strip for you. Not really a breakthrough in the portrayal of women in popular media.

It might also be a bit of a frustration for the teenage boys and old pervs who get worked up over it, as it is still YouTube.

Which, from a strictly marketing perspective, is a pretty effective tease strategy. Want to see her surgically-enhanced breasts in all their ungravitational glory? You'll have to go to their site.

F'd Ad Fridays: How would you advertise skateboard wheels to teenage boys?

Oh! Oh! I know. With porn?

Or maybe a little racist lesploitation? (I just made up this word today.)

Or perhaps a bad pun or two?

And some trash talk.

Thanks for turning me on to this brand, Steve Hall. It's just awful.

You can see the rest of the ads here.

Sex, sex and racism at Belgrade's Grand Casino

Ads of The World featured this rather unimaginative campaign for Grand Casino in Belgrade, Serbia. It uses party shots to make visual puns on gambling, like this:

And this:

That's just run-of-the-mill female sexploitation. The guys, of course are all players, while the women are prizes.

But here's the one that really stopped me cold:

Even if the word "spade" does not have the same connotations in Serbian, it's still pretty damn offensive.

Agency responsible: Euro RSCG

See the entire collection at AOTW's Facebook page.

Making an ass of yourself in social media

So, Chapstick had this kind of lame idea for a customer engagement campaign on Facebook. The advertised it in the real world like this:

Seems pretty harmless to me, just a poorly shot slice of life that was supposed to resonate with the female audience.

But that's not how one blogger, Melissa Spiers (guest posting on ReelGirl) took it. She flew into a very angry rant about the fetishization of the woman's bum and the possibility that we were supposed to imagine the Chapstick shoved up it.

Here's a sample:

"But why would anyone visit my online world, anyway?  Don’t we go online to experience an alternate reality? Chapstick! Woman’s Ass!  Have you ever gone through a day without being bombarded with any sexist messages or images?  Some of them are right out there, nothing subliminal about them  – see exhibits A through Z on the Rap Lyrics floor.  Lost. Chapstick. Ass. Others try to be subtle and sneaky (please take the audio tour in the Museum of Advertising).  Unfortunately, the use of women’s bodies to sell everything from beer to books has become so pervasive that we almost don’t see it anymore.  Hey, I bet I know where the Chapstick is!"

She is, of course, fully entitled to be angry at advertising (and other pop culture content) for continuing to treat woman as sex objects to promote sales or sexy brand associations. I just didn't see it here. I saw the portrayal as an attempt at humour by showing the model in an awkward and inelegant position — one that I often see (especially) women make self-deprecating comments about when they find themselves accidentally so positioned in public. It never occurred to me to think that the Chapstick was in her rectum. Why would I?

Now, Chapstick could have easily defended its intent (if I got it right) and agreed to disagree with its detractors who (it cannot be stressed enough) they invited to "be heard" at the campaign Facebook page.

But foolishly, they deleted all negative comments. So Reel Girl set up a protest FB page where they display screencaps of user comments before deletion.

From Jezebel:

A company deleting comments from its own Facebook page isn't censorship — Chapstick has no obligation to provide a public forum, and users are free to take their complaints elsewhere, as they have done. And in the grand scheme of things, the ad that started the whole controversy isn't that offensive. What Chapstick is guilty of is really bad PR. When Dr. Pepper issued a much more objectionable ad, at least they allowed customers to sound off about it on their Facebook page. By deleting negative comments, Chapstick is sending the message that they can't handle criticism. And especially if you're encouraging people to use social media to talk about your brand, that's a stupid message to send.

Seriously, seriously dumb. You lose at social media, whoever manages the Chapstick page.

UPDATE: Digging way down on the page, I found some un-deleted comments:

I wonder if this will stay:

F'd Ad Fridays: Now a woman can sharpen a pencil

The problem is that once she has a sharp pencil, she can write things with it. Or maybe just stab you in the nards.

Via BoingBoing

It's a shame the company wasn't called "B A Dick", as that would be more appropriate.

F'd Ad Fridays: Danish energy booze hates your boobs

According to Adland, Danish energy drink/alcopop Cult Shaker has been shut down by Denmark's ad authority over an online contest that invited drunk and overstimulated fans to upload pictures of their breasts and be rated for winning free breast implants.

Shaker apparently has built its entire brand around showing nude female (and now male) torsos in its ads. Voting actually ended in the summer, but now the company has been forced to offer a cash equivalent instead of surgery. (They also offered free drinks to anyone willing to flash the bartender.)

What a weird contest. Not just the sexist exploitation, but also the idea of asking people to rate the breasts "most deserving" of enhancement. Not exactly a compliment, is it?

Man math

I'm not even going to bother with the Dr. Pepper 10 "is just for men" trope. It's a cynical and insulting PR move, and let's leave it at that.

But The Consumerist (bless their hearts) have found a much more original reason to hate the brand:

That's right — the brand is based on 10 calories per serving. But with a serving set at 8 fluid ounces (~237 ml), that would give a 20 ounce bottle something like 25 calories by Consumerist's math. The package, however, rounds down. Considerably.

But what do I know. Me man. Me no do math.

The disturbing adolescent world of Duke Nukem

Adland reports that this trailer for Duke Nukem Forever has been banned from British TV during primetime.



The ASA said, "In regard to the scenes of violence, the ASA admitted that the ad was not overly graphic for broadcast after 9pm. However, the ad watchdog said that the scenes showing "women's naked bodies and their very sexual movements and gyrations were overly sexually explicit" for airing at 9pm."

I'm not a gamer myself, but I try to keep up on pop culture. This game is a revival of the Duke Nukem character of the'90s, who was an over-the-top send up on action stars of the '80s, particularly Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

Whatever you think of the genre, as a teenage boy at that time it was lots of fun. The bad guys were cartoonish, and the good guys were tough and funny.

But the Nukem game added an extra pop culture element that was missing from those films: women as commoditized tits and ass as reward for the ero. For that, you had to go to sci fi fantasy sources like Heavy Metal.

It's hard to believe this guy was played by John Candy.

The game then combines two major instincts shared by many teenage boys — sex and violence. Nothing new there. The whole post-Vietnam war movie genre is based on the idea of bloodily annihilating scores of faceless, dehumanized foreigners. Sometimes that includes the real war activities of raping civilian women or else taking advantage of locals driven to prostitution.

"Me love you long time!" from Full Metal Jacket

The Duke Nukem world makes the awful human tragedy of warfare even more accessible to boys with somewhat of an undamaged moral compass. The dehumanized foreigners are truly inhuman—they're aliens. And instead of violating or paying women for sexual rewards, Duke enjoys free beer and shows from another professional class of sex worker — strippers.

One gamer has been helpful enough to record some of the "mature" highlights of the game and post them on YouTube:



In addition to the strippers, it has Duke getting hammered at the "club" and getting blown in a glory hole immediately after urinating (you actually thought that was a woman, Duke?) But don't worry, there's vicarious rape too, as the  lesbian incestuous twins kiss each other then get kidnapped, sexually assimilated, impregnated and exploded by the enemy.

Their last words? "We'll get the weight off, in like a week! We swear!"

Like I said before, I was a pubescent boy once too. And the over-the-top humour is obvious. But part of me hoped that the portrayals of men and women in popular youth media would get better, instead of worse, in 20 years. Fortunately, I believe most young het men are still capable of growing out of these ideas. Especially when they reach the maturity level where they are capable of interacting with real female humans.