...then God help all us ugly dullards who read and write blogs. What can only be described as an advertising idea session that got out of hand, the Newspaper Association of America has released a new ad campaign to try to appeal to the young folk. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that young folk had nothing to do with creating the campaign.
Jeff Fleming over at Editor & Publisher already has a great article taking the ads apart one by one, so I won't repeat what he said. However, I wanted to point out my favorite ad, which proves that sexism doesn't just strike us lady types:
Penis-vertising (ok, I can't make that any more elegant, but I'm open to suggestions!) is almost impossible to do well or with any shred of class. Male anatomy is very often used for comedy, and the puns are infinite. However, this one is interesting because it not only implies that size matters, but it also associates being "sexy" with having a huge...intellect. I can't even imagine the pitch on this one; I feel like someone checked their email, read the usual "Please your Womman Today$" spam, went, "aha!" and grabbed a pen.
What I'm also not sure of is the target audience. Not that I really know the target audience of any male enhancement product, but I always assumed it was middle-aged, mid-life crisis types. Aren't those the types who are already reading the paper? They're called "digital immigrants" for a reason, you know.
So, good job NAA for your equal-opportunity objectification. At the very least, you may get people talking. And for the record, the size of a man's intellect isn't important; it's how he uses it.
From Editor & Publisher
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