Friday, September 9, 2011

If You're Tired of how your Girlfriend Looks, Just Deflate Her



Via Sociological Images, this lovely Olympus ad exhibits so many stereotypical marketing ploys for men (and against women, let's face it) that I just had to share.

1) Look Men, Boobies!  As Gwen Sharp points out on Sociological Images, this ad is a classic example of the male gaze.  Men like the ad because it has a hot lady, and women want to become the hot lady so they, too, can be interesting and fascinating to men (though I would argue that this ad would alienate women entirely, more on this later).  So, the only thing that is important is what the men-folk think.  If you ever doubt a piece of media follows this trend try this: switch the genders of the photos and text in the same context, i.e. not resorting to the "doofy husband" trope.  If it seems a little off, then the original ad was typical male-focused advertising.

2) Only Men can use electronics; lady-types might break a nail!  This is one of my personal favorites, and is especially visible during the holidays and Father's/Mother's Day.  Women are targeted for household appliances and personal care items, while dad/bro/Uncle Bill are targeted for big-screen tv's, do-it-yourself projects and, of course, camera and photo equipment.  As I mentioned before, this ad pretty much alienates all possible women customers.  And guys, we know how to use cameras.  Trust me.

3) Women are ugly/disposable/annoying/exhausting shrews and hags!  The woman in this ad is hot, and apparently that's all she has going for her.  Evidently, she's nowhere near hot enough to keep from being boring, so you need to do something or take some action to keep her from becoming an utter drain of time, money and attention.  Buy our product and make your lady suck less!

4) Your copy is bad and you should feel bad!  This ad had potential to not be stupid and not alienate the lady-types.  How about something like, "You love all the different sides of your girlfriend.  Now you can show them off in 1080 dpi."  Was that so hard?  But no, you had to pull a page from the Don Draper handbook.  Newsflash: women can leave you if you don't respect them.  That counts for customers, too.  Don't be lazy.

I'm sure there are other major mistakes here, but I think this covers the major ones.  I will note that this ad is from an Australian magazine, so some cultural norms will be different, but honestly, misogyny is misogyny, and lazy advertisers dip into that well one too many times.

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