Adverts & Gender Stereotypes; In Britain

[Kitchen]

I came across this article the other day and, as someone who works in the creative industry, I can't help but think the shock waves that these rulings will send through the industry across the pond.  

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/14/first-ads-banned-for-contravening-gender-stereotyping-rules 

To be honest, I was expecting some overtly misogynistic advert from decades past, but these were pretty mundane to say the least.  The offense drawn from these requires quite the stretch, especially in the case that some feel the female climber being a sleep implies the idea that women should be passive.  ?  Knowing the industry and the unremarkable nature of what was found to be wrong, this just added a whole additional level of bull shit and lawyers to deal with behind the scenes when planning campaigns, in the UK at least.  

I know in the USA, Pharna advertising is very regulated, which leads many creative directors to completely give up on working in the industry.  Those that do, hate it and only do so because Pharma has near endless pocket books, and it helps keep the lights on at the agency.  I cant help but think this will cause some of the same feelings in the UK, across all genres though.  

I am kind of wondering what people think of this.  

Are there any creative directors here in the UK that can give some perspective?  

[El Hoze]

As the father of an eight month old little boy I am deeply offended by that Philadelphia commercial. I would swear off cream cheese but I like cream cheese way too much. 

Seeing as it is 3:30pm on a Friday I might need to light up a cigar and open a beer to calm down about this. 

[Colt45]

2 hours ago, Kitchen said:

I am kind of wondering what people think of this. 

Generally with current day advertising, all I'll say is I believe I'm being force fed "PC" ideology. Beyond that, I'm allowed to have an opinion, as long as it aligns with that same ideology - otherwise, I'm castigated. Acceptance and tolerance are one way streets. You will be assimilated.

 

[RDB]

Frankly, I’m tired of pervasive sexism and I’m delighted that companies are going to have to get a little more creative than making fat blokes guffaw at women looking after babies while men do adventure sports and ignore the kids. F**k that s**t. It has real world consequences: men belittling women, thinking less of them, thinking you know it’s ok to make fun and maybe push your luck and well... what’s the harm in trying it on? Wake up! Sometimes people will get it wrong the other way and take offence where none is meant. Sometimes we’ll miss out on funny jokes. I open doors for women because I was taught that is polite. But is it time to change the weather? Yes it’s long overdue.

[Colt45]

4 minutes ago, RDB said:

I open doors for women because I was taught that is polite.

I hold doors open for men as well as women - always have, always will.

[etakmit]

6 minutes ago, RDB said:

Frankly, I’m tired of pervasive sexism and I’m delighted that companies are going to have to get a little more creative than making fat blokes guffaw at women looking after babies while men do adventure sports and ignore the kids. F**k that s**t. It has real world consequences: men belittling women, thinking less of them, thinking you know it’s ok to make fun and maybe push your luck and well... what’s the harm in trying it on? Wake up! Sometimes people will get it wrong the other way and take offence where none is meant. Sometimes we’ll miss out on funny jokes. I open doors for women because I was taught that is polite. But is it time to change the weather? Yes it’s long overdue.

Whoa - did you read the article?  I dont think either ad went as far as you believe them to have.  There is too much "PC" around for sure.  Governments are trying way too hard to tell people how they should think / feel / behave.  That isn't for them to determine.  I'm no fan of this.  

[mtd057]

“The ASA seems to be out of sync with society in general"

After reading that article, I agree 100%. 

[BoliDan]

On second thought, let's not advertise in the UK... Tis a silly place.

[Kitchen]

4 hours ago, RDB said:

Frankly, I’m tired of pervasive sexism and I’m delighted that companies are going to have to get a little more creative than making fat blokes guffaw at women looking after babies while men do adventure sports and ignore the kids. F**k that s**t. It has real world consequences: men belittling women, thinking less of them, thinking you know it’s ok to make fun and maybe push your luck and well... what’s the harm in trying it on? Wake up! Sometimes people will get it wrong the other way and take offence where none is meant. Sometimes we’ll miss out on funny jokes. I open doors for women because I was taught that is polite. But is it time to change the weather? Yes it’s long overdue.

As was noted before, neither of the ads in this case had anything to do with what you just described.  They were pretty mundane jests.  

As John Cleese said, "all comedy is critical," and I feel, at the expense of pleasing those whom are the easiest to be offended, who can literally find anything to be offended by, we are sacrificing creativity and comedy.  

[JoeyBones777]

I get what RDB was saying. Personally, I hate fathers and men in general being depicted as incompetent sex driven morons. This has been going on in advertising, tv and movies for decades. Society puts on constant display the worst in humanity but expects the best of humanity.

With all that said, the government screws everything up...as in, all the things. Government is inept and corrupt and continually creeping more and more into oppressive authoritarianism. I'm fully against government regulations of this sort. If I really don't like how a product is advertised I won't buy the product. Same with the tv shows or movies. There is literally no need for government to waste tax dollars showing us how they can screw up the advertising industry. 

[IanMcLean68]

8 hours ago, Kitchen said:

As was noted before, neither of the ads in this case had anything to do with what you just described.  They were pretty mundane jests.  

As John Cleese said, "all comedy is critical," and I feel, at the expense of pleasing those whom are the easiest to be offended, who can literally find anything to be offended by, we are sacrificing creativity and comedy.  

Agreed. Comedy is at its best when it is taking the fine line, being risque and poking fun. Being non-PC in comedy is an effective way of injecting humour. We like to laugh at naughty thoughts. When a comedian does it, most of us know it is just tongue in cheek humour, and not necessarily the personal views of the comedian.
However, in advertising, we expect truthfulness and straight forwardness. Definitely a conflict of interests there.

This isn't the first time that advertisers have got themselves into hot water by trying to add humour to their commercials. There are definitely those people that find anything to be offended by.

[CaptainQuintero]

  There's a very vocal minority who are professional offence takers that have poisoned every aspect of life now.

  All aboard the thin-skinned express!

  Next stop: "You're a Nazi because I disagree with you". Population: everyone but me.

[RDB]

Ha. Good to know we don’t all agree about everything. That would be boring.

I’ve seen the adverts in question. The Philadelphia one is pretty harmless: it just makes a joke about men being useless parents. The VW one is totally straight-faced and is all adventurous high-achieving men (astronauts, athletes) while mum makes sandwiches and reads by the pram.

I have two young children, a boy and a girl. I don’t want her persistently being told that women are not as capable as men except when it comes to childcare. 

[eastburn84]

No offense intended........

I believe Children should receive their parenting in the home, not from t.v. commercials or preconceived public opinion. Children will grow up with the messages instilled in them by their parents. If children are well supported through childhood they will know they are just as capable as (insert preconceived oppressor here) Just as your children will likely emulate their Parents parenting style when it comes to their children, not what the cream cheese add told them.

Its not a governments place to limit, sensor the masses. Let the market dictate that. You don't like an adds "message" don't buy the product.

 

[Fugu]

On 8/17/2019 at 11:19 AM, IanMcLean68 said:

However, in advertising, we expect truthfulness and straight forwardness.

Sure you do?!

 

[IanMcLean68]

28 minutes ago, Fugu said:

Sure you do?!

Good point! But I sure do expect it! One of the main reasons why I don't ever watch television, other than the poor unimaginative programming these days. The adverts make me cringe and get angry. The longer I abstain from the idiot box (been several years now), the more stupid the ads look, the more they look like they are made for the worlds dumbest morons. I'm not concerned about the humour or the non-PC elements, if anything, these are maybe the only redeeming features.

[Cairo]

On 8/16/2019 at 4:11 PM, Colt45 said:

Generally with current day advertising, all I'll say is I believe I'm being force fed "PC" ideology. Beyond that, I'm allowed to have an opinion, as long as it aligns with that same ideology - otherwise, I'm castigated. Acceptance and tolerance are one way streets. You will be assimilated.

 

What is that curse "may you live in interesting times".     Bernays (http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393) used to be the secret knowledge of the insiders.    Now every obscure government bureau on the planet wants to get into the propaganda and manipulation act.       Hopefully the younger generation will learn to become the cats who will not be herded.

[Kitchen]

3 hours ago, IanMcLean68 said:

Good point! But I sure do expect it! One of the main reasons why I don't ever watch television, other than the poor unimaginative programming these days. The adverts make me cringe and get angry. The longer I abstain from the idiot box (been several years now), the more stupid the ads look, the more they look like they are made for the worlds dumbest morons. I'm not concerned about the humour or the non-PC elements, if anything, these are maybe the only redeeming features.

There is a fine line between being truthful and good advertising, and unfortunately the level at which good advertising can stray from complete truthfulness can be pretty far, but still be acceptable.  In a lot of cases though, it makes sense.  I primarily shoot architecture and interiors, and we are constantly Photoshoping out light switches, electrical outlets, exit signs, etc.  It makes the picture look better and it is not really a lie; people are not hiring an architect for his ability to design in electrical outlets.  For resorts, it is not uncommon for us to photograph the best room (photographically, not necessarily the best room to stay in), and then photograph the best view from the resort, and drop that view into that room shot.  Once again, this is not really lying since the resort has many versions of this same room and that view exist somewhere in the building.  It's a room that does not really exist, but could very well, and even if it did, the chance of you booking that exact room are low anyway.  Another genre I work is splash photography.  Recently I did a shoot with a very large Italian coffee company where they want their canned cappuccino moving through the air.  The problem is cappuccino is kind of translucent and does not photography well in air, so we used brown paint, which is completely opaque.  The paint was the identical shade of the product and looked exactly like the product but without the background bleeding through, so once again it was not really a lie.  

So if people get offended enough to complain about that cream cheese commercial to the point of making a government agency to put an end to it, where is it going to end?  Will what I described above soon be frowned upon by the PC police?  

[Colt45]

2 hours ago, Kitchen said:

....Once again, this is not really lying....

I guess it all depends on which side of the coin one lies. For the companies / advertisers, no big thing. For the consumer, it could certainly be considered false advertising. Clothing companies routinely clamp / pin clothing on models to give the illusion of fit. Edit images to change sleeve lengths, pant lengths, shirt, skirt, dress hems. Edit pulls, etc - all to give the illusion of fit. No prob until the consumer spends X on a blouse only to wonder why it doesn't look the same as the website or catalog.

I imagine that at some point in time, there may have been a cigar company or two who've added a little extra oil to the cigars in a photo shoot. Unethical? probably not. False advertising?

Maybe a little more gray....

 

[Fugu]

Mods: Thanks for the labour of merging my two posts, but in doing so, it looks as if my comment "laughable" was directed at @IanMcLean68's comment, which it certainly wasn't. Was targeting towards the contents of the original article. (still not a fan of mod's posts post-editing and re-sorting.....)

So, here we go again:

On 8/16/2019 at 8:23 PM, Kitchen said:

I am kind of wondering what people think of this.

Nonsense. Laughable.

This is gotten all too over-cerebral, overly pseudo. We, our whole society, the human community functions all on stereotypes, has always been. For better or worse - but would be hard if different. Utilizing stereotypes even is vital to us in certain situations. Come on, sanity and reason ....

Edit: The ad I find not overly funny, as it isn't too far from real life - A friend of mine once forgot one of is boys in a shop (to his defence, he got a few more of them ... ). He remembered there was something missing when he got back to the car and spotted the empty child's seats in the back.

[IanMcLean68]

9 minutes ago, Fugu said:

Mods: Thanks for the labour of merging my two posts, but in doing so, it looks as if my comment "laughable" was directed at @IanMcLean68's comment, which it certainly wasn't. Was targeting towards the contents of the original article. (still not a fan of mod's posts post-editing and re-sorting.....)

Thanks @Fugu, but I never thought for a moment that this was directed at my comment, so all good ? For the record, I totally agree with you, which should be fairly evident. Nonsense indeed! Storm in a tea cup really.  Far more important an issue is the sheeple herding stupidity of modern day television advertising.

I honestly cannot imagine a quicker way to drive me totally bat-shit insane then to lock me in a room and force me to watch non-stop infomercials.

 

[eastburn84]

This reminds me of the YT Channel Cracked

 

 

[CaptainQuintero]

3 hours ago, Colt45 said:

 

I imagine that at some point in time, there may have been a cigar company or two who've added a little extra oil to the cigars in a photo shoot. Unethical? probably not. False advertising?

Maybe a little more gray....

 

  I seem to remember Habanos going through a phase of sending out newsletters with heavily photoshopped images of upcoming releases, boxes of perfectly lined up identical plastic looking jobbies.

  Haven't seen any for a few years though, I guess the guy got 'reassigned'

 

[Kitchen]

I've always liked this parity on what it is like being a creative director dealing with a client. 

 

[IanMcLean68]

16 minutes ago, eastburn84 said:

This reminds me of the YT Channel Cracked

 

 

Thanks for the laugh! Enjoyed watching this whilst drinking my own morning cup of smashed beans in hot water psychoactive completely unregulated drug!

Of course the subtle irony with this is that these are genuinely funny and clever and not horrible to watch, completely unlike the real commercials themselves, especially the ones they are sending up.