Ad Priorities

I am, it is fairly safe to say, not a fan of advertising. In fact, I usually find it shallow, depressing and repetitive. I've already blogged generally about LGBT issues and advertising, and often refer to Charlie Brooker's excellent Screenwipe on advertising (on YouTube in three parts here, here and here). But the other day I saw an ad which annoyed, frustrated and depressed me more than a thousand "Go Compare" singers ever could.



Yes, if there was ever any doubt, beauty is entirely skin deep. But it doesn't stop at that, because happiness is directly proportional to how attractive you are. And, of course, we can make you more attractive. All it takes is to lop a bit off here, suck a bit out of there, and Hey Presto! You now conform to everything you've been told is beautiful, because that's the only beauty there is!

This is nothing new in advertising. Every advert for a beauty product suggests that, by using it, you can become a happier or more popular person. But this one is remarkably upfront, about something so incredibly drastic, and it's hard not to worry about the repercussions of an industry which finds this permissible. The token male doesn't detract from the heavy-handedness of it either.

Women seem to get the worse end of the deal whichever gender the advert is aimed at. Men's adverts have always used sexual images to promote their products, equating semi-naked women with everything from deodorant to video games(once rather tactlessly described by someone I knew as suggesting a "Buy One Get One Free" deal). Yet adverts aimed at women promote stick-thin models as an ideal that you SHOULD be living up to.

I don't know how long this cosmetic surgery advert has been showing, how often it has been seen, or even if it has attracted any complaints. I caught it one evening on some digital channel. However, I was aware of a storm of complaints around this advert:


So this advert is offensive? All it seems to offer is some images of women in contemplation, then a web address which offers more information. The word "abortion" is not even mentioned in the advert, let alone depicted or promoted. The ASA recognised this, concluding that:

...the ad was for an advice service for women dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, and stated that Marie Stopes could help women who were 'pregnant and not sure what to do'. We considered it was an ad for a general pregnancy advice service for women who wished to learn about and discuss their options, which might include, but were not limited to, abortion.

Yet still the mainstream media focus on the complaints this advert receives, and so instead of offering women the information and choices they may need, we're left with identical women obsessing on hair, make-up and pro-biotic yoghurt.

Pride (In The Name Of Love)

Hello all,

This weekend has seen the annual Pride events held in London. As usual (though in reassuringly small numbers), people took to the internet asking why there is no "Straight Pride" event, in a way that reminds me of the time when I asked my mother why there was a Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, but no Children's Day. Her reply was that that was every other day of the year, and with LGBT rights this certainly is the case.

The LGBT community is, of course, served badly by the media in most of its forms (popular literature, music, film and television etc.), but there is one area that has consistently underrepresented it, and in my opinion will continue to do so: marketing.

Little seems to have changed since this article was written two years ago. Gay men often seem notable by their absence, and women even less so. Why is this? When Maltesers made the original version of this advert, it featured a gay couple, but it was decided that this limited the market to just gay men. On that logic, of course, no-one in the LGBT community would be able to buy anything. This advert features two pregnant women, but it would be incredible to claim that it would limit the market to just pregnant women, so I do not see how this idea holds. I, despite being a heterosexual male, buy Galaxy chocolate, but not Yorkie bars, and I am sure I am far from the exception.

I don't believe that this situation is likely to improve very soon. Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe showed the difficulties that globalisation has introduced to marketing (6:30 into this video), focusing on the casual racism of the industry, but clearly affecting the representation of LGBT people. The medium must be inherently conservative to appeal to the largest number of people, but its prevalence it propagates the society it is trying to reflect.

Of course, I am aware that it is not the advertisers who are homophobic, racist, misogynistic or anything else. If it turned out that they could make more money featuring homosexual couples in their adverts, they'd start today. It's a nasty system, and one can't help sympathise with Bill Hicks in his classic rant on marketing.