Wilkinson Sword: Mow the Lawn

This is a British commercial for Wilkinson Sword Quattro razors for women that a friend of mine sent me a while back.

To begin with, they get points for a catchy jingle!  And the women doing garden work in cute outfits with serious looking, albeit pink, tools is both entertaining and interesting.  It manages to blend the ultra-feminine image that is the bread and butter of the beauty industry with a kind of empowering view of women who are capable and independent.  That said, I have to wonder who really, honestly expects women to believe that all they need to do to cheer themselves up when they feel down is shave their bikini area.  Seriously?  There are a lot of ways they could have tried to sell this razor and even a lot of ways they could have tried to sell the idea of shaving pubic hair, so why choose one that makes so little sense?  Talk about how it is supposed to make a woman feel beautiful or how bare skin feels great or something.  Why sell a task that many women find annoying, frustrating or even scary (and a great many don’t think about at all, because they don’t do it) as something to do when you need to be cheered up?  You eat chocolate, watch a favorite movie, cuddle with a pet or smell flowers to cheer up, you don’t shave.

Still, it’s an impressive commercial and the jingle is catchy!  It just doesn’t make me want to buy a razor, it makes me want to pick flowers!

Nip/Tuck: Lacing Up the Objectification

These are two promotional images for this season of the television show Nip/Tuck.

I found this image on the front page of YouTube last week.

Then I decided to look for a larger version of that image for this post (which I never did find) and checked the official website.  This image was plastered across the website.

I find these images incredibly creepy.  First, the idea that a woman could lace up the skin of her back like a corset is incredibly disturbing.  It not only implies that the woman is actually threading laces through her skin (a very oogy idea), but also that she can pull her skin tighter to reshape her body like a corset does.  That is a very disturbing idea on so many levels.

But it’s not just the lacing itself that’s disturbing in these images.  It’s the treatment of the woman herself.  She’s barely a woman at all, she’s just a body on display for the male gaze.  In both images the woman is nearly naked, clad only in white panties, while the two men are both fully dressed in suits.  The woman is facing the two men in both images so that we, the viewers, only get to see her back, but the two men appear to have a great view of her bare breasts and rather attractive and sensually posed body.  They also appear to be enjoying that view, leaning into her and taking sexual poses themselves.  They are very much in control here, though.  The man on the left in both images holds the ends of the laces from the woman’s back, so he’s literally controlling her body.  Not only do those laces let him pull her like a puppet in the second image, but implicitly they allow the man to decide what she looks like as well.  That’s pretty creepy on a lot of levels as well.  It’s a step beyond objectification – it is allowing the observer decide what the observed looks like, to mold them to their choosing.  How creepy is that?

I understand that the show deals with some pretty extreme body modification, but by and large the women who have plastic surgery are directing the changes to their own bodies, even if it is male doctors who are enacting those changes.  It may be the pressures of society that make the women feel they need these modifications, but it is still the women who choose them.  These images don’t show that agency.  They show a creepy and almost oppressive objectification.  I find these images really disturbing and if I ever had any curiosity about this show it’s now totally squashed.  I’m now certain that I actively don’t want to see this show – ever.

Movie Monday: The Princess and the Frog

This is a trailer for Disney’s upcoming animated movie “The Princess and the Frog.”

I like how the movie is connected to Disney history at the beginning and I even like the technique of having the characters literally drawn and then brought to life.  What I find odd is that while they mention their 75 year history, all the movies they show were made in my lifetime.  In the last twenty years, actually (the earliest, Beauty and the Beast, is from 1991).  Why didn’t they use Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?  You know, to really highlight that long history?

So, the story looks cute.  It’s a new take on the classic Frog Prince story.  It’s clear that Disney has decided to do away with many of the elements from the fairy tale that might be problematic for a modern audience – the bratty princess who is rewarded in the end, the lack of real explanation for the prince’s plight, and the overbearing parents.  What isn’t clear is what turning the princess into a frog adds to the story.  But hopefully, that’s what the movie will explain.  This is the best trailer I’ve seen for this movie by far because it does give us enough information to make the movie look interesting, but doesn’t give it all away.  It also refrains from the contradicting messages that fill some of the other trailers (like the line about how it doesn’t matter what you look like in the middle of the trailer about how they’re trying to not be ugly little frogs anymore).

I have no idea if this movie is actually going to be any good, but this particular piece of marketing got me excited about it while most of the rest has made me dubious about it.  This trailer, although it’s not the one you usually see, is well worth highlighting in my opinion.  It’s well put together and actually gets me excited about this movie!

YSL La Nuit de L’Homme: Like a Drug

This ad for YSL La Nuit de L’Homme was found in a men’s magazine.

The text reads:

La Nuit de L’Homme

YvesSaintLaurent

The New Men’s Fragrance

A story of seduction, intensity and bold sensuality.

Bright, masculine freshness combines with sophistication and nonchalance for a deep, mysterious and sensual fragrance.

Apparently perfumes and colognes exist for one purpose – to exude sexuality – and this one is no different.  What weirds me out about this particular ad is that the women in it are kind of breathing in the man, as if he were exuding some intoxicating smoke.  It looks like he’s a drug that they are partaking of (and not for the first time, either).  He’s just sitting there, casually and passively, letting them huff him.  And in exchange for being their drug, he gets to feel up a weird disembodied female leg that we don’t get to see the owner of.  He doesn’t seem to have any more agency or control over the situation than the women do.  It’s a very weird and kind of creepy scene.  I get why the company would think that a scene showing a man surrounded by beautiful women would sell their cologne.  That makes perfect sense.  What seems weird to me is that the guy is so zombie-like, as if the cologne has drugged him as well.  You would think that a man who would want to be so surrounded by beautiful women would also want to be somewhat cognizant of the situation and in control of the situation, but this is quite the opposite.  They remind me of puppets or mind-controlled people.  Not really something I want a product to do to me (or imagine that a guy would want in a product).

Snackpicks: Highlights of a Stereotyped Life

This is a “trailer” for a series of web-movies advertising Kellogg Snackpicks.  It was brought to my attention by my brother-in-law (thanks!).

This movie makes a big deal about this being the highlights of this woman’s life (like football highlights, which are always the significant or news-making parts of the game).  It even says “this is Kate Carson’s life,” as if this encompasses all that makes up her life.  All we see her doing, however, is packing snacks for a football game, cooking, and planning how she’s going to “take down” another woman (implicitly, another mom) because… she packs better snacks?  Or something?  That part isn’t clear.  What is clear is that we’re supposed to see this woman as The Mom.  Her name and anything in her life that doesn’t have to do with packing lunches is basically irrelevant.  Now, I agree that being a mom is a super important job and making sure your family is fed well can be very rewarding.  But doesn’t it seem like it’s just a little unfair to say that packing lunches (with mostly pre-packaged stuff) is the highlight of this woman’s life?  That strikes me as kinda sad.  Doesn’t she spend time playing with her kids or doing something rewarding for herself or enjoying her husband’s company or accomplishing a personal goal?  Who is she besides the person who throws stuff into a cooler?  And, honestly, what’s wrong with her husband that he can’t do that too?  Or are we just so old-fashioned here that we can’t even imagine that it might be his job to feed the kids too?  I guess it just felt depressing to me, not energizing or funny and it certainly didn’t make me want to buy any of the snack foods in the ad.  It made me want to stay away from any company that believes that the highlight of my life after having kids might be to pack coolers with snacks.

Vintage Friday: Perfectred Shoes

This is an ad for children’s shoes from a 1934 catalog by National (a mail-order company).

The text reads:

Perfectred

Designed on nature’s own lines…

Mothers:

Don’t take chances.  Buy only shoes that will let tiny feet to grow properly…

Buy “Prefectreds”

The Best is none too good for your children.

The shoes are pretty cute and I like the decorative border with cute kids, but I have to wonder what magic design it is that makes these shoes “let tiny feet grow properly” while other shoes do not, and what horrible thing will happen if you wear something else!  I also think it’s interesting how these shoes almost look like they could go on either feet!  That’s generally not a good thing in shoes.  It also might just be the artist rendering that makes them appear that way, though.

I. P. Rights: Virtual Ad Campaigns

This is an ad campaign from inside the virtual world Second Life for the protection of I. P. Rights.  I found out about it from a blog.

The goals of the campaign seem to be to raise awareness of the issue, encourage people not to buy “stolen” items and perhaps to encourage the makers of the game to implement some kind of protections for the creators to prevent thefts in the first place.

These apparently appeared as posters in various locations throughout the game and the people portrayed are famous player avatars who sell popular products – clothing and jewelry and other things that they designed for people to use within the game.  Some players make significant amount of real money with virtual businesses like this.

So, I found this campaign interesting because it was completely within a virtual world but also because of the way the posters were designed.  They are striking and grab your attention with their simplicity, but the text is almost lost because it gets so small.  While all three people are naked (a point of the ad), the two women are posed more sexually provocatively than the man is, although he is far from neutral.  It’s clear that this campaign is designed with “sex sells” in mind, but given the names of the creators and their businesses, that’s not a surprising tactic to see here.  But does it work for this?  The products they’re trying to protect aren’t even here in the ads.  What if I didn’t already know what “intellectual property” was?  It’s not the most self-evident concept.  I think the idea behind these ads is pretty good, but in practice I wonder how effective they are.

Clinique: As Uncomfortable as High Heels?

This is an ad for Clinique lipstick that was found in a fashion magazine.

The text reads:

High on colour, long on comfort.

New High Impace Lip Color SPF15 wears beautifully for 8 hours.  And lips enjoy every minute.  In 20 highly moisturizing shades that continually smooth, soften, comfort.  Protect from UVA/UVB, too.  Have it all.

I only just noticed that this ad uses the British spelling of “colour” even though it was in an American magazine.  Anyhow, this ad caught my attention because the juxtaposition of that high heeled shoe (and that is one very high heel, probably three full inches) with the phrase “long on comfort” made me laugh out loud.  Shoes like that aren’t comfortable, they’re very bad for your feet.  While there are people who have worn very high heels so long that it’s uncomfortable or even painful for them to wear anything else, they are not only in the minority, but they have come to that point because wearing the shoes has done serious physical damage to them.  High heels may be sexy and not even necessarily uncomfortable, but shoes like that aren’t likely to be what comes to mind for most people when you say “long on comfort”.  Personally, I think of slippers (or, even better, bare feet).  I think that the shoe works for “high on colour”, but it actively makes me disbelieve the claims about comfort.  It makes me wonder if the people behind the product really understand what comfort is.  That’s not a good marketing move.  Sexy is a good angle with lipstick, but telling me that it’s as comfortable as those shoes is probably not the best way to get me to buy it.

Duplo Toys: Options?

This is a very interactive banner ad for Duplo that I encountered on a blog.

The ad as you see it before you interact with it:

Once you move your mouse over the image, it opens up and you see this:

You click on one of the little check boxes and the next question automatically loads.  It looks the same (except for the words boy or girl and the pronouns) for both genders:

Again, you click on one of the check boxes and automatically get the next question, which looks the same no matter what:

A third time you click a check box and a new question loads, looking the same no matter what:

Now you pick a color and see this screen ( the blocks keep getting added and when they are all the way across, the next screen appears):

Finally, you get your results!  Now, in theory, there should be 32 possible results because there are 32 different combinations of answers.  That does seem like a lot to ask from a banner ad, but you’d still expect a fair number of possibilities, given the amount of customization concerning the child, right?

Here are all of the possible results:

All combinations including the “3 Years or Under” option get this result, regardless of what other information is given:

Combinations with “Over 3 Years” and a favorite color of “Red” or “Yellow” gets this result:

And combinations with “Over 3 Years” and favorite colors of “Blue” or “Green” gets this result:

And that’s it.  Those are all of the possible results.  I noticed that most of the toys pictured throughout the questions were not in the results (unless there’s a horse on that school bus and a bridge for the fire truck to save or something).

This seems like it could be a really cool piece of marketing – answer a few simple questions and get some cute toy ideas, but it kind of fails.  First of all, the results often didn’t even feel like they were related to the information that was input.  For example, why is the recommendation for a “soft spoken” little kid who likes yellow a bright red fire truck?  Duplo makes a pretty wide variety of toys, it seems like it should have been possible to do this kind of ad without it falling flat like this one did.   I love the idea of this ad (especially going into the holiday season), but this one just really felt disappointing.  Even if the end result was a “click here to see your results” link that took you to an appropriate page of the Duplo website with suggestions, that would be better.  That could be more customized and have more varied and actually customized results.  This just felt like someone had a good idea and then gave up before fully implementing it, and that’s disappointing.

Movie Monday: Bright Star

This is a banner ad for Bright Star that I saw on a blog.

The box on the right half of the ad played a trailer for the movie if you clicked on it where I originally found it (this is just a screenshot of what it looked like before you clicked on it, so the trailer doesn’t work).

This movie is set in the early 1800s and tells the story of the poet Keats and the girl he fell in love with.  It is most definitely a British period piece.  The women are in Jane Austen era gowns and bonnets and there is at least one dancing scene.  Interestingly, that is not obvious at all from this ad.  In fact, Keats almost looks like he’s wearing a button-down shirt and sweater-vest.  It doesn’t necessarily look like a romantic comedy, but the image doesn’t really evoke Regency gowns and breeches either.  The book in the frozen trailer image doesn’t look like it’s necessarily historical either.  It doesn’t look like the latest Dan Brown, but it still could be a book you might see in a more modern movie (especially if one of the characters is into poetry or something, since it totally looks like it could be the frontispiece of a modern poetry collection).  The movie looks interesting, but I do wonder who decided on the almost deceptive ad campaign.  Even the tagline, “first love burns brightest”, gives nothing away.  I really could see someone seeing this image on a poster outside a theater and going in to see the movie with no idea they were going to a period piece about real people.  And maybe that was the point in the first place.