"Gender Watch" when advertising creative step on gender landmines, the British government said: I forbid

"Are you ready for the beach body yet?" 」

Image source: Change.org

Remember this year's mass-food advertising on the London subway? Through gender stereotypes, the oppression of multiple aesthetic advertising in any country is endless. Another recent British-induced baby food advertisement suggests that baby girls will grow up to be ballet dancers, and that a baby boy will become a mathematician when he grows up. (Recommended reading: elimination of sex discrimination and rape unspoken message!) Inventory the most time meaning of advertising )

However, the future of such ads will increasingly be in the British media landscape.

This year, the British government will expand its recognition of sex-biased advertising, define it more clearly, and strictly enforce controls. Guidelines for example:

Cap Code (Cap, the committee of Advertising Practice)

1.3 Marketing communication must be responsible to consumers and society.

4.1 Marketing communication cannot contain any offense that may cause serious or widespread spread. Special attention must be paid to avoiding the offence of race, religion, gender (aggravated), sexual orientation, mobility or age. The judgment of compliance with these criteria is based on the context, the media, the audience, the product, and the standards displayed in the marketing communication.
Even if they do not violate these rules, marketing communication can still be vulgar. Marketers are urged to consider the public's feelings before using materials that may be offensive.
In fact, whether a product is offensive to some people is not restricted to breaches of the rules.

5.1 Advertisements for children or for the content of children must not contain anything that may cause physical, mental or moral emotional harm.

In fact, before that, Britain had regulatory controls on physical and sexual female body advertising, but this year, the relevant unit ASA (the Advertising Standards Authority) decided to strictly enforce CAP and BCAP (the broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice), and expands the scope of control to "strengthen gender stereotypes, or make fun of those who are not gender stereotypes" advertising. (Recommended reading: when the world becomes non-blue or pink, sex ads who buy and harm who?) )

In other words, advertising can still be sexually and sexually attractive from now on, but it must be noted whether such a reappearance might violate the rules and offend the public.

A history of marketing as a means of materialization of women or gender discrimination

Advertising contains gender discrimination, materialization of women, strengthen the existing gender division of marketing history is very good, and the mass media almost at the same time, and reached the peak in the 1960 's. The time and space background set by the famous American series "Mad Men" is the era of the golden Age of sex discrimination.

Let's take a look at the following classic ads:

1951: Let her know it's a man's world
Image source: Business Insider

1952: If your husband finds out you didn't try coffee first.
Image source: Business Insider

1968: Detergent Advertising future generations of women will make the moon cleaner
Image source: Business Insider

1970: It's nice to have a girl at home.
Image source: Business Insider

Heinz Food (Heinz) in a 1950-year advertisement, the first paragraph should have such a sentence: "Most husbands have no longer hit his wife for";1969 years of cigarette ads, it shows a man and a beautiful woman "spit out the smoke to her face, She'll walk you to the ends of the Earth ", suggesting that cigarettes are for men; an early computer advertisement in the 1970 advertised" Women are also available "and sexism is palpable. In these advertisements, women are household machines, and the duty is to please men.

Why do advertisements use "sex" extensively as a publicity tactic, the taboo nature of sexuality and sex makes such subjects more fascinating, says another, that sex is the most primal human desire drive, and that sexual use in advertising can effectively ignite people's desire for goods. (Recommended reading: The rabbit girl does not take off!) Should we be happy for Playboy not to advertise a nude photo of women? )

However, these claims have been found to be self-defeating in data research in recent years, and research has shown that advertising that is marketed through sex often leaves a focus on "sex" rather than the product itself.

For example, the two-day ad for the internet in Taiwan, the advertising company "for the first time to leave, than where to stay more important," the stained-blood underwear images sparked controversy, regardless of the advertising delivery of the gender awareness of how full of problems, such marketing practices themselves, but also the "levy" purpose completely out of focus. (Of course, you can also imagine what kind of talent this ad will recruit.) ）

Reconsideration on the effect of advertising regulation

Looking back, Britain is about to expand enforcement and enforcement of advertising regulations, and such controls do subtly use the leverage of "public interest" and step on the line of free speech.

At this stage, it is still unclear whether the ban could have counter-productive effects and would trigger a desire for a "breakthrough ban". However, it is worth thinking that when the social reality is full of gender stereotypes based on gender division of labor and discrimination, only to prohibit advertising to reproduce the "real", whether there are still some symptoms and not the root causes?

Back in the American album "Mad Men" story set, the first episode of the background is from the U.S. government through supervision and censorship, the tobacco industry to crack down on "health benefits" as a marketing tool. (Recommended reading: fashion elegant through!) With "Mad Men" learn retro suit to wear a match

Advertisers then move their brains to gender temperament, start to link tobacco with masculinity, "Marlboro Man (Marlboro men)" marketing operation came into being, advertisers do not have to face the government's medical correctness of the copy question.

This history provides an era background for the first episode of "Mad Men", followed by Don Draper struggled to keep the story of Sterling Cooper's most important customer good color cigarette (Lucky Strike cigarettes).

The struggle between neo-liberalism and big government: Why does the market's hand of regulation disappear?

However, from a market point of view, when research has proved that "sex" is not really effective as a means of sale, why is there still a large number of operators in the market that are full of gender stereotypes and the delivery of advertisements with discriminatory connotations?

If the government stands idly by and allows the advertisement to continue and operate in large quantities, is it possible to acquiesce in and enlarge the specific gender ideology, indirectly crowding out the pluralistic gender imagination, and form a single, concentrated and homogeneous media landscape, is such a media scene a manifestation of "freedom" of speech?

According to the capitalist market logic, inefficient sales practices should theoretically be eliminated, but why is it still possible to see absurd advertisements based on gender stereotypes in the media today?

We cannot help wondering whether the market mechanism has simply failed, and whether neo-liberalism is a myth at all, deterring people from recognizing the reality that the market is out of control.

There are too many reasons for failure: There may not be a market organization that has carefully used gender as an indicator of assessment and designed a questionnaire for advertising audiences; the owners may still be convinced by the old sexist language, while advertisers are deeply " Pay is the boss of the owner of the mentality of the troubled, it is also possible because a small number of advertisers in the creative thinking of the lazy.

Although the cause of market mechanism failure remains to be studied, the continued appearance of such advertisements shows a certain fact: for a long time, enterprises and consumers in the media discourse right, there are serious wrong.

The appearance of sex discrimination advertisement is only a symptom, which shows the imbalance of media discourse right.

Enterprises have the ability and financial resources to spread the language of gross discrimination, the sale of goods, but consumers dissatisfied or angry voice, but did not get the same amount of sound reproduction. Negative boycotts or negative reviews may still be harmless for businesses, and advertisers may even refuse to acknowledge the harm done to the enterprise itself by discriminatory advertising. To the rules creative advertising as an example, small series of reply attitude also showed the company or enterprise "insignificant" mentality.

Apologies can be unwilling, but creativity should not be lazy

Being a female or sexual minority does not mean building a gender consciousness. The sex ratio of the company's employees to claim that advertising must have a gender awareness, on the contrary, it shows ignorance of the gender issue; as an advertiser, it does not represent creative ideas, after all, it comes from the wisdom of exercise, the cautious assessment of the market, and the precise implementation of the strategy, rather than merely laziness to attract attention by creating controversy.

Advertising is an industry that requires a high level of creative thinking and a better understanding of communication art and sales skills than the average person. Therefore, advertisers should have the ego requirements of advertisers, cultivation, and the base of the pride: Sales of goods is the most basic low standard, how to sell your creativity to the public, your value, is an advertiser's professional, character and the spirit of the people. (Recommended reading: single ads reveal the poor love imagination: Not everyone's love is a form of love games)

I think it would be easy for smart advertisers to be able to stop being lazy about duplicating gender stereotypes or discrimination as an advertising element. After all, advertising is a highly creative industry, what do you think?