Special K,Activia and other products aimed at women that pisses you off!

Dragan · 24-03-2009 11:45AM

Wibbs wrote: »

I would agree. If you're someone who is disengaging from that, its natural to assume more are doing so, but it's surprisingly few. The money goes where the money is, so follow where it goes in advertising. It's not aiming at the disengaged for the most part. Understandably as they're a small group and I suspect always will be.

Plus you need to add in the fact that the disengaging group are highly unlikely to go for the types of products advertised or the general items available with the Consumosphere ( that's mine, by the way, rob it and die ).:pac:

Wibbs · 24-03-2009 11:49AM

Dragan wrote: »

Consumosphere ( that's mine, by the way, rob it and die ).:pac:

Ohhhh I'm soooo nicking that!;):)

Dragan · 24-03-2009 11:57AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Ohhhh I'm soooo nicking that!;):)

Baxtard.

Morgase · 24-03-2009 12:03PM

I hate all those adverts that play on women's insecurities. "Eat this over-priced cardboard! It will make you thin and attractive!"

I have to admit to getting overly incensed when I see these ads because I don't watch telly. When I do on the rare occasions see them when visiting someone's home, I'm astounded that there is such a huge gender bias in some of them.

I sometimes wonder what sort of message younger women and girls who see these ads often (and see them as normal) take from them. I also ask myself is this how young men and boys see women - as people obsessed with diets and appearance and super dooper ultra long lashes?

Wibbs · 24-03-2009 12:06PM

I'd say a lot of men do and not just younger men either.

Das Kitty · 24-03-2009 12:15PM

There's currently an ad on the go for a product that cleans oven shelves. It's an ad aimed at women.

The line repeated twice in the ad (the second time with an irritating faux giggle) is "So easy, even a man could do it."

Yeah, a man can do it but that's not really what the message is, is it? The message is, let's laugh at the incompetent man and if they can do it you'll have no bother.

It has to be the most offensive ad I've seen in ages.

The Sex and The City style ad where they're chatting about constipation makes me laugh though, imagine you're pitch going to the company saying "We want to make constipation sexy" an unveiling your storyboard. LOL

MissFlitworth · 24-03-2009 01:14PM

Galaxy ads- because women love chocolate so much they need to lie down on a couch making s*x faces whilst eating it

Any of those ads for domestos type products that play on the insecurity of mothers and imply that if you don't blast down your counter tops/baby high chairs/toilets with bleach every time you use them and then wash your hands with an antibacterial soap you're a bad mother and going to poison your kids. Especially that one where your wan is skewering together 4 dodgy looking chicken breasts (why, why skewer them together like that?! deliberately to get chicken juice all over the kitchen?) before sticking them in the oven or the one where the little girl ends up playing with the raw chicken dolly because her mother wasn't hygienic enough cleaning up. Or the ads for probiotic drinks and baby formula that nicely let you know that if you're not giving your kids probiotic drinks and baby milk you aren't protecting their immune systems. Hate seeing people's fears for their kids being played with like that!

Wibbs · 24-03-2009 01:23PM

Even more so when a lot of research seems to reckon exposing the kids to a bit of muck and dirt is a good thing. Not raw chicken mind:)

The picture advertisers paint though. Judging from spam all internet users are male, hopelessly single, overweight, impotent, want to invest money in Antigua and like watching donkey pron.:D Judging from the telly, women are all on diets, wrinkly, hairy legged, spend their lives looking for whiter whites, bloated and constipated with heartburn, paranoid about germs and love chocolate to an orgasmic degree(the latter I share:)).

jellie · 24-03-2009 01:45PM

Wibbs wrote: »

and love chocolate to an orgasmic degree

and shampoo. dont forget what amazing effects washing your hair can have

Capt'n Midnight · 24-03-2009 01:53PM

Joey the lips wrote:

Most stay at home people are women and most women watch soaps during the day and evening so thats why all the womens adverts come on at this time

There is a reason why they are called soap operas. And they have been around since the days of radio.

Call me ageist but I do hate the OAP ads on daytime television, especially the ones with celebrities. Yeah and I hate all FUD in the ads that go on about bacteria while promoting products that will probably lead to increased resistance in the bacteria.

"A single serving of Activia contains more bacteria than your toilet bowl."

If you kill 99.9% of all bacteria dead then in as little as fours hours time* you will be back to the original number, except this time they will be more resistant. FACT. *under ideal conditions ecoli can double every 20 minutes

Capt'n Midnight · 24-03-2009 01:54PM

Silverfish wrote:

Having worked in a major newsagent, I can tell you its actually women that purchase 'Model Train weekly' and 'Painting little tiny soldier things gazette'.

My mum used to buy my comics for me.

Silverfish · 24-03-2009 01:56PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

My mum used to buy my comics for me.

Yes, I get that, I'm not thick, but its easy to spot the people who will stand there and chat to you about what they're buying, and the people who are clearly buying it for someone else.

Bit of a difference between a 40+ year old woman buying the Beano and one who's buying a model train magazine and yaps on about her collection. My point still stands.

Dragan · 24-03-2009 02:02PM

sar84 wrote: »

and shampoo. dont forget what amazing effects washing your hair can have

Don't knock Herbal Essences until you have rubbed it into your eh...scalp....that's the one!!!

Honestly, the best thing about shampoo ads on the telly?

Side boob.

tesslab · 24-03-2009 02:09PM

Ah one of the worst is "Have a happy period" F**K OFF! Target audience - angry hormonal women -what genius came up with that punchline??

Honey-ec · 24-03-2009 02:10PM

Dragan wrote: »

Don't knock Herbal Essences until you have rubbed it into your eh...scalp....that's the one!!!

Honestly, the best thing about shampoo ads on the telly?

Side boob.

We could have an entire sidebar on the use of side-boob in advertising, particularly in products ostensibly aimed at women...

Oryx · 24-03-2009 02:26PM

Ridiculous product claims, and crazily sexist advertising is not new. If you check out the print ads from the 50s 60s and 70s, they are laugh out loud bad. So its not new, but it does show that despite our so called progression, things aint changed that much. Advertisers still play on our insecurities and cultural brainwashing. Why wouldnt they? It works.

My personal most-hated is the one with Cilla Black, for some kind of death policy. Where you get a free gift for signing up, till you die!

Dragan · 24-03-2009 02:27PM

Honey-ec wrote: »

We could have an entire sidebar on the use of side-boob in advertising, particularly in products ostensibly aimed at women...

Actually, side boob is very much aimed at men, or at least it was back in the day.

There used to be a saying in Advertising back in the day, "Men control the money, men control the TV, women control the spending".

Basically it was used to hammer home the fact that, when TV first become widely available to the global populace and a tv set would start showing up in one or two homes on the street and then more, it was men who would be out earning the wage and it would be men coming home, planting themselves infront of the tv with the kids for the evening etc. They would be the ones who would dictate what was watched. You needed advertising that would ensure a man still watched it but a woman would learn what she needed about the product.

It was the woman of the house who would be out doing the weekly shopping afterall. As such, things like good looking women in ads became the norm, even back in the early days, not because they were promoting an image for the women to follow ( which is a common misconception ) simply because a man would stay looking at a good looking woman, whilst he would order the kids to do a quick channel change if he lost interest.

It's one of those olden days methods which ended up sticking and resulted in side boob in ads for womens products, despite all the other changes that occured since then.

Sparta?

Nope, just plain old madness.

Honey-ec · 24-03-2009 02:40PM

Dragan wrote: »

Actually, side boob is very much aimed at men, or at least it was back in the day.

I know that, which is why I mentioned its use in ads ostensibly aimed at women.

JC 2K3 · 24-03-2009 02:42PM

Thaedydal wrote: »

It's happening, seriously it is, with more people tuning out from ads be it the radio to their mp3 player,
the tv to online sites to watching box sets or getting shows from 'their American cousins', to people playing games, reading the new on rss feeds rather then the paper, the way advertisers can reach people is narrowing.

It's kinda changing, but the vast majority still get a lot of their entertainment from TV and radio. And ads are creeping into games and are all over the internet, and product placement is all over games, films and tv programmes. I think that by the time that (if...) TV/radio viewing/listening rates drop so low that advertising in between programmes ceases to be effective, the ad companies will have found another equally effective means of targeting people.

Thaedydal wrote: »

We are going to start seeing more gimmicks and desperate ad companies
trying to push limits and boundaries and getting it wrong, so very wrong
and in these days of easy conductibility we can send them an email
telling them that their adds suck donkey's balls and why.

Why do you think the ad companies would be "desperate" and that they're going to get it wrong? And ad companies run ads because they work, they're not going to give a shít if someone tells them their ad sucks balls if they're selling their product based on it.

People working in marketing are very intelligent and ad companies get it right more often than not.

cornbb · 24-03-2009 02:53PM

Gender-specific targetted advertising works both ways ladies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqnqprf68o

My god, I feel sorry for any bloke who actually thinks that wearing that diesel-smelling sh1te will actually increase their chances of getting a woman in their life...

Nevyn · 24-03-2009 03:06PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

It's kinda changing, but the vast majority still get a lot of their entertainment from TV and radio. And ads are creeping into games and are all over the internet, and product placement is all over games, films and tv programmes. I think that by the time that (if...) TV/radio viewing/listening rates drop so low that advertising in between programmes ceases to be effective, the ad companies will have found another equally effective means of targeting people.

The fact they are scrambling to do so shows that there is an awareness of it
and a concern as more of us tune out general broadcasts.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Why do you think the ad companies would be "desperate" and that they're going to get it wrong? And ad companies run ads because they work, they're not going to give a shít if someone tells them their ad sucks balls if they're selling their product based on it.

People working in marketing are very intelligent and ad companies get it right more often than not.

We have proceedures and standards when ti comes to advertising in this
country and enough complaints will get an add pulled and companies can
be swayed to remove adds and products if enough people take the time
to complain.

Dragan · 24-03-2009 03:11PM

Thaedydal wrote: »

The fact they are scrambling to do so shows that there is an awareness of it
and a concern as more of us tune out general broadcasts.

We have proceedures and standards when ti comes to advertising in this
country and enough complaints will get an add pulled and companies can
be swayed to remove adds and products if enough people take the time
to complain.

Generally speaking if an ad hits the telly/radio then it has already been cleared by the people who get that kind of say so. If an ad is risky then it is a calculated risk and the media coverage of having to pull any add or product will be worked in against the cost of needing to redo it and will come out with a profit anyway, possible greater than if the ad went under the radar.

Like the link below. This was fantastic marketing by Heinz. They KNEW the ad would be pulled but went with it anyway.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1028794/Heinz-mayonnaise-advert-men-kissing-set-complained-year.html

As for the ASAI, they were set up and are funded by the Advertising Industry.

Cross purposes anyone?

Capt'n Midnight · 24-03-2009 03:18PM

Silverfish wrote:

but its easy to spot the people who will stand there and chat to you about what they're buying,

can't argue with that, I've learnt something new today

If we were to believe the media then talking about the magazine would be a stereotype male anorak thing.

Honey-ec · 24-03-2009 03:24PM

Dragan wrote: »

Like the link below. This was fantastic marketing by Heinz. They KNEW the ad would be pulled but went with it anyway.

Also used to great effect by Paddy Power and Ryanair.

On the whole, though, advertising is a whole lot tamer here and in the UK than in continental Europe and Australia/New Zealand.

Our account director in a previous job was a Kiwi and used to take great pleasure in showing us mock-ups of the ad he'd like to run, which we'd all have a great laugh at. And then uber toned-down version would come out.

panda100 · 24-03-2009 03:40PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

People working in marketing are very intelligent .

Intelligent?!!

Advertising targeted at women quite clearly works by lowering our self esteem. Wether its gorgeous models in the Special K adverts or representations of flat, tanned,toned stomachs in the activia ones with loads of girlfriends hanging out giggling together. Your sitting there watching tv in your crappy bedsit with your sticky out ,pale belly and on your own.
After these 'inteligent' marketing exec's have succesfully got you feeling sh*t about the way you look and feel about yourself ,they then pimp you products you dont need in order to fill that insecurity and void in your life that was created by them.
This is not 'intelligence',its pure evil and making lives miserable for millions of women around the world!

I think the worst thing about activia and the likes is that women buy them thinking they are the healthy option when there actually not. There full of additives,stabilisers, colourings etc.

The activia advert that annoys me at the moment is the ad where the women is saying her favourite part of the meal is dessert but dessert is bad for you so she has a 'yummy' activia yoghurt instead. Cue some yummy mummy type oohing and ahhing as she licks the spoon on her activia dessert that quite frankly looks like wet cement and bird poo mixed together.

Dragan · 24-03-2009 03:56PM

panda100 wrote: »

Intelligent?!!

Advertising targeted at women quite clearly works by lowering our self esteem. Wether its gorgeous models in the Special K adverts or representations of flat, tanned,toned stomachs in the activia ones with loads of girlfriends hanging out giggling together. Your sitting there watching tv in your crappy bedsit with your sticky out ,pale belly and on your own.
After these 'inteligent' marketing exec's have succesfully got you feeling sh*t about the way you look and feel about yourself ,they then pimp you products you dont need in order to fill that insecurity and void in your life that was created by them.
This is not 'intelligence',its pure evil and making lives miserable for millions of women around the world!

I think the worst thing about activia and the likes is that women buy them thinking they are the healthy option when there actually not. There full of additives,stabilisers, colourings etc.

The activia advert that annoys me at the moment is the ad where the women is saying her favourite part of the meal is dessert but dessert is bad for you so she has a 'yummy' activia yoghurt instead. Cue some yummy mummy type oohing and ahhing as she licks the spoon on her activia dessert that quite frankly looks like wet cement and bird poo mixed together.

Actually i agree with his statement. People in Marketing are traditionally pretty intelligent, and the way advertising works is extremely intelligent.

Moral? Nope, but they are smart. Insidious would be a word i would use.

Don't get me wrong, i know it's fashionable to look at Advertising/Marketing people as being a certain stereotype but at the end of the day they get results, they get people into shops and handing over money.

I've worked very closely with Marketing and Advertising people over the last 3.5 years and "intelligent" would very much sum it up.

1. having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student.
2. displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment: an intelligent reply.
3. having the faculty of reasoning and understanding; possessing intelligence: intelligent beings in outer space.

The simple ( pardon the pun ) fact of the matter is the people are in control of what they do and what they buy, what the know and what they learn. If they want to sit there and blindly accept what they are being told then i think i would exclude THEM from the intelligent bracket.

Marketers and Advertisers work within the known socio/economic structure and apply what they know about markets and people and how to manipulate them.

As i said, it's not always ( or often ) morally sound, but it IS intelligent.

WindSock · 24-03-2009 04:09PM

Nows the time for my mandatory google image search spoils....

Silverfish · 24-03-2009 04:12PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

can't argue with that, I've learnt something new today

If we were to believe the media then talking about the magazine would be a stereotype male anorak thing.

God no, here's a stereotype for you though - the men would be in, grab their Train Loopers weekly and be gone, the ladies would chat to you for 20 minutes each, about trains or model cars or circuitry or whatever, ..... then at the very very end say 'Do you like trains yourself love?'

Always felt bad going '....erm, nope?'

Two or three of the women would buy their magazines and hide them under women's magazines so nobody would laugh at them.

How crap is that?

WindSock · 24-03-2009 04:24PM

I was in the airport last week looking for New Scientist and looking to see how far away it was placed from the plethora of womens mags. I couldn't even find it so I got Viz instead. It was firmly placed in the man section beside the naked FHM ladies.

amacachi · 24-03-2009 04:33PM

WindSock wrote: »

Nows the time for my mandatory google image search spoils....

Took longer than I was expecting for those to appear on the thread. :P

Special K,Activia and other products aimed at women that pisses you off!

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