Nightclub marketing gone too far?

I'm not offended by the so-called "sexism" of these ads. I just think Alchemy are going for the laziest, most shocking type of advertising they can and they've been doing this for a while. This advertising, combined with the screenshot from their FB page where someone complained about the image, and they basically told her to GTFO, combined with the broadsheet.ie article that someone posted earlier, makes me hope I never have to set foot in that place in my life. But they are aiming towards a different demographic to me, so it doesn't really matter to them.

subway wrote: »

The one that's in this thread twice? What's dangerous about it?

Haven't read the thread to be honest with you. I think it's dangerous as it implicitly suggests that if a girl goes to this event, she is 'up for it'' and responsible for any unwanted sexual attention/assault she suffers. It essentially feeds in to the line of thinking that blames the victim of sexual assault for their conduct.

smash wrote: »

St.Spodo wrote: »

There is a big controversy surrounding Alchemy for running an ad portraying a woman with her knickers down and the slogan ''if you're not up for it, don't cum''. This ad, unlike the one in the OP, I'd argue, is not only sexist but dangerous. It is very possible for nightclubs to take things too far. Certain ones do so on a regular basis and it needs regulation.

How is it sexist? Please explain, I'm dying to hear.

I'll paraphrase: If you get sexually assaulted in our nightclub, it's your own fault - you knew what the place is like.

Or, the message to men: All the women in the nightclub are in the mood, so feel free to grope away.

subway wrote: »

I think that's a load of ****e, tbh.
Anything to back that assertion up?

''If you're not up for it, don't cum''.

What if you go and you're not up for it?

Simple formula to ****e like this, from someone working in the industry:

• Clubs thought they had it made during the boom.
• Incompetent managers packed their mates in as staff/management. What, you thought only FF had cronies? They thought it was fantastic that they got to work in a job where they did sweet FA and essentially got paid to drink pints and count money. These are the types of **** you hated during the boom who used to brag about their new cars and villas in the sun.
• Recession hit.
• Clubs panicked and slashed prices on booze.
• That didn't work for long because everyone had the same idea at the same time.
• Incompetent management realised they had been coasting for years and knew nothing more about marketing than what they'd seen on TV shows/movies with characters who work in marketing, i.e. 'sex sells' and so on.
• In the meantime, people who had been hit by recession decided to 're-invent' themselves as marketing geniuses with ideas like this and vague business names like 'Sloshed' or 'Panther Marketing'. I've seen one or two decent party promotions companies out there, most are just people committing welfare fraud though trying to milk clubs for a few bob with their mates til they get back up on their feet/emigrate to Oz. These are actually the people I'd least blame for all of this: if clubs are dumb enough to pay these people to do their jobs for them, then why shouldn't they take advantage?
• Desperate ads like this came out en masse. Still no vision beyond the misguided notions that 'sex sells' and 'all publicity is good publicity'.
• What's going to happen is that THAT will fall flat, because these type of venues have a massive disconnection from what their punters actually want and no cop on how to turn it around with smart business sense.
• People jump from the sinking ships before they're pushed, pat themselves on the back and blame running a business into the ground as a 'sign of the times'
• Lather, rinse, repeat until enough venues go out of business that the market stabilises.

In the meantime, there's no vision, no genuine option for the consumer, and very few people actually trying to think of solutions the problem, just cover their arses for long enough and hope that the country gets back on the ground or enough people develop booze problems in the interim.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you: the Irish nightclub industry. An absolute farce.

smash wrote: »

What's depressing is that everything in our society is dissected and branded as something wrong even when it's just innocent fun.

If a woman is raped tonight by a man she meets at Alchemy and the case gets as far as court, the first point in the defence's case is going to be that flyer. Almost every defence barrister in the country, faced with a case like that, will point out the flyer and argue that their client was honestly under the impression that any woman at the club was "up for it". And there's a decent chance it'll work as a defence.

I'm really sick of this attitude. If you want to have a straightforward disagreement and argue that you think it's more important to push the boundaries of free speech than to avoid causing offence and upset, then fair enough. I'll debate that with you. But to act as though it's weird and wrong to think that it goes too far is deliberately obtuse and unpleasant. There is something fundamentally broken with a person's sense of empathy if they can't understand that some people might justifiably feel offended or upset by a slogan that trades on the same basis as the idea that a woman in a short skirt is asking for it. Is it really so hard to understand that the phrase "if you're not up for it, don't come" might be horribly upsetting to people who've been violated in an appallingly personal way, or people who've seen their attackers walk free after successfully arguing that it was understandable to assume they were consenting based on their choice of clothes or where they were? Is that leap of the imagination really so hard to make?

I don't think Alchemy is some horrific den of sexual violence, but I think their campaign is casually offensive and demeaning to victims of sexual assault. There's a tendency among a certain subgroup of men to treat any criticism of something like this as being humourless feminists refusing to have a laugh with them. If your idea of funny is blithely ignoring the potential of your words to cause needless upset among victims of sexual assault, and then reacting to anyone who points out that potential by accusing them of trying to close down free speech, I'm not laughing along with you.