Pics or it didn't happen.
Ads watchdog: Er, what does woman in her undies have to do with ‘slim’ phone?
Mobile phone company Kazam has been put on the naughty step by the Advertising Standards Authority after viewers complained its "world's slimmest phone" ad caused offence by overtly sexualising women. The ASA noted that much of the ad focused entirely on an actor in her underwear, "including scenes that featured several close- …
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 15:15 GMT Dodgy Geezer
We DO..
...have the first amendment. And all the others. Because we don't have a written constitution, we can change anything we like.
I have nothing but the deepest pity for any country that has a written constitution, and hence has to try to mould 18th century thinking and concerns into 21st century situations. How's that one about the federal government not being able to regulate state commerce working for you? Or the 3rd, 12th or 18th amendments?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 17:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's on their website
Pics or it didn't happen.
Either they only blocked it for UK users or they "failed" to update their website, but I just came across it when investigating this phone. Pity the specs are so deficient (of the phone :).
As for the complaint, that's it. I'm going to complain the next time an overly exercised hunk blows a gaping hole in the ozone layer by emptying an entire can of Lynx deodorant on himself instead of taking a shower. I feel stereotyped*
* I'm wholly against exploitation, but is that really worth a complaint? Who reanimated Mary Whitehouse?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 13:38 GMT Fab De Marco
Diet Coke Break?
Conversely what does a shirtless gardener have to do with a sugarless beverage?? Surely it should show a sweaty fat guy mowing the lawn shirtless drinking coke so that he can lose weight..... Hold on, that won't help sell soft drinks.
It's the oldest rule in advertising; sex sells. Deal with it and move on.
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 18:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Cillit Bang...
Having said that... how, just HOW, did they get away with releasing an underarm roll-on of the flavour "Original" whilst at the same time flashing the label "New"?
How do they get away with emptying half a can on an armpit without getting buried under complaints from environmentalist (btw, if you do this amount of spraying, consider taking a shower instead - too much deo makes just for a different but just as abhorrent BO)?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 14:16 GMT codejunky
Re: Overtly sexualising women
You seem to have missed the memo. A woman is only allowed to be sexy when she intends to be in a self empowering way especially relatively to a man. There is also an additional rule that it must also be acceptable to the puritanical feminazis and not be deemed to bring any shame what-so-ever on females at all in any respect (this part overrules the rights of free will).
Of course we all know the coke ads were all about the cola, and nothing to do with the oogling, leering, uninvited and shameless voyeurism of the watching ladies. Honest.
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Thursday 26th February 2015 13:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Overtly sexualising women
You only have to look at adverts aimed at women (particularly those in women's mags) to see ads that would make most guys blush.
And if you think sexist attitudes towards women only exist with men - you should hear what lesbians have to say about other women!
And get a bunch of drunk women together and heaven help any guy who strays within their detection zone...
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Thursday 26th February 2015 14:23 GMT Velv
Re: Overtly sexualising women
The Diet Coke ads always puzzled me.
Is it really the blatant sexist sell to women of the hunky guy stripping off?
Or is it much subtler. Is it trying to sell Diet Coke to men, since let's face it ALL the women in the Diet Coke ads are pretty foxy, so which straight guy wouldn't aspire to be the workman/lift operator/lawnmower man.
Mines the one with the spray stains...
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Thursday 26th February 2015 14:42 GMT Jimmy2Cows
Re: Overtly sexualising women
"You seem to have missed the memo. A woman is only allowed to be sexy when she intends to be in a self empowering way especially relatively to a man"
Not only that, but to a specific man.
Any other men had better not find her attractive and make unwanted advances, because they would be.. well.. unwanted, and she'll take offence.
But don't ignore her or indicate she's unattractive either as she'll, yup, take offence.
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 14:32 GMT Zog_but_not_the_first
How many...
... people have to complain to trigger this sort of response? If there are thousands of complaints, then OK. Maybe even hundreds, but if it's a few tens or less why should a tiny minority's views prevail over a large (but silent) majority?
Should the squeaky hinge always get the oil?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 16:31 GMT KroSha
Re: How many...
8 complaints.
http://asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2015/2/Kazam-Online-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_290315.aspx#.VO343lOsXGx
Generally, very few members of the public actually bother to contact the ASA. Back in 2011, the ASA released their top ten. No 10 had 840 complaints.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18243577
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 23:07 GMT TheProf
Re: How many...
I once complained about an advert.
It was for an 'Italian' margarine. Two elderly women picnicking on a beach kicked their dog which ran off and stole the towel from a young man who was using it to change beneath after a swim. The two laughing women then photographed the naked man.
The ASA eventually wrote back presenting the findings of their investigation. Amongst the complaints they'd received were:
Stereotyping of Italians:
Cruelty to a dog.
Humiliation of a young man by two elderly women.
The ASA rejected all the complaints because the advert was obviously intended to be humorous.
I failed to see the joke.
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 14:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Barbra would be proud
1. Never seen that ad before.
2. ASA publicise it.
3. I, and everyone who's seen el reg today, watches the ad. Probably several times.
The Streisand effect in full flow. I'm continually staggered at the naivety of people and organisations of the modern world. By drawing attention to it's perceived naughtyness, you have to draw attention to it. As I say, the ASA are idiots. Why can they just not let things lie?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 15:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Barbra would be proud
No, not quite, never seen the ad and even now I'm not the slightest bit intereted in seeing it. Anything that can be shown on UK TV is not worth getting worked up about and in any event will be a let down after I let my imagination run riot with the description given in the article. Who needs TV?
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 17:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A minor alteration...
"There. Fixed that for you. I'm allowed to say that word, because I'm old enough to know better"
The point is surely that the distinction arose because at one time all actors were male, and so the arrival on the stage of actresses to play the role of women was an achievement for women's lib. The universal adoption of "actor" only makes sense when men or women can be slotted without comment into the same roles, unlike doctor, accountant, pilot, plumber etc.
That point definitely hasn't been reached yet.
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 16:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Funny how the world works
Using sex in advertising works, but it's a low, loooow level of creativity from the ad agency. If I'm paying agency creatives a ton of money to build a campaign, and they come back with "we'll get some chick in undies and put your product somewhere nearby", I would be questioning their capability. A three -hour lunch and en expense account and you come back with...boobs?
As far as the UK market goes, using humour seems to be the path to a classic ad. I still have nightmares about this one: http://www.funnyplace.org/stream/pot-noodle-luxury-20032/
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 16:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm feeling a bit sociological this afternoon
I admit, I watched it on Youtube.
Just about all advertising whatever objectifies people, not only women. I consider myself a feminist because (a) I've never been verbally attacked by the feminist women I know and (b) I have a wife and daughters all in the professions and (c) I've actually read feminist academic work and I agree with a lot of it. But I can't get terribly worked up about this ad.
I do strongly disapprove of the awful ads that appear on the commercial channel, in the middle of programmes expecting a female audience, where it's suggested that buoyant, brightly coloured hair is in and wrinkles are out, with the strong underlying message that women should spent a lot of time and money on prettying themselves up rather than doing a Mary Beard. Now that's really objectifying women. And there are some truly horrible print adverts suggesting to young men that spraying some pong on themselves and shaving all over will get them lots of bedroom time with women. That's objectifying too.
This advert begins by spending much too long dwelling on the attributes of a young woman wearing a beach-level degree of clothing. But the basic joke (skinny woman puts on skinny jeans, irons shirt, phone is so thin she doesn't notice it's there) is no more hyperbolic than the stuff that claims that if you put it on your hair you will look like an expensively made up supermodel, and is clearly not intended to be taken seriously. What is sauce for the phone maker should be sauce for Clairol or whatever the stuff is called.
For what it's worth (not much) my own view is that feminism means that if women want to wear hijabs that's their business and if they want to walk around in bikinis that's also their business, and they should be able to do either without harassment unless they are in an environment where other rules need to apply, like a chemistry research lab or the cockpit of a Tornado. And I do suspect that the ASA were giving into the noisier Muslims on this one.
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Wednesday 25th February 2015 21:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'm feeling a bit sociological this afternoon
By the way, perhaps I should add that while I didn't consider the ad offensive, just a bit gratuitous, I wouldn't buy a phone that had an ad like that. For exactly the same reason, I wouldn't buy a phone from a company that calls its helpdesk workers "geniuses". I don't like being talked down to.
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Friday 27th February 2015 16:34 GMT Roger Mew
Unfortunately for women, or possibly fortunately, they are certainly a lot more pleasant on the eye than men, well normally. It is a fact of nature that the male will sexually be atracted to the female, and that the female will do what she can to attract a male. It is about time that we all got over the fact that nature still has a hold on us. Whilst I am certainly of the opinion that a woman should not be barred from doing things just because she has no willy and two lovely oleos (train buffers) and that they should be treated as equal as a person, that certainly should not denigrate them as they are not easy on the eye.
We all, men and women have got to accept that nature has got the last laugh on us, and if a lovely image helps to sell something then so be it. Go on girls, get the best out of it that you can.
My daughters? One drives a 53 seater bus, and the other is into radio and electronics, and does minor repairs to her car, both are quite presentable, but I would still prefer to see one of them lolled over a new car in a bikini, than some bloke in a pair of speedo's.