Misleading Advertisements
WILL THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY EVER LEARN?
Tucked under Quarantine, we all are scrolling through social media and flipping through tv channels like never before. And that leads us to identify a common theme among a few commercials the leading brands. These advertisements were eccentric and extremely belittling to the womankind. We’re in the year 2020, and we’ve made such massive progress in technology and globalization and yet have failed the fight against gender discrimination. We are holding on to this regressive practice and keeping it safe behind stereotypes, which is eventually keeping us away from the truth. Gender discrimination is evident not just in real lives but also in the reel lives around us.
However, unlike the producers and managers of the TV Ads, we have decided to not sit back and entertain the construction of another wall in the building of gender discrimination. Phoenix would like to bring your attention to the fact that women in advertising are widely dissimilar to women in real life.
Cologne Commercials
If one day, we all decide to sit together and binge play the famous ‘never have I ever’, we don’t believe anyone of us would ever be able to drink on “never have I ever advanced my lips, ran two fingers down my neck, did an audible moan, and winked at a man because of his cologne.” No self-respecting individual has ever done anything further than taking another whiff of the perfume in the air or complimenting the person “Nice perfume”.
We as viewers must bring this into the notice of advertising agencies that advertisements have a different psychological effect on each viewer. The misogyny behind the TV- commercial might creep up and stay in the shallow mindset of men who consider women nothing more than an object or property. The advertising industry, companies, brands do not assess the influence their product and marketing have on the understanding of young boys and older men, which consequently adds to the misogyny and the cycle continues.
Detergent/Dishwash Soap Commercials
We cannot stress enough how many times we have seen women on screen, screaming and complaining about the son who has brought stains on his shirt, a woman upset about the dirty collar of her husband’s shirt, and a woman unhappy with scrubbing the dirty laundry all day long. The funniest part of this? THIS DOES NOT END HERE. Later she is washing utensils. Time and time again, women are shown washing utensils with all their might and trying to get the greasy pot clean. This has been shown to imply women objectives of the day are to wash clothes, cook, wash utensils, light coils, look after the kids, roam about their husbands, and take care of the elderly of the house.
Sorry to break your bubble but, DID YOU KNOW a woman’s goal of living a good, satisfying, healthy life does not only include bathing her children, washing their clothes, cooking them food, and running after their husband because he forgot his wallet, keys, and phone for the umpteenth time?! Wild, isn’t it?
A Retelling of a Real-Life Incident
Megan Markle, former actress and now Duchess of Sussex, in one of her addresses to a large set of audience for a digital marketing company devoted to spread positive journalism, mentioned one of the incidents that confirmed the presence of gender discrimination to her 11-year-old elementary self.
Her 11-year-old elementary self was astounded to see gender discrimination in a commercial of a dishwashing soap of one of the prominent brands of the time. The tagline of the product was “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans”. She got home from school one day, fuming about what the advertisement provoked two boys, who were her classmates to say “Kitchen, yeah that’s where women belong”. The response of the boy had Megan shocked, angry, and hurt because it just wasn’t right. Megan did not keep quiet, she knew that something was needed to be done. She discussed the matter with her parents, who encouraged her to write letters. She sat down to start writing letters to the most powerful people she could think of at the time.
She wrote to the first lady during her time, Hillary Clinton, Linda Ellerbee, who hosted the kids' news program, and to the powerhouse attorney, Gloria Allred, and the dishwashing soap manufacturer. After weeks of waiting, Megan received letters of encouragements from Hillary Clinton, Linda Ellerbee, and Gloria Allred. The camera crew of the kids' news program was sent to Megan’s house to cover the story and almost a month later, the soap manufacturer changed the commercial for their ivory clear dishwashing liquid. They changed the tagline from “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans” to “People all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans”.
It is amazing to see how an eleven-year-old saw what over 40+ leading brand managers failed to notice. At Phoenix Pads, we believe that everybody enjoys a limerick every once in a while, light humour can catch audience attention and bring a lot of profit for the company but the use of gender stereotypes to market and sell a product should no longer be entertained in the society we are living in. Since people are yet to get over the fact that female receptors do not lose the ability to assess right or wrong under a strong fragrance, we need to sure the situation does not elevate further than this. On that note, A LIGHT REMINDER: A woman has a life of her own. She, alone, is not accountable for the growth, health, and happiness in a family. She is a part of a family and she needs to be treated like one.
