The Paradox of Advertising Creativity

Most times I wonder what exactly the connection is between the half-naked woman on the beach and the tiny mobile telephone that is being advertised. May be we allow ourselves to be unduly influenced by advertising when choosing what products we want to buy and be seen wearing in the public eye.
It is true that we cannot avoid being affected by advertisements because they are just everywhere. However, I notice that virtually every product is advertised by some lady who is either provocatively dressed or is beckoning invitingly with her eyes or posture. I am even more concerned that sometimes all you get to see are just legs, hips or lips. Why dismember the body all in the name of advertising? Are we trying to say that a woman’s body is not connected to her mind and emotions? (Berbie White 2003).
Could this be one subtle way by which advertising reinforces cultural values of subservience, domination and inequality between the sexes?
We are beginning to see blatantly offensive ads that portray women as sexual toys or victims of violence. And guess what, our “ad gurus” call the trend ‘creativity.’ Two years ago, I was on the panel of judges at an integrated marketing communications award ceremony, the biggest and the best organized so far in the annals of our industry; I found myself walking a tight rope when it came to adjudging an entry, a press ad which had earlier been axed by my organization, Nigeria’s statutory regulatory body for advertising. The ad was sanctioned for its pornographic appeal. Unfortunately, my lectures fell on stubborn ears as my co-panelists considered the ‘material’ in question a masterpiece in creativity! I do not remember scoring the entry.
I was not surprised four months later, while on a live phone-in network radio programme as a chap took me up on my organisation’s ‘hypocrisy’ at the judging. Pity I could not convince the caller that my voice was drowned by that of the majority. However, I was impressed that we still have in our industry people who are alert and aware.
The tragic abuse-affection cycle that entraps many women is, ironically, exploited in advertising. What for example is the link between a Revlon lipstick/nail polish ad and the woman that is choked with her own pearls in order to keep her under control? There is no denying the fact that these salacious ads are very successful for the companies that indulge in them. Ask Calvin Klein and he would tell you that the sales of the perfume/cologne CK One amounted to about $60 million just in its first few months in the market (Mona Alawdeen 2000).
Sometime in 2004 a former university mate who now runs a successful ad agency had cause to appear before an investing panel of my organization for exposing an outdoor ad which the watch dog had refused to approve because of its predisposition to indecency. It was a clear comical scenario as my friend was armed (to the teeth) with different sizes of press and outdoor executions of a South African outdoor ad which made his a child’s play! And he proudly displayed the material before the investigators as if to insinuate that civilisation was inseparable from depravity. Guess what, the campaign successfully ran its course!
This case reminds me of an Australian incident a couple of years back; the country’s Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) had directed an advertiser, Windsor-Smith to remove its contentious creative but the latter exercised its “right” to continue running the campaign and hyped up the related publicity; the ASB got ridiculed at the end of it all.
What is nudity? According to the U.S Senate bill 870, the “state of nudity is any bare exposure of the skin located on a person’s body below the armpits and above the knees” (Adrienne Mand 2004). If we were to implement this definition in our industry then all affected advertisements must be stopped. While freedom of expression is crucial to success, Keith Reinhard, Chairman of New York’s DDB Worldwide, posits that with this cherished freedom goes responsibility.
Reaching the target audience for a brand should not necessarily require resorting to shocking or offensive material so as to stand out. Ads need to project the right image. Did you know that Volkswagen ads made fun of the car? A slogan for one of the ads was “ugly is only skin deep” because it has a lighter, more spirited image (Grace Butland 2000). The manufacturers started with a well-defined image and built their advertising around that image.
Studies have shown that we have very strong biological responses to anything in the social world that is positive, e.g. families, mothers with children, friends, etc. So why are advertising professionals not exploiting the ‘pleasant association tactic’ in motivating their audiences?