Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Trying to Manipulate Women is Wrong. And Dumb.

I don't usually fuss about things, but I think this is evil for what it means to say about women.

The Molson company should be ashamed of itself.



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11 comments:

Centre Chic said...

This must be some sort of sick joke. What woman would fall for the Cosmo advertisement and what man would believe the Playboy advert? If Molson meant it in jest, the humor part has gotten lost in translation and is either too subtle or too obvious so it's overlooked. If they really meant it, I don't know what to say.

2:08 AM, November 30, 2011
Kerri said...

This is worse than those Axe ads...

2:12 AM, November 30, 2011
Paula Ring said...

Axe always works for me. Manipulators are not sex specific. Women are not victims. Get a sense of humour...

9:57 PM, November 30, 2011
Kerri said...

Just because manipulation goes both ways (usually one more than the other) does not make it ok, classy, or funny. I don't think this sort of ad victimizes women, but it mocks them. It is sexist. What if it were racist? What if it made fun of your religion? There is a place for being disrespectful and profane for the sake of humor (trust me, I make terrible jokes)--but when it pervades our society in ads and commonly-consumed media fora like this, it is damaging. We start to absorb the messages, whether we intend to or not. It leaves the realm of the absurd, "tee hee you shouldn't say that" and becomes normalized. This ad is but one example of this. And trust me, I have a sense of humor. I make very inappropriate jokes that totally contradict what I actually think--but I don't put them in magazines and use them to sell beer.

1:17 AM, December 01, 2011
Paula Ring said...

Aren't push up bras and mascara a form of manipulation?

7:53 AM, December 01, 2011
Anonymous said...

I am surprised that this is surprising and newsworthy to anyone. Sexist beer ads? Manipulative advertising? The only thing that caught my attention is that I never knew they bothered putting ads in Playboy. I guess they are just for sociologists and the people who read the articles.

10:05 AM, December 01, 2011
Gruntled said...

What is new is that a company would put out an ad which bragged about how manipulative they were in another of that company's own ads.

10:07 AM, December 01, 2011
Solomon Kleinsmith said...

This is freaking hilarious.

10:16 AM, December 01, 2011
Anonymous said...

Well, this ad has now appeared, completely gratis, on this website and the one you've linked to. I suspect the clever men and women who came up with this ad hoped something of the sort would happen. Talk about manipulation!

8:08 AM, December 05, 2011
Gruntled said...

Do you think anyone seeing both ads together in this blog will feel positively about the product? Do you?

8:09 AM, December 05, 2011
Nate Kratzer said...

I'm not sure this is significantly more manipulative than other advertisements. Almost all beer adds attempt to connect the beers image to sex, this one is merely more blatant about it. Then again, I would like to severely restrict advertising. It's highly problematic to figure out how to successfully do this, but the benefits of a world in which all the money spent on advertising where instead spent on building quality products (since word of mouth would vital for success) seem staggering. I know there is at least one city that has banned billboards with some degree of success.

On a broader note, I'd be intrigued to read more about advertising and the happy society, since most ads start by making the viewer feel inadequate in order to then 'fix' their lives by selling them the product.

1:25 PM, December 05, 2011

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