Monday, August 22, 2005

Using Women to Advertise

I recently took two photos with my telephone in Central station in Sydney, Australia. They're crappy and low resolution, but you should get the general idea of what is depicted.

First, let's look at the Maxtor ad:



That's a woman, hugging a laptop. When I first saw this ad, I thought, "Wow, I don't think I've seen an ad more targeted to me in my entire life." I've definitely never seen an ad for a technological product which aimed so squarely at me.

Yet, nonetheless, though it's hard to tell from my low resolution mud, she's pretty cute. I can see her appealing to male viewers, as well. Either way, I felt damn sure Maxtor gives a damn about my money. Hell, I was even curious about their product.

Our second ad is for MAD Academy, a computer graphics school based in Australia:



Their website says, "MAD Academy graduates work in creative environments all over the world in game, TV, film and advertising production houses." All of the students profiled on the front page are men. With advertising like this, I don't think we can expect this to change anytime soon.

Why was this necessary? They're a graphics school. They could create all kinds of nice eye candy. This isn't even good looking.

We can put beautiful women in advertising without alienating half of the human species. Unfortunately, that requires more class than some people have.

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