On the box the other night there was an advert that turned out to be for a Honda. The ad opened with a party scene in a sitting room with a bowl of keys being handed around, with the implication that this was a wife swapping party. A large lady then picked up the bowl and selected the keys for the Honda at which a number of males jumped up. The implication being that the car was more attractive than the lady. Am I alone in thinking that this is grossly sexist and offensive? Are potential Honda owners going to be encouraged by the implications towards them as well? Maybe it is because I work in marketing that I seek the reasoning that motivated the producers of the advertisement,as somebody took a conscious and very expensive decision to make and run this campaign. Surely there is not such a paucity of creative talent that they have to revert to unpleasant, tawdry smut of this nature.
I once complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about an ad for a BMW that talked about the lines of the car and the neat way they had dealt with the complex angles cause by the conjunction of the wing, bonnet and windscreen that they desribed as being "a corner that is forever Munich". A play on the line by William Blake, a First World War poet who described a corner of a foreign field as forever being England in his poem about the war. I complained that this was dreadfully insensitive of the advertisers of a German product and highly offensive. The ASA replied that as very few people had complained they were not going to take it any further. I did consider writing to the Royal British Legion and advising them of the address of the ASA but thought better of it, and I didnt see the ad run again. But at least they werre subtle about it, unlike Honda.
The implications behind this Honda advert are about as obvious as they can be. Now I enjoy a laugh and a joke, but do others just find this tacky, unpleasant and demeaning. Or am I really becoming a boring old so and so. Must go, got to get my copy of the Daily Mail.
MGs
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The advert is actually for a Toyota - the new Corolla.
I think there already have been several complaints to the relevant advertising authorities but they couldn't have been upheld as the ad still run regularly.
Personally, I do think it's a bit OTT and mildly offensive.
Chad. (34)
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MGS - isn't the ad for Toyota - part of their 'how proud I am to own a Toyota' campaign ?
As regards it being sexist - well I think it's more sexist in relation to men than anyone else. It certainly doesn't show them in a very good light does it? 'Fattist' too maybe.
Oh, and in answer to your last question; probably yes :-)
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I agree with you about this advert. But I think you'll find William Blake was actually a Romanic poet and artist in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He wrote 'Jerusalem' which may be where the confusion lies. Rupert Brooke was the WWI poet.
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Should read 'Romantic poet', not 'Romanic'.
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Yes, not a pleasant advert.
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Spannerman - How dare you
Personally I find the insinuation that Honda or Toyota drivers read the Daily Wail offensive and OTT!
The helicopter household has just renewed the annual subscription for the Telegraph , anything else turning up on the mat in the morning is calculated to have yours truly roundly complaining to the papershop.
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Sorry - you're obviously entitled to react in whatever way you choose - but the ad is completely harmless and you'd have to be pretty po-faced to think otherwise. If advertisers and programme makers generally were constrained by these kind of heightened sensibilities, TV would be even blander and more tedious than it is already.
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Have to go with Burn, get a sense of humour please...
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And must not there be an element of self regulation in matters like this? If people do not like an advert they are likely to reject the product.
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It is Toyota...and the ad clearly hasn't worked on you if you can't remember the car! :)
It's a misconception that advertising alone can sell products. It's just one tiny part of the promotional mix. The purpose of an advert these days is usually to get people talking about the advert itself, and so raise brand awareness (clearly succeeded and then failed here!).
If you were after a new car, loved the test drive in the Toyota, the salesman had done his job properly, the price was right, etc... you wouldn't then reject the car because you didn't like the fat lady advert, would you? Or would you?
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Good on you girl.
The whole series of Toyota ad\'s are quite inane but they do get people thinking if not talking about the ads - if any publicity is good publicity then the job\'s done.
That particular ad certainly demeans men more than women - nice to get a succinct female perspective on it.
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Can happen. If you remember the Renault Laguna (I think it was) ad.
Upper class bloke says, 'we've got the finance, whatsits with us, we're going it alone, but got to give up the company car though'. Shot of Laguna and the posh bird then looks all humpy because the Laguna's going.
MASSIVE negative reaction from women because he had made a major decision without consulting her. Renault had to commission a second ad where she does the same thing without consulting him to try and repair the damage.
Whilst I think its funny I can see how this one could backfire.
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Well apart from the fact that it is an advert for a Toyota and not a Honda and I got the author of the poem wrong as well I was pretty spot on otherwise. My children are definitely of the opinion that the old man is going downhill but I can still manage a good laugh, its just that I appreciate wit and humour and something a little above the level of Bernard Manning. Surely Toyota can employ an agency that can rise above tbis. I think I will see if I can get along to one of these wifeswapping parties though, I could do with a new two speed electric drill.
MGs
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MGs - I think that, rather than wit or humour, you may be referring to taste, a commodity which I suppose every generation believes is in increasingly short supply. But as has been said before, money is never lost by appealing to the lowest common denominator in the great British public.
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I'm afraid it just caused me to worry about just how much fun are people having out there, and am I mixing with the wrong crowd, 'cos I don't get invited to those sort of parties!
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I thought it was quite amusing, and I certainly don't think it's particularly offensive.
But then I quite liked the Ford SportKa advert where it's bonnet flipped up and killed the pigeon that was about to dump on it, I thought that was very funny, but it seems a lot of people thought it encouraged people to er... kill pigeons by flipping their bonnets open quickly? :-)
Blue
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I don't like the Renault 'bottom' advert. I don't find it offensive or anything, there is just no way it would encourage me buy a Renault. Advertisers minds work in strange ways.....
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I don't like the Renault 'bottom' advert. I don't find it offensive or anything, there is just no way it would encourage me buy a Renault. Advertisers minds work in strange ways.....
Well considering the part it plays on the car's styling it would have hard to ignore it!
When the American avertising agency, DDB advertised the Beetle in the sixties, they did adverts that ran like "Only it's mother could love it". These helped champion the car as part of the counter-culture of the time.
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What do people think to the new VW Polo advert where the driver is minituraised and is chased by the cat? I would have thought a good example of a "nuetral" advert thats fairly good would be the SEAT "Auto-Emocion" ad.
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Oh, come on. I find the Toyota ad quite amusing, and tbh if you need to complain about an ad, you've got too much time on your hands. Don't like an ad? Don't buy the product. I cancelled my AA subsciption after the ad where the man was made out to be a complete idiot and the woman shouted at him.
I didn't complain to the NSA. Yes, get your Daily Mail. And, no, I don't like that Renault ad either. And, finally, I think the best ads are the Honda ones where all the bits of the car connect and do something cool. Don't like the new ones so much though, they don't show you the car.
Sorry, my two cents.
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MGs - sorry, I (25) think you're heading into BoF territory. I cannot for the life of me see how the "forever Munich" line is offensive unless you are actually looking for something to be offended by.
As for the Toyota advert - yes, I do think it's sexist and fattist. However it's also a parody of a film scene in "The Ice Storm", directed by Ang Lee and starring Kevin Kline, in which pretty much the same car keys/wife swapping/fat woman scene is played out, except there is no Toyota to make her desirable.
I don't think the ad is a particularly good idea though because it's not exactly the most memorable scene in history and I'm sure most of the audience (me included when I first saw it) are just looking at it with a puzzled expression going "Eh?".
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I find a lot of the presenters far more offensive than any advert I have ever seen.
You sound somewhat obsessed MGs.
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has anyone caught the new cartoon-esque Corsa ad "Serious Fun". Puts a smile on my facee everytime I see it. Would do nothing though to make me want to buy a corsa.
Leon
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I find the Toyota Corolla adverts on paper to be better.
I own a new Corolla (and I'm only 29!) and it is a bit embarrassing knowing these TV adverts are on.
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On the box the other night there was an advert that turned out to be for a Honda. The ad opened with a party scene in a sitting room with a bowl of keys being handed around, with the implication that this was a wife swapping party. A large lady then picked up the bowl and selected the keys for the Honda at which a number of males jumped up. The implication being that the car was more attractive than the lady. Am I alone in thinking that this is grossly sexist and offensive?
If the lady in question didn't mind being portrayed in this manner (and I think we can take it that she didn't) then what does it matter?
How on earth can anyone else be offended when they are not the subject of the derogatory portrayal?
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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In these days of PC madness and litigation I think people are almost being 'taught' to look for offence everywhere. If you 'try' hard enough you can be offended by almost anything.
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Quote for the day: "You shouldn't believe what you want to believe until you know what you need to know". The author of the foreign corner poem seems a pretty important thing to know before complaining about it.
About the only thing I look forward to when I eventually get old is being offensive and not caring.
Those who are offended by adverts shouldn't look at them or buy the products.
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"Is it just me or is old age creeping on?"
There's nothing intrisically wrong with that, join the club...relax.
Growler will remind you, "you're only as old as the woman you feel".
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If you think old age is creeping up on you, spare a thought for me. Until read this thread I had no clue what the heck was going in that advert anyway. A bowl? Keys? What the dickens is THAT about?
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"...as young as the woman you feel"
Why don't I feel about 20 years younger then :(
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"About the only thing I look forward to when I eventually get old is being offensive and not caring."
LOL, couldn't agree more.
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Sorry MGSpannerman. have to say that your question was nicely worded but massively over reactive.
I'm getting really fed up with the PC brigade and personally i think its killing our sense of humour that made britain the sense of humour capital of the world.
The fact that you interpreted an ad from BMW as a referral to a poem and it offended you, and made you complain just shows what a stupid world we now live in where everything has to be sanitised to please everyone.
Personally i liked the adverts and found them faintly amusing (as amusing as car ads get) and was more gutted we didnt get a longer view at the lovely lady who was picked first in the advert....
Lighten up, and lets enjoy life again. It isnt worth the time or effort, or even a reason to get wound up enough by those things to actually write to the watchdog....
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MGS,
did you complain about the Carling Ad that ran in the late 80's, where they recreated the dambusters raid?
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