What would Gary Larson say?

July 2, 2008 Update: We are getting a lot of hits on this post & I'm curious why. If anyone looking knows why I'd sure appreciate a comment!
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In response to the previous post, a few thoughts.

Check out the Children Now website. A friend of mine is (was?) the director of the Children in the Media program and they focused on this type of portrayal of children, as well as the violence images that are associated with/directed to children. The interesting and disturbing thing (aside from the very fact of this ad) is that ads like this are being aimed to younger and younger children. Advertisers are now marketing adult hygiene products to the 5-8 year old market segment (there's a 5-8 year old market segment!!!).

As for this ad, while it is disturbing, and it does legitimately bring up all of these issues, I do have to play devil's advocate just ever so briefly. When I was in college and was riled up by everything all the time and was taking lots of classes that focused on images such as this one and the damage they do to our society, one of the messages that was ingrained into my head was that nothing in advertising is a mistake. When a big firm spends $40 million on a national ad campaign, they don't leave anything to chance, and every is where it is for a very specific reason.

Well, now that I've been in and associated with the business for nigh on 20 years or more, and have worked with many firms and/or people from firms that are producing those very ads, I have to say that the same comments that are often made about our government in reference to massive cover ups of alien invasions can be applied equally to ad firms in this regard -- the powers that be just aren't as smart as we think they are.

None of this is to say that ads such as the Target ad are unintentionally exploitive, or that misogyny in advertising doesn't exist...they are and it does. What I intend by the above is to point out that there is not always an "actor" in the process of exploitation. Sometimes ads just accidentally look exploitive and that's just the fact.

As an illustration, let me reference a single panel Far Side comic from a decade or more ago. This comic garnered more negative/critical mail for Gary Larson than anything else he ever did. Why? Because people thought he was intentionally implying that the dog was "doing it" to the car. Uh uh. Mr. Larson just didn't see that when he drew it, nor did any of his editors. It was merely a dog dreaming of finally catching a car. Now, do we think that Gary Larsen secretly has thoughts of dogs mating with autos? Unlikely. Did he likely put that transmission case in an unfortunate position? Yeah. But, now that I've pointed it out, isn't it difficult to see anything else? Disgusting little dog! Sick man Gary Larson? I don't think so.

Way to go, Target

I thought I'd share this about Target in case some of you missed it. Earlier this month this 20ft ad was placed in Times Square. Amy Jussel, who is the founder of Shaping Youth, a blog that examines how media and marketing influence children, called Target to protest as she felt that placing a women's crotch at the center of a bullseye was an inappropriate message. Ms. Jussel was told the following via email: “Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets." A Target spokeswoman said that they do not work with bloggers.

Technorati, a blog search site, indexes over 112 million blogs and 120,000+ blogs are created worldwide each day. Does target not think that many of their customers are bloggers? Aside from that, to tell a customer you won't respond is bad business in my opinion. They did deign to speak with the New York Times , apparently they are traditional enough.

I started this post full of indignation about the slight to bloggers. As I read more & looked at some of the links on the Shaping Youth blog, I'm thinking my indignation was misplaced. Well, not entirely misplaced. Target is still the target (cute huh), but also advertising in general. I decided that I agree w/Ms. Jussel about the Target ad. It seems pretty innocuous but when you think about it as part of an overall pattern of advertising, I agree it is out of place. There is way to much advertising aimed at girls that is sending the wrong message. Shaping Youth has a link to an American Psychological Association report on the Sexualization of Girls that examines the impact of marketing on girls. I'd suggest looking at the blog & the report if you have kids.

I say kids, because it isn't just girls that suffer from marketing like this. If girls are taught to objectify themselves, boys are being taught to see them that way. I recently read a post about the Pink Gang, a group of women in India who have banded together to protect women from domestic violence. India, and many middle eastern countries have horrendous track records on how they treat women. Is the United States any better? Maybe we just dress it up better. Advertising works whether we like it or not. You can say that it can be ignored but it is difficult. Children today are constantly bombarded with advertising and I can't believe it isn't having a huge impact. I think we need to look pretty closely at what they are being told. What do you all think?

Robin