Condescending GIO advert makes women look stupid
After watching GIO’s ‘You Know With GIO’ campaign, Debbie O’Connor became frustrated with its portrayal of ‘clueless’ women.
In a world where glass ceilings are still so prevalent and industries are notorious for undermining and underestimating the power, intelligence and determination of women, it is disappointing to see one of our largest insurance companies’ opinion of women.
It appears that GIO sees women as stupid, uneducated fools that have no idea what insurance they may or may not have. In their recent ‘You Know With GIO’ campaign, which aired prolifically during the Monday screening on Seven of The Mentor, GIO has an advert which is both condescending and undermining to women.
I can imagine how the situation unfolded…
Agency fell into the classic trap of thinking that the heroes of the ad had to represent the key target group. Women. Because otherwise how would women know the ad was for them? Right?
Which is a whole other level of condescension.
The truth is they could have shown a bunch of giraffes pondering the same questions, and *gasp* women would still have gotten it. Strategically, all you would need to determine beforehand is that the target audience either liked or would be engaged by giraffes. Not rocket science.
Instead they ended up plonking their meal ticket squarely in the frame and made them look like idiots, which makes GIO look dumber. Way to go.
The 15 chosen certainly appears to treat women condescendingly. The good (?) news is, in some of the other ads in this campaign, the men are also stupid and incompetent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmF242sty0s&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5jMFUo-AY&feature=youtu.be
Hi Debbie,
Welcome to how men feel after watching 99.9% of commercials.
Hi Fair Shake,
Welcome to another irrelevant comment to add to the pile.
So, we’re aware that the dumb beer swilling Aussie male trope exists but doesn’t negate this fair call out and criticism?
Nice straw man argument there, mate.
That’s right, it doesn’t negate it!
That doesn’t make it any less a valid comment. Just less valid at achieving the aim you believe it’s trying to make.
Author/commenters reverse-engineering the decisions which led to this creative should read the Dave Trott article currently posted.
Or they could be a mix of both?
But this reinforces that when it comes to certain financial products, women just don’t ‘get it’ because they’re women. Boring.
Its a weird world in advertising these days. Does smugness sell?(there has to be a reason for those Ford ads)
I am a woman who likes to drink beer. So the omission of women drinking beer with their mates in ads now has me worried… Are beer companies screaming loud and clear to the nation that women don’t have mates?
Debbie,
How you made this campaign a topic of gender bias is beyond me. This is just a gender insecurity “you” feel about an insurance ad with a pretty clear message about…. you guessed it – insurance.
For what it’s worth I know the entire team that approved this campaign, right to the very top was female – all female, all very smart and cleary comfortable within themselves. Get a grip, and a little perspective.
Gender ‘insecurity’ is being used here to absolutely diminish this woman’s quality argument and criticism. (Hi there Jason Bateman!) And is it maybe…because she’s a woman and is pointing out a valid criticism that you can’t see because …you’re a dude?
Nice twist of words, but it is a gender biased ad that is reinforcing tropes and stereotypes that are still sustained and used worldwide.
Maybe YOUR gender insecurity is that you think women cannot be biased FOR men. Yikes. I mean, there are Black republicans supporting Trump, and many people who have internalised a lot of self-hatred about who they are because of the pervading hierarchal and patriarchal system. Time to open your eyes and get a grip, mate?
Women. Can. Have. Valid. Opinions. Too.
“Women. Can. Have. Valid. Opinions. Too.” I agree.
It’s also a key part of Anonymous’ argument.
FWIW I also agree about women being able to be biased against women. Note the 2/3 female St Kilda Film Festival jury not having a single female produced finalist this year. Or Tropfest having majority female judge panels two years in a row, but only in the year when the panel didn’t know the gender of the filmmakers were the awarded films not predominantly male-made.
Gender bias applied to women (who work at GIO as much as it does men.
This ad is inappropriate and deserves the condemnation it’s getting.
Seriously, there are thousands of adverts where men are made out to be the idiots and women are the smarter ones yet where’s the grumbling…. blah blah blah so sick of the PC madness and double standards…. it’s becoming a joke
Right, so Paul – maybe you think that both ridiculous gender tropes should be got rid of?
This ISN’T PC madness or double standards (let me guess, you claim reverse racism because the brown people to steal your jobs too?). This is simply calling out a tired subconcious trope that women do not generally understand financial or insurance products since they are in the man’s realm. An out-dated concept since women have been proven to have a huge hand in deciding these within today’s family structures.
You made a good point about the bloke trope. Let’s get rid of that. Let’s also get rid of women not getting insurance and getting super excited about cleaning the house. Neither are fair.
Being politically correct has nothing to do with ensuring that our ads resemble ACTUAL REALITY. The world has changed. Maybe it’s time for you to catch up to that too?
There was grumbling about that very thing right here https://mumbrella.com.au/how-westinghouse-failed-to-understand-customer-segmentation-520243
Just one day earlier. Switch on, Paul.
And here https://mumbrella.com.au/westinghouse-plays-on-incompetent-dad-and-busy-mum-stereotypes-in-refreshed-campaign-519665
You’ll notice absolutely zero grumbling about grumbling. Blah blah blah double standards, amirite?
like omg Debbie – you’re so binary in your socially constructed gender view. Calling them women when they haven’t specifically told you that’s how they identify.
@Blc1981
There will actually be a few people who read this comment and agree with it 🙂
Imagine if the author spent as much time writing about positive examples of women and female-led work in the marketing community, as she did writing about how an insurance ad cast with 3w (and not 2w:1m or 1w:2m or 3m) is degrading.
Yes, it’s easier to overthink and seek offence and write about how certain ads don’t align to your (very privileged – multiple business – investment property) worldview – but surely we would benefit more if you spent your time instead propping up good advertising and female-led initiatives.
Why the hell should any woman write anything? Don’t even let her have a pen/computer.
Seriously, she needs to write positive things? How 1984 of you. Did you want her to clean your dishes too? She can write whatever the hell she wants. You can even write a balanced article about the positives and negatives to invite discussion.
Telling her she needs to write more positive things is the most gender biased ridiculous I have ever read. Maybe ALL YOUR COMMENTS should be positive then!
Or maybe you should shut the hell up, IMO and only comment when you have something relevant to say.
(See how ridiculous that sounds? Time to reflect on yourself in the mirror, mate.)
Why did Mumbrella even publish this garbage? Publish an opinion piece on some REAL industry news please.
Because Mumbrella was sold to a big American corp and so now the overall narrative of the site will continue to decline to hidden sponsored content and this sort of faux outrage, click bait garbage.
See name.
This article (and the associated beat up comments) could appear on any standard daily VICE article.
We all know everything is offensive these days…
Wont somebody please think of the (non binary) children!
See name.
I have bred twice and I can assure you they are both very female and identify as such.
Very happy with the little tackers so far, yay for 2 genders! 🙂
The comment sections here are worse than Youtube.
Barely anyone has actually had anything:
+ relevant or positive to say
+ constructively critical
As someone who is coming up through the ad and marketing world, I am increasingly intrigued by how absolutely stupid commenters are on here. If you really have nothing viable or valuable to say, then please relegate your comments to 4chan and incel reddit forums where you can trash women who dare to a) write or b) speak about an opinion all you like.
I would have thought decrying people of predominantly unknown age, race and gender with an ageist, racist and sexist insult is hardly constructive.
Some men are stupid, that’s a fact.
Some women are stupid, that’s a fact.
Gender does not inoculate anyone from being stupid.
Time to drop the gender politics nonsense, grow up and acknowledge reality in the real world.
Hilarious amount of the standard smug and/or defensive mansplaining about how gender bias isn’t an issue and women are just too sensitive…
mansplaining? seriously?
you’re trying to defend gender bias with derogatory and sexist comments?
As a representative for all black people (and some dark brown), I was shocked and appalled by the lack of representation of my people in this advert. It really highlights everything wrong in the Australian advertising industry really. How many more words do I need for Mumbo to publish my article?
Shame on you Leo Burnett, shame.
“The results of the latest BT Australian Financial Health Index show that women are taking the reins when it comes to their own and their family’s financial situation: 89 per cent of women are at least jointly responsible for making major financial decisions for their households, while 48 per cent are the key decision-maker. However, 30 per cent of women admit they could be better informed about insurance, compared to 20 per cent of men.”
Maybe they cast women because women are less likely (by their own admission) to know about insurance?
Men are from Earth, and so are Women.
Who let you in here? Enough of the factsplaining already, there’s no room for your kind in a place like this.
It’s a commercial, it’s different, and it gets the message across. GIO are an amazing company part of Suncorp. They offer great rates on their policies and their customer call center doesn’t keep you waiting for assistance like most. I have my Greenslip with them, and have done for a while. I am a very happy customer. Thanks GIO. ?????
Every ad on tv is tailored to make women the hero. So fucking what.
The fact that you fucking dipshits are calling foul about gender proves that the liberal pathogen and ideology has made you brain dead. Fucking grow up.