How one small word will subtly alter Australia’s ad industry for the better
Outdoor Media Association CEO Charmaine Moldrich explains how the AANA’s subtle shift from ‘exploitative and degrading’ to ‘exploitative or degrading’ is a small ripple with the potential for big waves.
The world changed profoundly last year. What started with the exposure of unacceptable behaviour perpetrated by one man in Hollywood led to the global #metoo movement, which amplified discussions about gender equality across the spectrum.
Having participated in this debate for most of my life, each new development – such as last fortnight’s announcement that F1 will say farewell to its Grid Girls – feels to me like we are past the tipping point, and the momentum is building for wide, sweeping changes.
Over the last decade, prompted by something of a wake-up call in the form of a Federal Parliamentary inquiry, we in the out of home (OOH) advertising industry have cleaned up our act.
‘Unacceptable’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘training programs’, ‘pre-vetting’, ‘codes’, ‘objectification’ sound Orwellian.
And ‘exploitative’ and ‘degrading’ in whose eye?
The answer to your last question (whose eyes?) is ‘those of the prevailing social and cultural mores’.
The hard and soft rules around advertising have constantly changed over the last millennium and will no doubt continue to do so as previously accepted ‘norms’ are challenged.
Miss Guided, exactly whose ‘social and cultural mores’? And where do they ‘prevail’?
The general acceptability ‘zeitgeist’ collectively decided by a society (usually driven by media/government/a grassroots organisation ethis tipping over into mainstream).
The same amorphous ‘they’ that decided overt racial and gay stereotypes should go, that cigarette ads couldn’t target youth etc.
It is always changing. And sometimes rapidly (I was once involved in ad campaign that got banned in UK did to heightened sensitivities around an issue driven by a breaking news event )
How did F1 Grid Girls sneak into this? Since the announcement, the Grid Girls themselves reject the notion as they see it as a job, that pays, you know, real money. And the majority of race goers / watchers – and there are many, many women and have been as long as I have been covering motor sport (1980-ish) – also reject the idea.
Just because a minority seem to think it is sexist and misogynistic? If this is right, so are many other professions. And the Grid Girls do see it as a profession. It’s a form of modelling after all, so in the same way, should catwalk models be banned?
I’m not a big fan of in your face sexual advertising (its what finally drove me to install ad-blocker after all), but it is important to note there is a difference between sexy and sexist, as Spinal Tap taught us.
Just because something is sexy, it doesn’t mean its exploitative. Not that I’m a big fan of sexy in public.