Mind Streaming

Monday, April 14, 2003

ERRED ON A G STRING?

Click on above image to see the large version. The graphic art in street hoardings (billboards) and magazine advertisements are a reliable indicator of different cultural values, even though we can be sure that the advertising industry, in any country, will likely go as close to the edge as the different codes allow. Ads that are panned are usually pulled because they either cause offence or mislead and it is perhaps the ads that offend (or are deemed likely to cause widespread offence) which are most indicative of national values. This example was originally designed as a magazine perfume ad and regarded by that company as 'sensual and aesthetic' and then got just four complaints. When it was put on hoardings there was a very much larger pool of objections. It was finally ruled as o.k in a magazine context but withdrawn from street hoardings because it was sexually suggestive and 'likely to cause serious widespread offence.'

In Britain, advertisements are regulated by an independent watchdog known as the THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY (ASA) Click on this name to link to their home page on a truly comprehensive web site which details amongst other relevant things, (for those interested) British codes of conduct governing advertising, their mission , composition, procedures, and detailed reports on individual adjudications. If you click on their logo, below, it will link you directly to a revealing thumbnail catalogue of 40 advertisements that the ASA judged as deviating from the accepted standards within the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (The CAP Code) in the year 2001.

One example to be found here is this health and safety ad from the British Safety Council that features Pope John Paul 11 in a hard hat under the motto ' The 11th commandment - always wear a condom' and I believe that this ad was responsible for more complaints than any other, certainly in its year (1995)


This ad illustrates pretty well how tricky the job of vetting can be. The ASA's adjudication acknowledged the educational good intent in the advert but upheld that it was deeply offensive to Catholics, particularly in view of the unauthorised use of an image of his Holiness and that church's ethical stance on the prohibition of contraception.

The ASA acknowledge that the actual number of complaints received for each advertisement they are obliged to investigate are actually relatively very small indeed, but warn advertisers not to take this as a justification for abdicating responsibility under agreed codes, as all complaints are taken seriously and acted upon if they break the rules even if only one complaint is received. The ASA council act as both judge and jury and is made up, currently, of eight men and five women. When you look at their record, over the last forty years, their decisions do reflect changes in values and all judgements seem reasonable and pretty even-handed.

PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR PLACE
How well would you do, as a member of the ASA dealing with the 600 complaints that this soft drinks ad generated in 1968? It features a particularly glamorous Jersey cow (rather than bull!)

Would you pull the ad? The test would, I guess, be particularly tricky for a vegetarian-bovine-feminist-activist. When you have decided, check that ASA anniversary index link to see their judgement.


ADVERTISING BELOW THE BELT
Some products provide advertisers with a bit of a headache in terms of how best to promote a one-dimensional product in fresh, creative ways. No more is that dilemma more likely to arise that in the field of under-garments or anything that involves items associated with the your 'birthday suit!'


Currently the ASA are deliberating following fifteen complaints about the recent advertising campaign, 'String time', run by underwear manufacturers, Sloggi. They are promoting a new range of G-strings or thongs in a national outdoor poster campaign. The complaints, so far, are not about indecency but sexism. (Sloggi in fact produce thongs for men too)

Sloggi's latest ad features a rather tacky, soft porn ,rear view of four leggy female models in just high black stilettos with their perfectly rounded bums sticking out from their new thongs. Three of the girls are modestly wearing hats. They are all superimposed on a kind of Magic Roundabout landscape that includes artificial flowers and features one girl holding a watering can while balancing, inexplicably, on one leg. The concept is based a pun on the word 'springtime', with the facile rubric 'It's string time'. Click on this image to see the actual image to judge for yourself.




As testament to the loosening of traditional British prudery and modesty in the national consciousness, images of bare bums have already successfully run the gauntlet and now are featured prominently on T.V ads and public hoardings. Kleenex toilet tissues are running a 'Be Kind to your bum' campaign which features black and white photographs of naked male and female backsides. There is no question of them being sexist, possibly because the target audience, on paper at least, so to speak, is very evidently male and female. (Of course the images have no exemplars of unsightly larger bums, like my own, and do not include zits or dimples.

PULLING YOUR STRINGS
Now I have as yet not been called upon to wear a thong, I don't wear one, nor do I currently intend to, but I am particular about my underwear as many men have become in an era where you are more likely to be judged by them, by a potential partner, for example, during intimate relationship preliminaries. Many men have been forced to reconsider their under-the-trouser wardrobe in the true and certain knowledge that billowing, ill-fitting cotton under- garments, whilst, as mother said , ensuring modesty and supporting fertility, are, in fact a complete turn off. At last men have been made conscious of their underwear and very probably what it might say bout them say about them, often by their protesting partners. My own collection of Sloggi briefs are comfortable and I find them well tailored to fit my own modest needs.

ADS WITH STRINGS ATTACHED
The 'Springtime' thong ad will probably be allowed in magazines but withdrawn, under protest, from public hoardings. I don't personally find it comic rather than offensive , but it is ,I guess, aimed, not at women, but largely at men, especially as the style of the graphic is typical of the often ludicrous settings and coquettish posturing favoured by 'glamour photographers' in the soft-porn girlie mag industry. There are a staggering range of fantasy ads that exploit directly or indirectly the female form in various stages of undress. Almost all feature pristine female (and only more recently too, male) facial and body models to sell just about anything, and the effect of this has to be to dispirit so many ordinary people, damage their sense of self-worth. That engineered anxiety is a calculated essential in the marketing of products and brand names that promise to restore or enhance self-esteem (that such images may deliberately or accidentally help to wreck.)Now that is really offensive.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH NO STRINGS?
Choice of underwear and other clothing, finally, ought to be a personal one and, for me , based on what you feel happy and comfortable with. I have never really been into clothes, brand names or my outward appearances. I am open to constructive advice or criticism in terms of what I wear these days , within limits, because I choose to show due consideration for my partner's wishes as she does mine, which seems a reasonable courtesy.

I know of post-divorced single women, trying to establish a worthwhile new relationship, who have come across misguided males, whom they have kicked into touch for demanding they lose weight and invest in a thong collection. That reminds me, also, of a recent trend in marketing, over here, before Valentine's Day, where men seem to be now openly encouraged in high street shops, to buy somewhat tacky, flimsy female lingerie, including thongs, for their partners. What message that could that give out to the recipients depends on how secure that person is in their own sexuality , self-image. It inevitably may beg the question, who the gift is actually for?

FREE TO SPICE UP YOUR LIFE ?
Before we get too heavy, there has been a growing, and to my mind, healthy market for clothes and marital aid accessories that cater for those who want to spice up their love life by mutual consent. One company, Ann Summers, has become nationally synonymous with that industry and once traded by mail order or more commonly by home based, franchised, fun night, women only house parties. The company sees themselves as entirely separate from the seedier, under the counter side of the Erotica and Porn industry, and as supplying a worthwhile service. Typically, when they applied to establish one of there stores in the prestigious Trafford Centre Shopping complex in Manchester, it was met with a furore of righteous indignation in some quarters where this was probably viewed simply as yet further indication of the total moral decline of the country. Common sense prevailed and the store is doing very good business for the right reasons.

Finally, back to the Iraq War and an image of how the mighty have fallen. Here, someone famously infamous, who enjoyed the security of keeping private how he liked to spend his leisure time, has it exposed to the world for the first time! It demonstrates how humour can be the best therapy in helping ease tension and anxiety at home and boost morale in the field. It arrived, ironically, in my inbox, as I was finishing writing this long entry and originated from an unofficial military family support /chat group. It had the caption ' I know you want me really' but begs other original suggestions, which you might like to post in the comments box and I'd love to pass on to that group. Click the followimg link to see how the mighty have fallen
SHOCK AND AWE


johncoxon 8:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
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