The Lipster

I'm happy to be filmed in my soiled pants promoting washing machines, cheap chocolate and 'consolidated loans'.

FYI – I am a mid-thirties male who chain smokes and looks like Daniel Day Lewis having a stroke.

to say that a lot of the time it is men that are made to look like brainless idiots in adverts. However, a lot of the time it is men that are made to look like brainless idiots in adverts. I just wish I could think of some good examples.

A better man than me has some thoughts about men in advertising though - your Brooker on Screenwipe:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wiwmYjk9ARA

I think there is a lot of this in the industry still (Lynx, anything with J Clarkson's face on it, so-called 'lad-mags') but I think - in places - there has been some progress in the right direction.

You're right in one area though - all bar one of the copywriters in an ad agency I know of are female. However, 90% of the account handlers (including the MD and two other top earners) are women. I also know plenty of successful women copywriters, some of whom are responsible for pumping out ads that would make the average Lipster's gorge rise.

If it's not sexism backfiring on a brand, it's the likes of my current favourite, Nationwide, trying to make their fictional competition look like imbeciles while managing to actually put people off their own brand.

Copywriters and account execs aside, who are the commissioning marketing geniuses that actually sign this stuff off?

There's rather a horrendous number of ads where women behave like lecherous idiots lately, and that's apparently 'ok' because we're the downtrodden lot, aren't we?

The Diet Coke Break ads and that bloody Bueno one with "A Little Bit of What You Fancy" being the objectified arse of a waiter.

Supposedly feminist ads are the ones which get my goat more than anything, they cheapen progress.

Do you all get the Axe Body Spray commercials, or is that just a local infection here in the states?

They're enough to make yuh wanna go Lizzy Borden. What with young guys spraying aforesaid body spray upon themselves and then the womens get hot wet panting with lust and throwing themselves at the young irresistable studmuffins.

I'm guessing it's supposed to be "ironic" and a pomo take on the old Hai Karate commercials of the seventies. But in actuality it's just sad and makes you figure that Axe smells like ass and is worn by the same.

I'm a female Copywriter. Woo! The only one at my current agency, and at the last place I worked.

This may raise hackles, but the lack of female creatives might have something to do with the fact that a big ego - or at least an unerring self-belief that borders on arrogance - seems to really help in this industry. Ooooh, controversial.

And the ads? Well, Rustlers just want to shift burgers. Did their complaint-generating spot appeal to the target audience and boost sales? The depressing answer is: probably.

Gosh, how about that awful advert where the lady from Ashes to Ashes pretends not to understand how moisturisers work and is talked down to by a male narrator. What kind of woman are they trying to appeal to?!

Recently, Welch's Grape juice ads where each family member has their own preferred type of juice and identity..EXCEPT the mother. She just pours the damn stuff out.

On a similar note, Weetabix's recent family based campaign. Dad is greedy and has three, Mum is in training for a marathon, drum playing eldest son needs energy whilst their teenage daughters "watches what she eats"...implying she thinks shes fat. GRR

Its not just the obvious tits and ass type ads that have dodgy messages.

The advert - is it for the Daily Express? - where the narrator announces a war between the sexes from Monday to Saturday and shows two battle lines of men and women; the men with toy cars and footballs and the women with high heels and little dogs. And then on Sunday you have the men and women pairing off and reading the separate magazines for men and women - coz, you know, women are only interested in make up and handbags and men in cars and football.
If that isn't perpetuating gender stereotypes, I have no idea what else is.
Getting angry just typing this and have to be restrained from throwing things at the TV when it comes on....