In a long history of sexist ads and outrage, it's the apology that's new

KFC apologised after an ad that appeared in Australia was decried as sexist by women's groups. Photo / Getty Images

A KFC ad in Australia that infuriated women's groups showed the power of the #MeToo movement, even as it called back to the many sexist ads of the past.

The commercial doesn't have much to do with chicken.

A young woman in a low-cut top purses her lips and pushes up her chest as she checks her reflection in a car window. The glass slowly rolls down, revealing two young boys who had been ogling her. In the driver's seat, a disapproving mom glares.

The young woman sheepishly grins and then asks: "Did someone say KFC?"

Fifteen years ago, the ad might have been seen as just another crass marketing pitch leveraging sex to sell a product. But when the commercial recently appeared in Australia, the backlash on social media denouncing it as sexist was so vociferous, it prompted KFC to apologise.

The quick retreat, just before advertising's marquee moment — the Super Bowl — underscored how the boundaries of what's considered acceptable are changing quickly in the #MeToo era. Advertisers that for decades relied on the objectification of women to sell products are increasingly wary of taking that approach, aware that many consumers will no longer tolerate abject sexism.

"They would have never apologised 15 or 20 years ago," said Abhik Roy, a former ad executive and professor of marketing at Quinnipiac University. "It's more because of social media pressure."

While the #MeToo movement has used social media to push advertisers into withdrawing ads it deems offensive, the movement is building on the wave of earlier battles.

"My wife, I think I'll keep her"

Before there was KFC and Peloton, the exercise company recently criticised for an ad, there was the vitamin company Geritol.

A gauzy 1972 commercial for Geritol shows a handsome, middle-aged man looking into the camera as his wife, perfectly coifed and smiling, leans her head on his shoulder. She remains silent as he describes how, thanks to Geritol, she has the energy to take care of their baby all day, go to a school meeting and make a delicious dinner.

"And look at her," he drawls. "She looks better than any of her friends."

He then looks back at the camera and says, "My wife, I think I'll keep her."

The ad infuriated leaders of the National Organisation for Women, who called for commercials like it to be taken off the airwaves. The Committee for the Rejection of Obnoxious Commercials, which was founded by a Minneapolis ad executive in the early 1970s, ranked it one of that year's worst.

The ad carried such resonance that 20 years later, country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter responded with the song He Thinks He'll Keep Her, about a seemingly happy wife who decides to leave her husband.

Geritol was eventually fined U$812,000 ($1.2 million) by the Federal Trade Commission for flouting orders to stop running ads that promised boundless energy to anyone who took the supplement.

In an editorial critical of the company, The Berkshire Eagle of Massachusetts said the wife in that ad "does everything but curl up at his feet and purr."

"Women's Liberationists" were so enraged, the editorial said, "if they had their way, the fines would have been in the billions rather than the thousands."

"Choice feminism"

The decades that followed showed little progress in advertising tactics.

Take a Fuddruckers ad from the early 1980s that is rife with double entendres. At first glance it seems to be a cheeky look at men and women lusting after burgers.

But it is the men who are allowed to ogle the "buns" and bite sinfully into the burger, while a woman who starts to marvel at the size of a beef patty is quickly shushed by her friends.

The ad is emblematic of the Reagan era's "revival of conservatism on the social, political and economic levels," said Carly Drake, a marketing professor at North Central College in Illinois. "Sex is shameful or, more simply, private and not to be discussed," she said.

The decade would also start a trend of women "choosing" to be feminine, sexual and driven but still not too threatening to men, Drake said. She cited an Enjoli perfume ad that portrayed a "24-hour woman."

"There was this idea of 'We've made it as women, we can make it on our own,'" Drake said. "We don't need feminism. So we want to be with the boys."

That trend would continue well into the early 2000s, though some ads tried to deflect criticism. One 2003 Super Bowl commercial showed two women arguing over Miller Lite, then fighting, mud-wrestling and, finally, kissing.

The ad was framed as a spoof of two men's fantasy — with two women listening, silent and disgusted — but Miller Lite was nevertheless accused of trying to get away with sexism by turning it into a joke.

At the same time, online retailers were creating a more competitive market, and advertisers started to sense a shift in how consumers saw commercials, said Paul Radich, a marketing professor at Catholic University who served on the ethics committee of the American Marketing Association from 2011 to 2014.

Advertisers began asking, "Are we appealing to their instincts and desires in a temporary fashion, or are we trying to engage them in a narrative about their own life and how we as a company can fit into their own life?" he said.

Many commercials moved toward absurdist humour — as with many of Geico's ads — or appeals to family, like a 2016 ad for Honda in which a man gets home safely to his young wife and baby thanks to the reliable emergency brake system.

That commercial was a far cry from "Man's Last Stand," a 2010 Dodge ad that showed beaten-down men defiantly telling the women in their lives that if they have to comply with chores and other demands, they will buy whatever car they want.

The social media era

Outcry over objectification may be swifter and louder, but men are still more represented in commercials than women, according to a 2019 analysis by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a nonprofit group started by the Oscar-winning actor.

Researchers for the organization looked at 2.7 million YouTube videos uploaded by advertisers and found that although gender representation improved some over a five-year period, male characters were seen 56 per cent of the time, while female characters were seen 44 per cent of the time. Male characters were also heard one and a half times more than female characters.

In Australia, the criticism against KFC drew abusive blowback, said Melinda Liszewski, a spokeswoman for Collective Shout, a grassroots organisation that campaigns against the objectification of women.

"I was surprised that our commentary on the KFC ad would elicit such vile, sexually explicit and misogynistic abuse," she said. "Myself and my colleagues spent a number of hours removing comments and men from our social media pages."

There remains the question of how advertising will play out on social media platforms where users have more control and receive less scrutiny.

Nancy Van Leuven, who teaches communications at Fresno State, pointed to TikTok, where some teenage girls, eager to find new followers (and advertisers), dress skimpily, don makeup and toss their hair for the camera as they teach dance steps.

Their male counterparts on similar videos are often dress in baggy clothes, their moves far less sexualised.

"Is that an idea of user-generated media that is reinforcing stereotypes?" Van Leuven said. "I think user-generated content is the newer, unknown territory of whether stereotypes are reinforced or disrupted."

Written by: Maria Cramer
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