#REALLY?, #COMEONNOW

    

      

               Alright, so my post today is mainly a result of disbelief as I was watching the TV on Sunday morning.  I saw an advertisement so blunt, sexual, and honestly just bad, that I couldn’t believe what I was actually watching.  Let me back up some and explain some.

                The commercial is for a new type of speaker called the Beats Pill, a device that looks basically like a giant pill capsule (among other things).  The product isn’t the issue here though; the problem is the commercial that RadioShack and Beats put out for it.  I was astonished while watching a show at 9am (on a Sunday morning of all mornings) to see an ad come across the screen with women wearing plastic clothing with most of their bodies exposed.  Next I see the hashtag, #UWANTIT, come across the screen and I honestly had no clue what it was referring to…Let’s just say the product wasn’t really the first thing that came to mind.  It doesn’t get better though, next it just shows 20 seconds of models playing with a device that looks quite suggestive in poses that are just meant to be provocative.   Not a single attempt was made to show a connection to the product, instead it was all about just getting attention from the audience.  Only in the last 2 seconds of the ad was I able to see the speakers on a close up of the product and realize that it was something designed for playing music. 

What I really I can’t believe here is that this commercial managed to get past every single channel and decision maker without being nixed.  There is no big idea behind this campaign.  There is no creative consumer insight.  There is only the same old approach hoping that sex sells, regardless of the product.  Look sex does sell, but only for the right thing.  Let Victoria’s Secret use sex to sell an item.  After all, their products are closing linked to sex and the connection is an obvious one.  Lingerie and sex share a connection, a strong link that serves to actually reinstate the idea of their commercial…wearing this will make you feel and look sexier.  But this commercial is all about a speaker.  Half naked models have nothing to do with the speaker or the two companies.  I didn’t even know what the product was most the time (and my guesses where not quite so close with this one either…).  The music in the background the whole time just reemphasized the models sexuality, not the quality of the sound from the speakers.

A lack of thought or effort proves my main problem with this advertisement.  Yes it is sexist, but what gets me so annoyed is that the sexism serves no real purpose either.  It’s banal, simple, and completely over does everything.  The combination of the hashtags, the song lyrics, and the visual cues make the whole thing hilariously stupid.  If I were to show an example in class of an advertisement to avoid…this will always win.