Ads don’t sell reality, so stop moaning

SOME readers may remember the great Beach Body Wars of the summer of 2015. There were more innocent times, back then. An ad was launched in the UK for a diet supplement produced by a company called Protein World which featured, in one part of its campaign, a model pouting at a camera, holding her body in one of those ludicrous model-poses, while the strap line asked ‘are you beach body ready?’

As it turns out, many people weren’t ‘beach body ready’ – but they were ready for a scrap over what everyone from traditional, moral majority groups to feminist campaigners (although it’s increasingly hard to tell these once disparate groups apart) claimed was a campaign which ‘demeaned’ and ‘objectified’ the female of the species and, inevitably, the whole campaign was also accused of ‘shaming’ women. Quite how, exactly, a campaign was able to simultaneously objectify and shame was never fully explained, but the whole storm in a tea cup was merely the most high-profile blow struck by the new forces of puritanism.

That first salvo launched a war on ads that finally reached fruition last week with the decision by the UK’s regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), to ban all such ‘sexist’ or ‘gender stereotypical’ commercials.

Rather like our own local quango, the similarly named Advertising Authority Standards of Ireland, the ASA was originally set up to ensure that advertisers didn’t openly mislead or downright lie to consumers in their ads.

But that has long since morphed into a wider remit that now sees such groups operate as a sort of moral police force, ready to respond to any complaints about any campaign. The ASA’s guidelines in the UK–and we can expect a similar version to be introduced by its Irish counterpart – are a classic example of what happens when groups which are lobbied by the crankier members of the public then get to decide public policy.

Rather than focusing on overtly sexual content, which would make a degree of sense, it is now targeting overtly sexist content, which make no sense whatsoever.

According to its typically self-congratulatory press release, issued to inform a grateful population that they will no longer have to be annoyed by anything ever again, the ASA claimed that:

“The ‘female’ stereotype tends to be less valued by society and the ‘male’ stereotypes are generally considered aspirational ... Stereotypes that imply men should be physically strong, unemotional and capable of being the main breadwinner in a family are linked to outcomes such as depression and suicide ...”

They got all that from an ad? Sure, there are plenty of ads which portray men as bumbling idiots who can’t put up a shelf without burning the house down.

And you know what? That’s just fine.

In fact, some of them are moderately amusing. Some of them are irksome and most just flash by on the TV screen without you even noticing one way or the other – because they are ads. That is all they are.

Most men who look at them roll their eyes and move on to something else. Something more important than an ad.

Which is just about everything else in the world.

Ads are being increasingly targeted by roving bands of professional cranks and busybodies who have decided that if they don’t like something, then it must immediately be banned and withdrawn.

If it’s easy to laugh at these ridiculous, flailing efforts to achieve better living through advertising that is because mockery and scorn are the most appropriate responses – we are living in the face of increasing censorship and one of the most notable aspects of, for example, the ‘beach body’ controversy was just how dour, sour and utterly humourless the campaigners involved were.

Any criticism of their neoVictorianism was interpreted as an attack on women – even though the campaign also featured an improbably endowed male model who was, from most men’s perspective, even more unattainable than the female version.

SIMILARLY, the David Beckham campaign for underpants featured the footballer appearing in only his smalls, and most of the female response was one of appreciation for a remarkably goodlooking man.

The male reaction? Most men shrugged their shoulders and went about their day, presumably operating off the not unreasonable notion that Beckham has been hired to be a model and therefore was being paid to look roughly several million times better than the average guy on the street.

Advertising doesn’t sell us reality. Advertising sells us something that may or may not be vaguely attainable and, crucially, consumers are smart enough to tell when an ad is being mischievous, playing off stereotypes or just plain rubbish.

Which is a lot more than can be said for the very modern Millie Tants who look at the world around them in all its variety and beauty and ... wonder what they can give out about.

If a single ad campaign can make you feel ‘worthless’, as some of the beach body critics claimed at the time, then it’s obvious that your problems run deeper than any commercial.

But I guess it’s easier to ban stuff and hope the problem will go away.