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Fuck you Asda
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiTuiYtaMV40
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One is sexist, the other is insensitive.
This ad is aimed at your housewife needing to do shopping for christmas. The one who feels like she does do all the work. Reinforcing this self-image, telling her, that yes - the world would literally fall apart without her - helps to connect her to the ad. And ads and marketing are all about connecting with your viewer.
As far as Asda are concerned, the people who are angry about it are not worth worrying about as long as the target audience are reached. Maybe they can get some more PR legs out of it by running a public 'I'm sorry - we were wrong' thing in a week or so. Extra browny points for being controversial.
It's the nature of advertising.
There is seldom such a thing as bad press.
Asda clearly called up this idea from the 1950s, where women "do" the house, and everyone has a mum and a dad and a traditional christmas. It's not on anymore, saying it's "the nature of advertising" is a poor excuse.
I work a little in advertising so I have a small understanding; honestly though Asda is a big brand so will care about negative PR, but for the bottom line, this controversy is probably only a good thing.
What I mean about 'nature of advertising', is that it will be directed at an audience and expected to resonate with that audience. A good comment on retailweek about it:
It is very easy to find offensive ads, and yes, there are plenty of ads poking fun at men but again its just how advertisers work. They are trying to sell a narrative to a particular person and everyone else can, kinda, get fucked.
I mean write a petition by all means and get a million signatures on it, march on downing street, but Asda has still done nothing wrong besides being offensive or insensitive in the way plenty of advertising campaigns are.
My take on the advert is that it's lazy and has the same boring stereotypes which are offensive to both sexes. The part that really pissed me off is the end line, 'What's for dinner love?'. Fuckoff.
And its her own fault for getting a real tree, course you'll have to spend the next 6 months getting pine needles out of everything!
I agree. It's become almost casual and accepted. If a woman is experiencing a negative emotion than it's her 'hormones' when really it should just be treated like any other genuine emotion. I got into a heated debate on facebook with someone and a male friend who was reading it told me that I'm allowed to be pissy and angry because I'm pregnant.
I could list a whole host of recent sexist encounters I've had from the estate agent who 'joked' that he'd show me the kitchen first because he knows how us women love our kitchens to a maintenance man who when I was asking questions about the boiler directed every single response to my boyfriend.
I'm going off on a tangeant here but sexism does still exist and is prevalent. Asda have the right to make a shit advert but by the same token others have the right to point out in merciless detail why said advert is shit especially if we are ever going to change the same boring, accepted and repetative attitude towards men and women.
I just think with regard to the Asda advert its impact is limited enough that it's not, for me, worth getting mad about.
I guess I am arguing the 'picking battles' line in that case. Today I read 75,000 children will be homeless this Christmas which irks me a lot more than this. www.cih.org/housingreport out tomorrow and I expect the situation to be: all the poor people are worse off.
My problem is that we still have careless sexism. Careless sexism is the tesco halloween costume display where the "boys" section includes a glow in the dark skeleton costume, and the "girls" includes a skeleton costume covered with pink hearts. My problem is somewhere my 13yr old neice has picked up that her little brother "looks like a little girl" because when he was 4 he had blond curls that were maybe 3 inches long. My problem is, that a great christmas needs a mum.
Also, "picking battles" is a load of crap as far as I'm concerned. It's like saying because women are so violently oppressed in some areas of the world I shouldn't worry about blokes shouting "alright darlin'!?"
It really sucks but there's a point where you need to get on with life... go for the wins and not agonise over every thing that sucks?
edit: when I say 'you' I mean as a synonym for 'one' rather than you particularly. I am talking in generalisms about how this issue doesn't feel to me to be big enough on the radar to mobilise on downing street.
To be fair, that's bit of a bad example. I can't think of any time when the men would all break down in tears and sob with one another either.
As for this ASDA thing, as some others have said, they have a target audience, they've aimed the ad at them and to hell with everyone else, and I think it is still a reasonably accurate reflection of what actually happens at christmas.
Hands up those who's dad's do all the shopping, wrap all the gifts and cook the biggest, most important meal of the year......
Hands up whose parents ultimately share the responsability of entertaining, cooking, wrapping gifts, deciding where to put a Christmas tree.
Aye.
Absolutely not saying you can't
You did kinda insinuate it with the 'pick your battles' line. I understand that it hasn't grinded your gears personally but that doesn't mean it isn't worthy of other's condemnation.
Im so glad youve said this cos i was afraid to.
Yes, the advert could show a bit more diversity as to other people doing jobs. I sure there are very few families where mum does EVERYTHING. However, it is a representation of their target audience, if not mums, then whoever does the xmas stuff: dad, gran, when i was a student we had a mini xmas, whoever organised that. As an organiser of xmas you're still likely to empathise with the woman in the advert doing all the shopping, wrapping, cooking etc no matter who you are or your gender, race, etc
You've said that "there are very few families where mum does EVERYTHING" so how is it a representation of their target audience if they're pinning a great Christmas on mum?
The ad is aimed at the mums out there who feel like they do all of the work at Christmas. It's saying, look how easy we can make your Christmas, to the mums who can relate to the character in the advert.
Yes, plenty of households don't match the ad, but Asda clearly reckon that the "mum who feels they do everything at Christmas" demographic is one worth targeting with an advertising campaign. My guess would be that through their choice, they're targeting the majority especially at this time of year. Get to 2 days before Christmas and men are your better target, from personal experience housed far more men in supermarkets around bank holidays then at any other time.