According to Gatorade's latest commercial "Every Game Needs a Hero" just in time for the Superbowl, the only female sport worth advertising is women's tennis. There are four sports represented: football,baseball, basketball, and tennis. Conspicuously missing: The WNBA, OLYMPIC WINNING women's softball, and women's soccer among others!? I could tell that if there was even one woman on their creative team, she was obviously dick-whipped. The 100% testosterone-driven, monosyllabic team of Jon, Doug, Ron, Steve, Rob, Bob, and Red felt it was vitally important to show male-dominated sport images at least 13x compared to the homogeneous image of the SAME woman in a tight skirt 4x!! Not only is it the same woman in every shot, but she is the quintessential sex symbol with long, flowing blond hair, cleavage baring tank top and tennis skirt. Where are Serina and Venis Williams--Are they inconveniently too black and powerful to be seen as sex objects and/or good athletes? After my daughter (with a fractured fibula) and I sat there and counted up the discrepancies in gender and race images, I advised her to change her sport. The only way female athletes will make money professionally in the United States is if they are shaking that T & A, posing for MAXIM half-clothed, or working the streets as a prostitute and they obviously won't be working for Gatorade's ad department!Why doesn't Gatorade be a little more obvious with their point and just show random images of scantily clad cheerleaders bending over front and back view. Now THAT would sell some sports drink!
BTW---My daughter happens to love Gatorade and drinks it frequently, but I may consider switching to the generic electrolyte beverage---I'll save money and my fucking blood pressure! Gatorade doesn't need little sport girl funding for their brand, they apparently get plenty of income from big sweaty guys in tight pants (don't get me wrong--I like a big sweaty guy in tight pants as much as the next gal and sexual imagery has its place--just not on the playing field).
Gatorade should change their slogan to "Every Gatorade Ad Needs a Woman's Input" or the more appropriate: "Every Gatorade Exec can Kiss my Irish Ass!"
6 comments:
Not that I disagree with the discrepancy, but females make up more than 50% of this country. They can control the elections if they wanted to. They can control what sports they watch too. The sad fact is on a few thousand people show up to a WNBA game at best. Lot of times it is in the 100’s. Have you taken your daughter to a professional female sporting event? How about a female soccer game at your local University? The sad fact is females drop out of competitive sport in mass numbers as they reach puberty. When my daughter was playing AYSO GU12 there were over 20 team. This last year on the GU16, there were only 5 teams. Where did those 15 teams go? Women in general are not as competitive as men when it comes to sports. Does anyone complain that there are not enough men in the dance classes? What about the Drama classes? How much of your advertising dollar is geared towards men. The fact is men and women are interested in different things. Gatorade is a business that derives most of its money from male dominated sports and that is where they are going to focus their advertising dollars. The business you are in is dominated by females. I don't see much advertising for your type of business in the men’s magazines. And I am not referring to Playboy. Maybe you should create your own Gatorade type drink and market it to women. There are a lot of untapped markets out there
I understand the idea of "target demographic", I am merely pointing out the fact that it is a vicious circle of little or no marketing being targeted toward girls and women in athletics in general.
I think Gatorade should have committed their ad to "men's sports" with T&A cheerleaders for eye candy OR if they were going to choose to showcase women athletes---commit to more than one vanilla/brief offering!Don't throw a paltry offering of one woman with cleavage as your representation of women's sports--either be balanced or not--but don't be biased!
Let me share a little advertising story with you. I went to the local university athletics department and offered to advertise specifically for the womens' soccer team. I was told that I COULDN'T "CHERRY PICK" my sports and that advertisers had to commit to a "general (i.e. MALE)" sport package and they would break off a piece to the girls. My thought at that moment? FUCK YOU! I am a small business, so my dollar doesn't go far, but I long for the day when I can walk up to the women's athletic department and buy them a fucking JET! Ass hole, male-dominated advertising is what is helping womens' athletics to peter out! Maybe if media wasn't so obsessed with anorexic little brainless icons like ho bitch Paris, women and girls might--JUST MIGHT--stop obsessing about their looks and whether a guy finds them fuckable or not!
BTW--It will be hard to boycott Gatorade since it is a product of Pepsico which owns Taco Bell,various Starbucks products, and a plethera of other businesses and products.... Show some more responsiblity in your advertising big bad corps or at least opt to join the writers' strike so I don't have to be subjected to your sexist ad campaigns.
Now I'm going to go slap on some makeup, color and straighten my crazy curls, watch what I eat, and fit into some heels so I can sell to the foxy female obsessed U.S. Sex sells---oh boy does it sell and sports sell, but we can't possibly have sexy women who play sports AND get respect AND equal play time? I bet any of the WNBA women would have pranced around in only their jersey and heels if it wouldn've helped get the word out about their passion.
You still did not answer how much of your entertainment dollars went to support either college or professional female sports. That University that you want to advertise is at is almost entirely supported by men’s sports teams, mostly the football team. And if you look in the stands on any give Saturday you will find a very large number of females enjoying those big strong men play football.
If the University was hurting for advertisers, they would have honored your request. However they have large corporations that are willing to poor millions in their school.
Put your money where your mouth is. Start supporting girl’s sports. There is a WNBA team where you live. Buy two season tickets. I am sure you can use it as a write off for your business. Create a Gatorade type drink and market it to females. When you become rich and famous, get the girls sports department their own private jet. I am looking forward to the day you buy it. As you know I have two daughters and I have told them that there is nothing they can’t do.
It is easy to bitch about what is wrong with the world. It is a lot harder to do something about it.
You could never hit a never with me. I just find your ludicrous and unsupported arguments to easy to take pot shoots at. First did you even bother to go to the Gatorade web site? If you had, you would have seen that the opening page features 4 women and 4 men. If you bothered to browse through their web site, you would have found several commercials featuring women. Women like Kristine Lilly, Kerri Walsh, and Mist May. I found this all in less than 5 minutes. You watch one Gatorade commercial and you use that as the sum total of Gatorades existence.
I never said you are a lesbo man hater and you may be pointing out the discrepancy of one commercial, but you are by far not pointing out the discrepancy of Gatorade. They have promoted women in sports, maybe not to an equal degree as the men sports, but then again, men’s sports in this country are more popular than female sports. You also state that it is hard to do anything about it, again, I disagree with you. Support the companies that are supporting female athletes, send emails to the companies. Go to more female sporting events. Put the schedule of the local female sporting events up in your shop. I can go on an on. It really is easy to do something about it and most of it is free.
*clap* *clap*! You did some serious homework Jimbo! :-)
I also noticed that Gatorade is a sponsor of Women's sports foundations which I thought made their commercial all the more irresponsible. I'm glad that I helped publicize women's sports with your diligent help! Carry on!
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