BW Communities

Case Study: By Men, For Men, Of Women

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<div>Aseem Wadhwa heard out his account executive, Rupen Raina. They had just finished meeting the diamond client, along with Jaggi Dasan and the CEO. Jaggi had presented the draft storyboard, which showed a man placing a diamond necklace on his lady’s neck, and his subsequent moves — which, as we saw earlier in the story, had annoyed Shaina Kamat, the senior creative manager. Rupen: How do we know if she is the right kind of woman for this ad? Why does Shaina think it is the man’s wife? Shaina did not create this ad; so, if she sees the wife in that lady, so will a consumer. Why cannot she be his mistress? Girlfriend? And should not she look sexier? It’s diamonds... we should glamorise it, nahin? There should be a mystery around the woman... [They were reassembling after the diamond client meeting and now Rupen wanted to pick Shaina’s brains.] Shaina: You have made a deep point generally, but your particulars are disturbing. Yes, she will appeal to men in the traditional sense, but who is your target audience? Who are you wishing to be the buyer of the diamonds? Men or women? Rupen: Women naturally, but the covet value is high if that lady is portrayed as the non-wife. Shaina (wincing sharply): Not anymore, Rupen. The world just changed while you blinked. Ever since the assault on Nirbhaya, we must be careful how we portray women... this is what we were talking about this morning. Aseem: Shaina, you may want to change the tone of your ads. But reality is not changing, you see? The other four creative directors at Alcove may not think like that. This has to be an agency stance... not individual. Masooma: Then we will err on the side of respect for women. That youth fashion brand’s campaigns, especially the one about the girl leaving the boys’ hostel in a bed sheet: Do you think the girls on the ad team resonated with the idea? All their ads cause the stomach to turn and, in my opinion, do not reflect the world according to women. Jaggi: So Shaina, can creative object or should they work to the brief? Shaina: Rupen? Would you be upset if I was on your diamond ad team and objected to your profiling the lady as a mistress? [Rupen grinned and looked at Aseem and said, “I guess the boss decides!”] Shaina: Aah... So, Jaggi, my feeling is that the girls on the girl-in-bedsheet  team had no choice. Either they were frightened or unsure of expressing it, or like me, they expressed displeasure and were ridiculed. ‘There is a brief; you do as you are told. Period.’ [Recently, Shaina had to take over the Offro deodorant ad from another creative lead. The draft storyboard played upon unmitigated attraction unleashed by the deodorant so that women were mesmerised, and dropping everything, they slid in the direction of the deo’s perfume, collapsing in surrender to the men. The marketing word was that the deodorants were packed with irresistible scents that attracted women to the men — hence the seductive appeal of the product justifying the creative. Two team members had found this absurd, as had Shaina. When she sought to change the storyline, CEO Gufi had lightly rebuked Shaina and told her the original idea had to be kept.] Gufi: We are in the business of giving the client what the client wants. Shaina: Why did I think we are in the business of creating good advertising? (Followed by) If you are pitching for their social media advertising, please know it contains 50 per cent women. Only 50 per cent are men. You are making the girls look stupid, woolly headed. Fantasy should at the least make sense. But this is not just nonsense, it is also demeaning women and their essential intelligence.</div><div> Gufi: Shaina, now, let’s not get all uptight and haughty. That’s life, sex appeal sells. Let’s not re-invent the wheel. We have a job to do. Sadly, we work according to brief. The brief has defined the target audience as ‘teens and 18-25, rebellious youth, western values... blah’. The brief says,  appeal to them! So that’s what we do!</div><div> </div><div>break-page-break</div><div> Shaina: (To Jaggi) I guess he could not see what I was seeing. Our standpoints were so different, so distinct and stark... I began to wonder why I was seeing what I was seeing, and why he was unable to see that.</div><div> Jaggi: What were you seeing? Shaina: I could see why in 1980, my grandmother was not taken seriously by doctors and family when she told them she feared the hysterectomy surgery. But her sons told the doctor to go ahead. Ba went into mental trauma, never to recover from it. The men in her life had decided that she need not be heard. I could see why my mother was not taken seriously when she had protested and told them to give Ba time, space... but they told her ‘you don’t know anything’! The same attitude was lurking in Gufi. We got bristly over this point; he moved me out of the team... all very absurd and stupid, if you ask me. Taran Alur: The CEO has deliverables, Shaina. The creative resource cannot tweak that. Shaina: Okay, but he was seeing my words as a woman’s viewpoint, not as a worldview that needed to change. Any communication we put out there has to be politically correct by every gender. Why, today we challenge the use of words like ‘black’ or ‘gay’ or ‘disabled’. We demand inclusivity, right? Then how about including women in that worldview? And this is why I feel that finally ads are masculine, and represent a male worldview. Alur: I differ. It may be a ‘male-ness’ dominance, but not male dominance. <img width="200" vspace="7" hspace="7" height="200" align="right" alt="" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=9fde7e38-372c-4e2f-be77-e97e7fabdaef&groupId=222852&t=1362760175392" />Shaina: I wonder about that. Maybe you have not seen this commercial for M&M’s, the chocolate candy.. [M&M’s is a bag of coloured candy like Cadbury’s Gems. In the commercial, the green M&M is presented as the femme fatale; she walks down the street to many catcalls from guys she passes — a construction worker, a guy in a convertible, etc. Even women comment on her covetously.] Shaina: Add to that the rumour mongering that the green candy had aphrodisiac effects! How this myth came to be is difficult to tell, but each colour bears a myth, like if the last candy in the bag is red, your wish will come true. M&M’s didn’t admit or deny Green’s imagery. But in 1997, the green candy became female, Ms Green: eyelashes and all.   In a bag full of candy, she is the only lady; the red, blue, orange and yellow are all male. Says anything? Closer home, take that cricketer-pataoing-girl ad. Whose brainchild is it, male or female? The girl in a boys’ hostel bedroom, is that male or female gaze? The alcohol company calendar ad... Jaggi: When has it not been male? The cricketer patao-ing ad — It is a tech product and technology is subconsciously seen as a male domain! Alur: Shaina, you are reading way too much into every ad. Today, more men ‘patao’ women, as arranged marriages have given way to love marriages, and people in other SECs need something to add to their style value, that’s what it is! Like a rich fellow uses his Merc to do the same! Masooma: But then Mercedes still doesn’t talk to the women… ha! Shaina: But even so, they also don’t give sleazy pick-up lines! See, I am not protesting about portraying the essential nature of the genders. But the storyline was dangerous and the patao-ing ad seemed to endorse a certain guile, cunning behaviour. Isn’t that what we are fighting in the case of Nirbhaya, the dangerous intrusion into a woman’s life, unasked?  </div><div>break-page-break</div><div> Alur: You are super sensitive now, we always have been like this... how can you link this with the Nirbhaya case? Aseem: Shaina, have you thought that maybe you are guilty of judging all girls by your moral platform? Alur: Then again, the Virat Kohli ad is working, so it must be connecting with the audience. Else, people march on everything these days; this would not have got away, ha ha ha!   Shaina: Then it stands to reason that all advertising is driven to cater to the male worldview... that is clear! Masooma: Shaina, please complete the M&M’s angle for me. Who are the other colours in the bag? Shaina: All men... their website profiles them. Red is 30, brains and brawn — genius IQ; Yellow likes pretty ladies, is best friends with Red, essential nice guy. Blue likes ladies too, is confident, and so on. Orange is stressed out, over anxious... Masooma: And that one green woman is presented as they see her! Alur: So what does that prove? Shaina: That the world we see and live in is a world from the standpoint of the male.... Jaggi: To be fair, there can be either a male worldview or a female worldview at any point in time. There cannot be a third!   Shaina: No! The third view is a balanced view. Everything else is a skewed worldview; and that is what we are saying needs correction in advertising. It must include the female 50 per cent! Look, M&M’s approach is fun, but when you see the male-ness dominance, it is worrisome. [Much discussion followed... It was funny as it was pathetic.] Shaina: So coming to the point, it is a man’s perspective that dictates copy lines, visuals, etc., like ‘happy periods’!, which is not the same thing as ‘it’s a man’s world’, which is not what I am saying. But it means that many things in life are representative of a world as a man sees it. For example, you can have a male view of mobile phones and a female view. But what is disturbing is that whenever a woman is presented in an ad, she is as the men see her! That is the mindset that produced the M&M’s commercial, in my opinion. It is startling! Aseem: But what’s the official line on the aphrodisiac M&M’s? Shaina: Well, they neither affirmed nor denied the rumours. They were always treated as consumer imagery and rumours. But in 1997, the company produced a teaser ad that asked, “Is it true what they say about the green M&M?” and then turned their green M&M into a girl, gave her eyelashes, swagger and spunk... Too much coincidence? Tanaz Shapoorji (market research): Do you know that in 2012 they introduced a second lady in the bag: Ms Brown? Predictably, the profiling is a male worldview — she is bespectacled, annoyingly intelligent, very stuffy when she talks; a predictable male viewpoint of intelligent women. And guess who is looking at Ms Brown? It’s the actor William Levy. In the new commercial, he is clearly the opinion leader. He begins by saying, ‘You look delicious today’! Ms Brown gets annoyed and says, ‘I thought you liked me for my brains.’ (Don’t miss — intelligent is not feminine, by interpretation!) So we are already being subtly told that the first take on a new addition is a man’s take. And his first take is the looks, and the first takeaway of looks is ‘delicious’. Alur (laughing): Yeah, you are proving the point very forcefully, have to grant you that! Yet I am not ready to concede. M&M’s is one example. The ‘ladki patao’ the other, the girl-in-a-bedsheet another, the diamond ads another... hmm... okay, that’s a lot. Shaina: Add to that the fact that all the cuss words in most languages, English included, are all about women — mothers and sisters — and related to sex and female genitalia, yeah? Bothersome, no? This is about a male worldview of control and women, is it not? It struck me as so poignant. [There is general discomfort all around...] The girl-in-bedsheet youth fashion brand likewise is all about dictating a worldview of women: ‘Let me show you how today’s woman is/should be.’ Taran, the deeper you go, the darker it gets. When I log into my mailbox, what do I see? Ads for pick-up girls on my screen’s side bar. ‘Want to meet Anna?’ And Anna is a lady oozing out of small clothing... Is that a woman’s standpoint or a man’s? Aseem: She’s right! Yes, the world has a serious male definition! Shaina is saying ‘change the way we do things’. It does need a change, Taran! Shaina: It needs equalising. It needs respect. Today I protest, because today there is an abrupt call to wake up. Until now, I too have been mindless. We need to become mindful. What we do in the future must be fair. When the context changes, or develops a nuance, our content must change in deference to that nuance. Jaggi: I may add that Bollywood’s choli ke peeche opened the floodgates to indecent lyrics, including new ‘talent’. Choli stayed only because the ones who ensured it stayed were those who enjoyed it. Taran: So what you are saying is, where we are clearly divided by gender on the morality of a thing, we must resist doing it? Shaina: No; go one step back and examine if the idea respects women. Make that a check point in the ad strategy. When we were ideating on Zak, the car, Tarapore told me, ‘Give me a body like Bips; that is what really exemplifies my car, truly sexy.’ See what I mean? But globally, see what sells – Hyundai’s ‘fluidic design’, Chrysler’s ‘wind sculpted’ models, Fiat’s ‘Italian 60s fashion’ — not a woman’s body! Partly because it is boring as body parts don’t deliver in high investment purchases beyond eye balls, and partly because more women are buying these cars or have a say in the decision. So, desirable or sexy is primitive, and Indian audiences are being dumbed down by that!     Jaggi, if sex is what sold, we’d see men and women equally sexually objectified in popular culture. Instead, we sell men’s sexual subjectivity and women as a sex object. That is, men’s desires are centrally important and consequently pivotal. Tanaz: Which is why in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 2009, M&M’s put Ms Green ‘baring all’ on the back cover and it was appalling that people liked it! It’s just me I think who reads too much into it! And this year, they have Ms Brown hiding in the bushes, seemingly stripped. Who stripped her, and who is she stripping for, hanh?  casestudymeera(at)gmail(dot)com Read Businessworld case studies on Facebook (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)</div>