Audi drops not to subtle paedophile car advert!

BreastedBoobilyToTheStairs

Fantastic post and some really great comments.

I personally believe Audi is trying to appeal to women and fathers with young kids. Which is why they used a young girl instead of boy and the father is really ‘cool and trendy’.

I agree that advertising uses subliminal messages and that many use controversy as a way of getting media attention. But I can’t think that anyone would use appealing to peadophiles as a way to make money because at the end of the day that is all they want is to sell more cars to make more money. So surely out of all the people who had a hand in designing the advert someone would say hang on this looks sexual which could have an impact on our sales especially as our target audience is young families.

RufustheSniggeringReindeer

MN in general but also this is an opinion held by my grandma and her friends and less so by my mum (50s) and her friends.

It is interesting about your DH as a lot of men aren’t as good as females at spotting things like that (not bashing them in any way).
The only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is the banana as it’s nothing to do with cars but then neither is the kite but the female, leopard print and car is not anything I would have seen as red flags.

Wow that was more of an essay than I'd intended

FWIW I'm late 20s so I definitely don't think it's solely a generational thing. I also don't look at it and think 'that's sexual'. I do however see it as jarring, particularly when the aspects are deconstructed, and the reason I have an issue with it is in the wider context of how advertising decisions are made.

I'm not saying that this was intentionally designed as an image to give paedophiles something to leer over. However, I do think that:

• Audi is known for controversial and viral advertising;
• Audi will undoubtedly spend vast sums of money on their campaigns and have very experienced advertisers working and signing off on each project;
• they key aspects used in this image have been used at one time or another in the not so distant past in adverts and applied to young, attractive women, in order to generate the idea that 'this car/scent/item will help you have sex with women like this'. It's the oldest aspirational ad trope around.

To me, that suggests that either:

• the entire marketing team at Audi didn't think that any of the choices in this image would be construed in this way by society and the fact the choices are also common sexualisation tactics for grown women is no more than a coincidence; or

• it was recognised and done anyway / designed intentionally so as to be provocative and get people talking whilst still maintaining relatively clean hands, particularly since they immediately took it down.

If the latter, then it's brilliant for brand awareness but unpleasant and twisted morally. If the former, then it begs the question 'how was this missed?' and demonstrates just how pervasive the sexualisation of women in advertising is because even they don't know that they're doing it. Whether they realise it or not there is a subconscious reason they chose a young girl eating a banana while leaning against the car, and not a young boy. I absolutely agree that a child on the street eating a banana isn't sexual and anyone that thinks that has something wrong with them. However I also think that in the context of advertising a high performance car, it's oddly specific and links up far too neatly with wider issues of women being used as props in order to increase sales. IMO when using children in ads they have a moral and social responsibility to deliberately not apply the same tactics used to invoke sexual imagery when applied to adults, to children. Relying on 'it isn't sexual when used to style a child because it's a child' isn't good enough for me.

As pps have pointed out already there's other things they could have done which would have been more effective at signalling 'cool girl' than eating a food widely known for being phallic so why on earth go with that one? If they wanted yellow for the colour contrast then give her a yellow balloon or toy or something (although having a small child in front of a car is still a bizarre choice).

I don't think it matches with the other images on the campaign at all. In fact I think it's more jarring because it doesn't.

Iminaglasscaseofemotion

I’m 30 in less than 2 months I also have an almost 13 year old and I’m a school teacher so I am probably a bit more mature/boring than many women our age.

Do you mean ‘on here’ as in feminism chat or mumsnet

There will be people on here who believe that you should not breast feed in public or in front of men in case it ‘excites’ them

I don’t think ive ever seen this, not to say its never happened obviously

I’m another who didn’t see things others have but I understand where they are coming from and agree that once seen it can’t be unseen

Dh went straight to ‘female, leopard, car’ then when i said ‘is there anything else’ he said ‘banana’...could well be a generational thing, with him at least

I sometimes wonder whether there is a number of young women who are worried about being perceived as sexually prudish, and particularly to be seen as standing in the way of things that might serve to give men their sexual jollies.

I don’t think it is this but I do believe the world has changed and some views that believe things are sexual are very outdated like not allowing little girls to wear leopard print - most little girls wear leopard print and there is absolutely no sexual element to it at all!!

I have many friends who didn’t breast feed because they viewed it as being too sexual - I don’t think I’m being anti-prudish by not agreeing.

There will be people on here who believe that you should not breast feed in public or in front of men in case it ‘excites’ them - again I disagree and that is not me trying not to be prudish.

@ptumbi a teacher would be sacked for being that stupid. You've got to wonder if some people are trolls here or as others have put it, blindly ignoring stuff to make the world easier...

I wonder though if people can’t see the issues with this image and the tagline, are they the same people who miss other red flags? Are the same people wondering what is the issue with letting males use single sex spaces

This is why I’m so interested in this thread. I share the same opinions with many people whose job it is to spot red flags. There are big social media discussions around this and those that are experienced in this area seem to think it has less of a sexual connection to it that others who don’t have those expertise.
I thought it was a generation thing as some people have said that little girls shouldn’t wear leopard print which is a very outdated view but my colleagues and the wider forums I’m on has a missive age range. So why the difference in opinion especially from people who have children and have spent their lives spotting red flags?

I wonder though if people can’t see the issues with this image and the tagline, are they the same people who miss other red flags? Are the same people wondering what is the issue with letting males use single sex spaces?

Because obviously we are all focused on sex and to them there can be nothing sexual about it despite the overwhelming evidence that there have been issues in the past. But we are the shameful ones.

I sometimes wonder whether there is a number of young women who are worried about being perceived as sexually prudish, and particularly to be seen as standing in the way of things that might serve to give men their sexual jollies.

That being seen as uncool, even in the face of dodgy-ness, needs to be avoided at all costs.

These advertising agencies are paid £100,000’s of pounds for this. This is no mistake it is intentional to divide us. Those that say it is a little girl eating a banana in front of a red car and those that say it is sexual. Divide us and we argue and their work is done. Free advertising whilst moving one step further to dampen down child protection.

The advert and its dodgy-ness leaps out at me. Similarly, the effort that's been put into this thread to suggest that my view is a strange over-reaction is a flashing red light to me.

This business of the slogan being something stupid that no one thought much about and the banana being a random prop that someone handed to the child for no reason.

It feels like an attempt at manipulation and it feels very off indeed.

As the parent of a small child I saw a small child about to eat a banana and assumed ‘heart beat faster’ to mean the parental dread that said banana was about to go all over the upholstery of a very nice sports car. But I accept I am in the minority (only 1?) here.

it is seriously worrying that people cannot see a sexualisation of a small girl, in plain sight.

Those who are refusing to see it, would you allow someone, anyone, t take a photo of your small daughter leaning against your car, any car, eating a banana/holding a banana near her mouth, in that pose, and post it on media? With the tagline 'that makes my heart beat faster'?

Even teachers? Those who are trained every term to spot signs of abuse and sexualisation of children in your care?

For the record I am a teacher and the people I asked were friends and colleagues all of which have children and/or work with children. We all take this issue very seriously

How can you take an issue seriously when apparently you and your friends who actually work with children cannot see the issue? I really hope wherever you teach has a safeguarding lead that can see the issues we have with this advert. In fact why dont you ask them for us and tell us the answer they give.

You tell me you cannot have a relationship with a man because reasons, so you must know that plenty of men like sex with children, enough to make you change your life, yet you insist you dont see the issues in this advert. You keep deconstructing it to tell us all the parts are innocent so the whole must be too. It doesn't work that way. Ad agencies know very well how to sell things, this performance car is not being plugged to parents with kids, in this image, its blatant. I dont care about the other images, what do you think insidious means exactly. When we talk about normalizing
Pedophilia we mean and say in an insidious manner. If every image was so blatant the company making the ad would lose all custom forever. And Audi wouldn't come out well either.

I don’t understand this though.
Surely an advert showing a baby eating porridge or a young child playing football could be seen as ‘attractive’ by a peado.
So should we just not have children on tv?

Sunrise234, with every post you make yourself sound more niave. You say you are 30, or just coming 30? I'm 30 and I completely disagree with everything you have said.

Without the heart beating faster tagline? yes! But that’s not what’s in the advert so I don’t see your point.

But the tag line was put on afterwards not by Audi.
I don’t have a point to make. I am genuinely interested as I don’t see the issue so I’m wondering what the line is where it is appropriate/inappropriate.

Also I can't imagine how any agency in the land would think that would sell a car.

Did you see the picture of them all in the boot? Or flying a kite near the car? I don’t think this advert is sexual but how they thought any of them would sell cars is beyond me!

Of course not Datun. My point is that it wouldn’t have the sexual suggestiveness included like the one that was released.

Little kids strapped in the back showing the actual experience of parents, yes. On a bonnet or standing in front of the grille eating fruit, not so much.

Someone was happy to allow an advert that, certainly to many, sexualises children.

It's insidious. When you have teen vogue promoting anal sex to 13-year-olds, dolls that gasp if you touch their genitals, and little girls holding bananas to sell cars, it makes you realise that this sort of normalisation of the sexualisation of children is everywhere.

“So would the same girl wearing trousers, sitting on the bonnet, eating an apple be ok?“
Without the heart beating faster tagline? yes! But that’s not what’s in the advert so I don’t see your point.