How are women represented in perfume advertising campaigns?

[cloehallx]

How do you feel women are portrayed in perfume advertising campaigns and what are your opinions? sexually objectified, equal/dominant/submissive to men? do they set unrealistic expectations, stereotypes?

what are YOUR opinions? discuss

clearly not, if you're trolling over mumsnet.

Are you so unaware/unconscious about how your post has been seen by the regulars in this forum, that you are incapable of seeing the complete irony of your statement? And btw it is not about being a regular, it is about your post looking like that of an MRA.

we shouldn't be ashamed of anything, but again the media make you feel as though you NEED that deodorant or you will be considered weird, or dirty. this is my point, in my opinion, the media do objectify women in perfume ads, nearly always naked, a woman who 'needs' a man, draping over him. why cant we be independent women, and take a stand.

Ooh look they even sell whitening deodorant to Indian women! I bet that really helps Indian women feel more comfortable in their own skin.

I hope you don't work for Dove because if this is some half assed research project you've made a wrong turn.

www.dove.in/en/Products/Deodorant/default.aspx

"simple blind anger at a phrase I have used?"

Blind anger? Hardly. Mild irritation offset by amusement.

BTW chloe - I don't disagree with you.

Why are you jumping to conclusions that i work for dove, if i worked for dove i would have much better things to be doing, i used dove as an example, what about emma watson heforshe campaign?

I don't disagree with you OP. Apart from Dove's campaign, which is a pile of pretendy marketing bullshit.

btw why would indian women want to spray themselves with whitening deodrant all over their skin, again this has developed from the media, like advertising campaigns who only show white beautiful women, women of other culture are obviously trying to live up to this, when was the last time you saw a perfume ad with an Asian women

no one here will disagree with you on your broader point

but you must see how objectionable your order to DISCUSS comes across? if not, then perhaps take that on board for future engagements?

You don't see how a discussion works op.

Person a. "I think the media uses the onbjectifcation of women to their detriment , I've noticed it is especially bad in perfume ads"

Person b "oh yeah, perfume ads are fucking horrible, and they don't even make sense. Like living in Baz Luhrmann head"

Person c "ditto"

Person a "glad you all see my point"

_

Or You can order people to discuss and then return all annoyed 2 days later that instead of discussing we mocked you. And Dove.

OP if you are sincere (and I don't think you are) name change.

Go take a name change. Pop back to the pub have a chat about annoyed you are about the media. No one will disagree with you. Do not pose questions for people to discuss in you 2 day absence. This will go down badly.

i didnt order you what to do, i asked your opinions. if you dont have a opinion on a serious matter, dont answer it.

everyone here thinks this is a serious matter and worthy of discussion

but

what are YOUR opinions? discuss

this comes across as ordering people to give up their time and energy to responding to your questions, without offering any opinion or context of your own

i would suggest you take this on board for future discussions, especially when it comes to feminist issues. women are frequently being ordered around by others, and it doesn't go down well here

OK I'll bite.

why cant we be independent women, and take a stand.

you tell me what you mean by this? How do you think we should take a stand? What do you mean by "be independent women"?

Oh ffs women were lightening their skin in Elizabethan times with arsenic. Can't blame everything on modern culture or the perfume ads you're researching for.

Why so aggressive OP? Chill.

women were lightening their skin in Elizabethan times with arsenic.

There is an important difference though: You're talking about white women. And racism isn't ok just because it's an old thing.

We're not angry, we're suspicious, cynical and contrary. And this forum regularly gets trolled by men's rights activists, bored schoolboys and general shit-stirrers. So we don't really do peremptory "Controversial topic: discuss!" commands from posters we don't know who then bugger off for a couple of days.

As I said before, "you're going to get further on here if you post sharing why a particular issue has you thinking about it right now and what your own initial thoughts are (even if still nebulous)."

You can probably take it as a given in the FWR topic that posters (except any passing trolls/schoolboys/shit-stirrers) are generally fairly anti-sexualisation of the beauty industry. But then you'd know that if you'd taken time to get involved in existing discussions.

And "how I feel about the Dove campaign" is that it's a cynical piece of marketing twaddle. It's primarily driven by Dove's poor market positioning in the late 1990s/early 2000s and their resultant need to reposition their brand image and market at a bigger audience. Their campaigns continue to position beauty as the yardstick by which women should measure themselves -- and whatever they say, by "beauty" they mean "younger and thinner". If they were actually "trying to make a difference for women to feel comfortable in their own skin rather than feel like they need to change" they wouldn't be selling "anti-aging" products. They wouldn't be selling "whitening" deodorant (marketed in the UK as "True Tone" rather than "whitening", I notice) and fake tan. Also Dove is owned by Unilever who are bastions of sexist advertising (see, e.g., the Lynx campaigns) and produce the Fair & Lovely brand.

Dove must be getting really desperate. There's decent companies you can go to for professional market research.

Between MRA's, companies doing research, GCSE students expecting us to write their essays for them, and all round trolling goady fuckers, we have a certain radar when it comes to the wording of threads, specially in this section but all over MN too.

Can you not see the difference between the wording your original post and the way you are now actually posting in a way which shows some engagement with us as actual people?

Our refusal to enage with what looks like a troll does not mean we don't care about the issue. It means we care too much to jump to attention when commanded to do so...

DOVE true beauty.

Anyway, you've obviously already decided how we ought to feel about it, so do you really want our opinions?

What are you planning to do with them?

Are you going to carefully reconsider your own beliefs?

Re-educate us about ours?

Quote us in a research document?

Or just keep telling us that we obviously don't care as much about this issue as you do?

"i used dove as an example, what about emma watson heforshe campaign?"

There are already several other threads discussing that in greater or lesser depth. There's a big one here, for example. Another here. Another here. And a rather mansplaining one here (I doubt James would agree with you about advertising campaigns).

So... have you actually looked at this forum before parachuting in, telling us in peremptory terms to discuss an issue of your choosing, and then explaining that the fact that we didn't immediately do as you said shows that we don't care as much as you do?