Soca Warriors Online Discussion Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Queen Macoomeh on November 28, 2012, 02:30:15 PM
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Please sign the petition against this ad by Angostura Limited:
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/angostura-limited-trinidad-tobago-remove-offensive-ad
I would also appreciate it if you copied and pasted this to your friends.
thank you,
QM
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me eh see nothing wrong with the ad.
i find de fella look like a bulla.
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Help me out, what wrong with the ad?
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I really don't see anything wrong with the ad either... to say that he is 'menacing' is subject to debate, and I can't see what he's doing in the lower image to say that he's "pulling" on her arm, or certainly doing so in a manner that is suggestive of date rape.
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Queen... You need to post the proper picture of the ad..
The title of the ad reads - "Avoid the Friend zone.. Buy her a real drink"
Better it had read, "Angostura Single Barrel... The Rapist's blend"
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Even if that is the caption of the ad, nothing in that is suggestive of date rape... all it's saying is "don't buy her a drink that might communicate to her that yuh's ah sorf man". It says nothing about the potential effect of the drink on her or it's usefulness in overcoming her will.
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I need to see the full ad...
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Angostura contacted me directly this evening and also put a note on their facebook page.
They are pulling the ad.
Thank you for your time on this!
https://www.facebook.com/AngosturaLimited
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Dahis quick work ... the apparent problem here (especially now that my curiosity has been stimulated) is that reproducing the thing thought to be offensive would defeat QM's purpose of shutting down the ad.
I guess folks keep on moving ... nothing to see here?!
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what just happen here?
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what just happened here?
ent.
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Dahis quick work ... the apparent problem here (especially now that my curiosity has been stimulated) is that reproducing the thing thought to be offensive would defeat QM's purpose of shutting down the ad.
I guess folks keep on moving ... nothing to see here?!
Perhaps, but part of the calculation is that folks need to be aware of what they signing up in support of. In principle I'm supportive of any efforts to reduce the incident of date/rape and to spread awareness of the issue... just didn't have enough in this instance to say.
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Yeah, agreed.
So, QM how did you pull it off for the ones that didn't see it?
Word has it that that Robert Wong fella is a decent bloke ... so I doubt it took much hand-wrangling at Angostura.
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Good morning gentlemen,
Briefly: Yesterday, someone on my facebook newsfeed, posted an image of a newspaper ad promoting one of Angostura's new products.
I had no previous truck with Angostura. I have been merry a time or two with their offerings. Not being in T&T, I seldom see their ads so I do not know what went before.
This ad however, sent my mother/wife/woman hackles up but I cannot take credit for their decision. Others have written to/in the T&T newspapers and on blogs. I also think they too got some sense of the lack of judgment their ad revealed.
The ad implied that if "she" puts you in the "friend zone", offer her this single barrel drink and you can avoid the "friend zone" altogether. The verbiage was wrong, the image/posture of the young man was wrong.
I wrote to Mr. Wong and the Angostura Limited senior executive and I started a petition. The signatures were adding up but before we even hit 50, I got an email from a Ricardo Bideshi, saying that given the response to this particular ad, they have decided to remove it.
That remains to be seen.
I agree with Bakes that you should never sign or join anything without first knowing the whys and whos and whats. Your actions must be predicated on your beliefs and purposes. In the petition, I provided the image and an explanation and asked for a weigh in - or not.
Not everyone agrees of course. I can't argue with them.
Perspectives and belly buttons...
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what just happened here?
ah tink I jus learn if macomeh jump on she horse and come ridin fuh yuh, is bess yuh jus lie dong and hog tie yuhself
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what just happened here?
ah tink I jus learn if macomeh jump on she horse and come ridin fuh yuh, is bess yuh jus lie dong and hog tie yuhself
And put up a sign saying "Look me here" :rotfl:
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(http://redforgender.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/rumnrape.jpg)
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lard!!!!....if it was a shot of couple on the billboard only,,, the whole ad would be different
whoever approve the ominous giant rapist tusty-man glare, go lorse dey wukk.
moreover, the male model go get pong from he pardners for life
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Angostura contacted me directly this evening and also put a note on their facebook page.
They are pulling the ad.
Thank you for your time on this!
https://www.facebook.com/AngosturaLimited
You see what happens when you reach celebrity status. Power to the Queenie!!!!! ;D ;D
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what just happened here?
ah tink I jus learn if macomeh jump on she horse and come ridin fuh yuh, is bess yuh jus lie dong and hog tie yuhself
And put up a sign saying "Look me here" :rotfl:
:rotfl:
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Guess next time, let her buy her own drink.
I feel this ad would have been better if the caption read:
"Avoid the Friend Zone,
Offer him a real drink"
because in the small bottom picture, he's looking giddy and she's the one in control.
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I at a loss... me eh see him pulling she, both ah dem holding de glass, she caressing de back ah he head ??? Woman does put man in friend zone when they doh see them as romance material... the ad kinda saying to me "this is a macho drink, offer she ah macho drink and avoid the friend zone". Others apparently seeing "ply she wid liquor and yuh could score".
Ah well, what's done is done... lesson learned fuh Angostura hopefully. Agree that the larger image seems superfluous at best. Not sure what it really adds to the message.
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Its a shitty ad but I don't think it encourages rape.
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I agree.
Just goes to show Perception is Reality
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Well when yuh in Angostura position that certainly is true and sometimes yuh have to err on the side of caution.
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Well when yuh in Angostura position that certainly is true and sometimes yuh have to err on the side of caution.
When it comes down to the bottom line I can agree with you that Angostura needs to protect their interests. Just as observer though I could see that the Angostura marketing people have some problems. What's their communication strategy ,what was creative brief for this ,which brand values informed it and what message did they want to send ? The fact that all it took for them to pull the ad was an online petition means that they're jumpy and don't even have confidence in their message and how their target market perceives it.
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Yeah I was surprised by how quickly they acquiesced. Seems to me most have issue with the "menacing" look on the fella face... I can only imagine how much issues of race and class informing that discussion, maybe even on a subconscious level. The photographic effects in that larger image don't help either, the way it darkens his face. But still, that aside.. looking at the interaction between the two (and I can't see it quite too clearly) he's smiling, she's smiling back receptively... hand each on the glass, his other hand around her waist(?) I just don't see the coercive or even subversive aspect that others are seeing.
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I asked my daughter to comment on the ad.
Some background: this daughter traveled to rural India when she was 18 and spent a 10 months there. Two of those months were spent traveling through all of India (bus, train, jeep and camel - well for two hours anyway on the camel). She saw first hand the plight of the less fortunate, especially women in the lower castes. That changed her world view dramatically. When she returned to Canada, she changed her area of study from Music to Equity and Gender Studies. So she is now immersed in what many consider a left wing ideology at the University of Toronto. You can imagine the discussions we have when we get together. Nevertheless, she had caused me to reflect on my values, beliefs and she has challenged my traditional views on male/female relationships. And for that, I thank her. While we may disagree on many things, I value her perspective on issues such as the reasons that prompted Queen to start a petition.
Here are her thoughts that she dispatched in an e-mail to me. Based on the grammar and sentence structure, I think she wrote this rapidly off the top of her head. Some sentences do not flow or make complete sense. But overall, I think you can get the gist of her argument.
This is a problematic ad I think. It's doing a number of things
1. It's basically suggesting that if you buy her a drink and get her drunk she won't be able to say "no", thus making a sexual encounter that may not have 100% consent for the female party - which is date rape. Many people believe that it's only non consensual when someone says "No" and even then, people still believe that "no" means "yes". I came across a rapist confidential once and a lot of these people didn't even know they were raping at the time.
2. Then there's the use of "friendzone", a term that perpetuates sexism. The use of it in the ad makes it so that the "Nice Guy who always finishes last" and always finds himself in the friendzone has an excuse to have potentially non consensual sex. Like, since it's him, the "Nice Guy" getting her drunk so she can't really give honest consent it can't be rape. Because - a Nice Guy would never rape someone. That's just impossible. So the ad perpetuates that "nice guys don't rape", and I assure you, they can.
3. Plus, any time the "friendzone" is uttered, it's perpetuating the idea that females should feel obligated to have sex with a male who is nice to her. Plus, devalues any sort of male-female platonic relationship.
Not a good ad, but most alcohol ads are almost the worst to perpetuate extremely harmful sexism.
whether you agree or disagree with her perspective, I thinks she attempts to explain a situation that many of us (men and women) do not see as harmful or demeaning to women. Without being overly politically correct, perhaps we should be doing some navel gazing when it comes to gender studies.
I think Angostura recognized this and acted appropriately by pulling the ad.
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Yeah I was surprised by how quickly they acquiesced. Seems to me most have issue with the "menacing" look on the fella face... I can only imagine how much issues of race and class informing that discussion, maybe even on a subconscious level. The photographic effects in that larger image don't help either, the way it darkens his face. But still, that aside.. looking at the interaction between the two (and I can't see it quite too clearly) he's smiling, she's smiling back receptively... hand each on the glass, his other hand around her waist(?) I just don't see the coercive or even subversive aspect that others are seeing.
Yes that background picture is awful for all the reasons you mentioned.
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The online petition was not the reason why they pulled the ad... That was just one response, in general the ad was plastered all over my Facebook feed with people commenting, criticising, ketching kicks and expressing opinions about that poorly construed ad...
No need to split hairs or go into a setta detailed analysis... If at first glance the ad gives the impression of some kinda raper-man vibes to the casual viewer then the ad is a complete failure. That is marketing 101, unless the latent intention was to drive awareness by stoking controversy.
They do good to nip it in the bud.
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Pecan... I am not a woman, I never traveled to rural India and all ah dat. I wouldn't pretend to be able to see things from a woman's perspective, but with all due respect this isn't a 'woman's perspective' issue... at least not exclusively so. I could offer any number of reasons why I feel I can empathize with "the woman's perspective" but in the end it's immaterial. This is an issue about communication, and the ad targets men, so as a man, I can speak to what the ad is telling me. I'll let the other men viewing the ad and subsequent discussion speak for themselves.
Suffice to say I disagree completely with your daughter's perspective, but I won't say anymore on that, other than to address a couple points she makes.
1. It's basically suggesting that if you buy her a drink and get her drunk she won't be able to say "no", thus making a sexual encounter that may not have 100% consent for the female party - which is date rape. Many people believe that it's only non consensual when someone says "No" and even then, people still believe that "no" means "yes". I came across a rapist confidential once and a lot of these people didn't even know they were raping at the time.
Your daughter seems to be equating not being in the "friendzone" and sex to be one in the same, I offer that it is not. Sure, long-term if you're not in the friendzone then you are in a romantic relationship and there likely will be some sex involved. However, 'avoiding the friendzone' is not the same as having sex then and there, that same night. In other words, the opposite of the friendzone is not the coital bed, so I'm not sure where sex, or "date rape" enters the discussion.
2. Then there's the use of "friendzone", a term that perpetuates sexism. The use of it in the ad makes it so that the "Nice Guy who always finishes last" and always finds himself in the friendzone has an excuse to have potentially non consensual sex. Like, since it's him, the "Nice Guy" getting her drunk so she can't really give honest consent it can't be rape. Because - a Nice Guy would never rape someone. That's just impossible. So the ad perpetuates that "nice guys don't rape", and I assure you, they can.
This is just a bizarre comment. I don't understand how the term "perpetuates sexism" for one. This is real, whether it's been a part of your daughter's experience or not. Women make these decisions, and often very early in the relationship. Of course this wouldn't apply to ALL women, but I can tell you from personal experience that there were more than a couple women to whom I was attracted in college but I never acted on it because I thought we were "just friends" and didn't want to mess anything up. Years later I had a good chuckle with some of the same women who were waiting for me to make a move, lol. They were like "you were just like a good friend, I thought that's all you wanted since you never..." In short my ass got stuck in the "friendzone"... and I actually lived to tell about it LOL
Now I can tell you that having learned from that I learned to be clear about my intentions to women to whom I was attracted (and the opposite is also true, the ones I wasn't interested in "like that" I let them know early). Did that result in immediate sex, or any sex at all? Of course not. The opposite of being in the friendzone is just that yuh hopes of being seen as a potential mate stays alive. What this ad does in a very clumsy way, is to equate machismo with consumption, not just of any liquor, but consumption of this particular alcoholic drink. It doesn't say "get her to drink this and take advantage of her" it says "buy her this drink,whether she drinks it or not, your CHOICE of drink tells her you are a man's man"... sorta like the Dos Equis commercial with "The Most Interesting Man in the World"... a man's man.
3. Plus, any time the "friendzone" is uttered, it's perpetuating the idea that females should feel obligated to have sex with a male who is nice to her. Plus, devalues any sort of male-female platonic relationship.
Not a good ad, but most alcohol ads are almost the worst to perpetuate extremely harmful sexism.
Yeah, again... this kind of an odd interpretation. I don't get the dichotomy that she keeps setting up between "friendzone" and "sex"... in my mind it should properly be "friendzone" vs. any non-platonic relationship, be it romance, "friends with benefits", any number of relationships along the gradient, before getting at a purely sexual relationship.
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Incidentally, I just took on the appeal of a young Lucian fella who was just court martialed and given a dishonorable discharge (along with 3 1/2 years in the brig) over this very issue. My past experience includes prosecution of the same... so my approach on this is on more than just a purely academic basis.
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The online petition was not the reason why they pulled the ad... That was just one response, in general the ad was plastered all over my Facebook feed with people commenting, criticising, ketching kicks and expressing opinions about that poorly construed ad...
No need to split hairs or go into a setta detailed analysis... If at first glance the ad gives the impression of some kinda raper-man vibes to the casual viewer then the ad is a complete failure. That is marketing 101, unless the latent intention was to drive awareness by stoking controversy.
They do good to nip it in the bud.
If they paid attention those details like what's the concept of the ad and how you're going to present it they would have avoided that 'raper-man' finish. Why is that dude taking up so much real estate in the ad in first. Who want to see he ?
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Bakes,
your responses are similar to the ones that I have with her. We debate these things frequently. Many women would disagree with her as well.
In past times, what I saw as normal or even expected behaviour in the mating ritual is being challenged by her. She is asking me to revisit and rethink those 'norms'.
She is challenging an Ad that targets men with what she see as perpetuating certain behavours. The fact that many on the Board don't see a problem with the ad actually argues in her favour with respect to prevailing attitudes.
To be fair, her email to me was a rapid response to my question "what do you think". I spend a lot of time with her discussing these and related topics so I can appreciate her opinion. A few lines of an email does not do her justice. Do I fully agree with her? No, but I think there is merit to some of her more in depth arguments.
EDIT: she clarified her opinion a bit more to me a short while ago. She said the ad was not the worst she has seen and it was not strong enough to compel her to sign a petition to pull it.