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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Sexist chocolate adverts - what the shagging hell is going on??

18:48 / 26.04.02

I know there was a thread a while back about adverts we hate, but I couldn't find it. However, I am so thoroughly pissed off with the state of UK chocolate advertising at the moment that I thought it deserved a thread all of its own.

Ok - first we have to oh-so-morally-upstanding Nestle, with their most recent Yorkie advert - Yorkie is now, apparently, not for girls. In this advert, a cunning salesperson rescues a Yorkie bar from the hands of a girl-in-a-beard by informing her that the wrapper brings out the colour of her eyes, thus tricking her into revealing her simpering feminine identity.

Then we have the Kinder Bueno. The Bueno bar asks this bloke in a shop to ravish it, then informs us, in a Marilyn Monroe-esque breathy squeak "I'll be whatever you want me to be".

And now, we have Echo - apparently, Echo's chocolatey-ness placates the female of the species and helps keep the world a sane place - i.e., stops women hitting their husbands with vacuum cleaners, and prevents widespread oestrogen-fuelled rioting. Cue beer-swigging gratefulness from males.

So - what the hell is going on here? Women are the traditional target audience for chocolate advertising, either directly or indirectly, or so I would have thought. So what do the chocolate companies think they have to gain by alienating the female consumer? And why three adverts all at the same time? And has anyone else noticed just how fucking annoying it all is?

19:05 / 26.04.02

The Yorkie one struck me as totally out of line. Rountree have in fact been done for sexism somewhere in the UK for giving out free Yorkies only to men, obviously not allowed. Rountree are sticking to the 'oh for heaven's sake it's irony' defense.

Kinder Bueno? Is that the "lick my ripples" one?! Watched this with a female friend and we found it at best annoying and at worst slightly frightening, though the fact we had taken notice and talked about it might be classed a success of sorts.

Haven't seen the other one yet, but it sounds decidedly iffy.

But, if it's any consolation, the recent Rolo advert featured a (white) woman kicking a (white) man in the balls for giving his last Rolo to another (black) woman instead of her. The political implications of which are interesting in a multiplicity of ways...

Sex sells, sex war sells...

20:50 / 26.04.02

err hello? Yorkie was a totally passe brand that few people outside of its regular consumers would have even recognised---- now it has managed to stir up some interest through blatently sexist advertising... and I see the ads have obviously worked since you guys are talking about it.

21:30 / 26.04.02

It's the Bueno advert that worries me most... it's a fucking kid's brand!!

I would also take this moment to point out Magic Stars are actually the most ecnompasing and tollerante of chocolates going. Anyone noticed how Twinkle Star (small baby girl, surely?), is acutally the same size as Super Star (big, butch hero man, surely)? SHe looks like SHe could eat Bright Star, for fucks sake! Clearly it is just a fat old man who likes to pretend he is a baby girl.

Now I think that's quite open-minded, don't you?

You going to lynch me for fucking yr thread up now, aren't you?

22:39 / 26.04.02

I love the new Yorkie adverts. I think they're wonderful. It's because they're so ridiculous that they're not offensive. And since of late a HUGE raft of advertising has been aimed at ridiculing how useless men are (much more than is strictly necessary in my opinion), I don't have a particular problem with this ad. Some of the others you mention worry me more...

01:01 / 27.04.02

exactly, yorkie ads= intentionally offensive. my mate says that in the
shop heworks in he's never seen girls buying yorkies.perhaps the whole reverse psychology angle will work judging by the indignant female responses.

12:04 / 27.04.02

I believe the original tagline for the Kinder Bueno ad was 'It's a chocolate whore!'

The Natural Way

13:21 / 27.04.02

It's the pepperami ads that I like. Same old story re the ravishing/eating thing, but, in this case, the tasty snack's gendered male. And it's aggressively demanding that it be eaten..... Upsets the gaze nicely.

13:52 / 27.04.02

I'm assuming Yorkie are targetting a female market with, as someone pointed out, a reverse psychology angle ("Fuck it, I will eat the damn thing!"). Personally, I used to enjoy the low-irony, high-camp 1980s version of Yorkie machismo: the hairy, moustachioed, check-shirted Man's Man of a trucker (that's 'trucker') with the Wide Load between his legs.

In my more innocent moments, I used to wonder whether he and the Flake Woman would ever get it together, go off and make little chocolatey babies...

17:39 / 27.04.02

Biz: I really don't know if you're joking or not... (wonder if they run a different ad post-9pm...

00:14 / 28.04.02

"reverse psychology" might be selling candy bars but its certainly not helping out with more receptive young viewers becoming sensitive adults….all the more reason to pull the plug on the idiot box.

like it or not, advertisers should be taking social responsibility, and I think its neither cute nor particularly conscientious to promote stereotypes for the sake of making money.

00:16 / 28.04.02

...Ive been particularly incensed by the recent JCPenny ads depicting dads as clueless buffoons who cant deal with mom being gone shopping for one day

07:12 / 28.04.02

advertisers should be taking social responsibility

Or perhaps parents should take responsibility for what their children watch on TV. Does anyone really expect the entire advertising industry to care about, much less agree upon, gender issues?

09:33 / 28.04.02

I too love the Yorkie advert. I hate the Bueno one, though, and am undecided about the Echo one.

I will someday post something interesting on this thread. Promise.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:41 / 28.04.02

The Yorkie one I have no problem with, as someone (I think Tom) said, it's positively mild compared with some of the male-bashing ads we've had in the last few years, going slightly OT I've more of a problem with the ad on the back of the latest Transmetropolitan issue for the new Gauntlet video game (do they not do new titles any more, just update old ones?) which as near as damnit is saying "You can play four characters at once but unfortunately one of you is going to have to be the girl! He he he!". But as only socially maladjusted men read comics that's perfectly alright.

The Kinder one, I saw that last night during the top ten thing on C4, that is intensely weird.

But it's the McDonalds ads which I feel to be the worst, especially after McLibel it was proven that their food wasn't a balanced diet, and now there's an ad where a kid (admittedly unknowingly) plays his parents off against each other to take him to McDonalds.

12:24 / 28.04.02

Yeah, having been in the ol' divorced parents scenario, I noticed that one too. Children *chuckle* say the most emotionally manipulative things!

yawn - thing's buddy

13:42 / 28.04.02

Yorkie ad is very funny.

Bueno kinder thing is fucked up.

In fact Kinder full stop is fucked up. Always weird adverts - ykonw, chocka tooby eggman an that, or how about mega-blonds going for a jog type ad, and the general sorta sick sexual paedo vibe hanging round this twisted orrible orrible euro brand.

kinder = wrong.

14:20 / 28.04.02

Or perhaps parents should take responsibility for what their children watch on TV. Does anyone really expect the entire advertising industry to care about, much less agree upon, gender issues?

honestly, I dont expect anyone to want to be responsible for anything they do, and nothing surprises me anymore.

and while, yes, parents should screen what their kids watch, you and I know its not being done. so is the media responsible for any of this? of course not. but those of us who give a shit need to step in somewhere and say that this is bullshit - Im not buying your products, and this is why.

I think its interesting that posturing women as intrinsically vain or men as innately clueless is considered to be amusing. would it still be so sweet if there were other, blatantly false and completely insulting stereotypes being portrayed? perpetuating stereotypes to sell your products, while possibly a financially sound method and certainly a legal one, is ethically very wrong

someone pointed out an internet hotlink ad that had 3 people posing as criminals, and all 3 of them were black men. is this amusing, too?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:32 / 28.04.02

And since of late a HUGE raft of advertising has been aimed at ridiculing how useless men are (much more than is strictly necessary in my opinion), I don't have a particular problem with this ad.

Well, ye-e-es, but...

1) Reinforcing the stereotypes around one gender tends to indirectly reinforce stereotypes around the opposite gender.

2) Adverts which try to get women "on their side" by taking the piss out of men are just fucking insulting to women's intelligence- especially since they're mostly written by men and paid for by companies run by men.

3) I don't see how ping-ponging humiliation back and forth between genders does anyone any good.

05:30 / 29.04.02

Or perhaps parents should take responsibility for what their children watch on TV.

Sorry, in terms of adverts how is this possible? Apart from having your hand on the remote control the whole time your child is watching the telly? How can you determine what advert a child sees? Or do you mean parents need to take more responsibility in contextualiseing the adverts? Which I would agree with.

07:21 / 29.04.02

Or perhaps parents should take responsibility for what their children watch on TV.

Sorry, in terms of adverts how is this possible? Apart from having your hand on the remote control the whole time your child is watching the telly? How can you determine what advert a child sees?

The first part is deciding what programs your child is allowed to watch. My daughter is still young and watches nothing but PBS so its easy for me because there aren't any commercials yet (except the sponsors logos at the end of the shows: Sears, Cheerios, and one of the oil companies- I have my own gripes about this but thats for another thread). I havent seen the commercials you're talking about but I'm curious; what shows were you watching when you saw them? It seems to me that most television shows are responsible for perpetuating the same kind of stereotypes these ads are being accused of, the difference is people want to watch the shows.

Or do you mean parents need to take more responsibility in contextualiseing the adverts? Which I would agree with

Not what I was on about origionally but I'd agree that parents need to help contextualise everything for their children.

08:59 / 29.04.02

I thought the Yorkie ad might have been a sly response to the news back in March that Mars bars were to be marketed differently and made smaller in order to "make them more appealing to women." Story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1878000/1878064.stm

As to the ad itself, I'd have said that it stereotypes men more than women but manages to do it without making men look like the halfwitted chumps that Tom refered to. I'd be interested to know if anyone has taken it to be aggressive.

The Echo advert looks to me to be aimed directly at women; it refers to the jokey "women don't just love chocolate, they need it" meme which, in my experience, is spread almost entirely by women themselves, especially in offices. It's usually part of the "ooh, someone's brought in cakes, oh I really shouldn't" conversation that pops up at least once a day. This is not to say that it's a good thing that the ad exists, just that I don't think it is intended to alienate women, as Cholister suggests it is.

11:57 / 29.04.02

bio k9 - Ive been appalled at some of the things Ive caught on nickelodeon. my daughter is in no way sheltered - I try to catch and openly confront issues as they come - but there are some things that Im annoyed are scheduled with certain programs.

I dont care much for television to begin with - the only reason I own one (well, two!) is because they were given to me as gifts. I had no intention of ever purchasing one, and I always feel stupid and slothlike for sitting and watching it for anything other than the morning news (although Im quite addicted to forensic shows and malcolm in the middle)