This advertisement from BSN seems to have stirred quite the rally. The most popular comment comes from a website called About-Face putting it 8th in their gallery of top offenders. The argument is pretty obvious, using a female like this in an advertisement can cause some people to rant. However BSN are professionals, nothing in this poster was put there without careful consideration. Promotion is about selling the product, knowing the market and using every tactic possible to get someone to buy what you are selling. About Face touch on some ‘serious’ subjects but to be honest, she did put herself in the photograph did she not? Click the title and feel free to comment and have your say.
“Body-building supplement Syntha-6 would like consumers to take notice. Their tagline reads: “SHAKE WELL and enjoy”. We here at About-Face find a few reasons to be alarmed. Taking a quick glance at this ad, the eye is drawn to the red drink bottle and bikini bottom worn by an all-too-familiar dismembered female model. The woman in this ad is not espousing the benefits of this protein concoction. Her incomplete body is a sign; this product is marketed toward men. Her truncated figure is posed with an extremely arched back, giving her the look of unrealistic proportions. Everything in this ad: the fake skyline and white sand beach, the poorly Photoshopped drink container (and the hand around it), and the woman delineated down to key eye-catching elements, are merely props meant to fulfill a heterosexual male fantasy. With this advertisement, Sythna-6 delivers a low blow to both men and women by making assumptions about male sexuality and marginalizing women in order to sell an ambiguous sports beverage. According to their calculations, it is a man’s world, and a woman’s worth is based on how well they accessorize it.”
