100% sexist

16th September 2009

posted in Body Snarking, Fat Bias, Feminist Topics |

It seems that Coopers Premium Light beer is in competition with Bacardi to see which company can produce the most offensive ads to women. An all-male creative team (naturally) at a Singapore ad agency created these three images for the Australian-based brewery. The message is that, because the beer is only 2.9 percent alcohol, men will have less of a “beer goggles” problem and won’t hook up with ugly women.

Cooper beer goggles

According to copyranter, these ads won a bronze medal in the Press category at the Cannes advertising festival. Copyranter also notes that:

…you’ll notice that that blond has an engagement ring on her left hand. Also you’ll notice that the freckled-girl is very young. So, I think that my pretty/fatty, chesty/ugly interpretation is not what the agency/advertiser is trying to communicate. They’re trying to say ‘drinking Coopers keeps you from hitting on engaged women or underage girls.’

It’s nice of copyranter to give Coopers the benefit of the doubt, but I think the intended idea behind these ads isn’t so altruistic. So many people complained about the Bacardi ads that the company promptly responded — albeit with a pathetic and dubious attempt to shift the blame — but the ads were retracted. Let Coopers know just how you feel about their misogynistic advertising attempts by email at customerservice@coopers.com.au or contact the marketing department at their website.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under Body Snarking, Fat Bias, Feminist Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On September 16th, 2009, copyranter said:

Just to clarify, these ads are form last year, and won an award at the 2008 Cannes festival. But, yes, they’re awful ads, on many levels.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am

2 On September 16th, 2009, Karen said:

I’ve emailed them expressing my disgust, for what it’s worth (which I’m hoping will be a lot.)

I also spotted an astute and I think correction observation here: http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/09/14/coopers-premium-light-beer-less-beer-goggle-danger/ – that small areas of each woman appear to have been edited to appear sufficiently beautiful, the idea being that only 2.9% of a woman will have the beer-goggles effect. Notice her head in the first photo, chest in the second, and calf in the third.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

3 On September 16th, 2009, Shiyiya said:

The middle girl looks pretty enough to me…. What’s supposed to be the matter with her, glasses? Her smile’s a little awkward but that’s all I can see.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

4 On September 16th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Karen: Yeah, I noticed that. I supposed that was to represent the beer goggles vision.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

5 On September 16th, 2009, Anna said:

Wow. I am super angry.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

6 On September 16th, 2009, Frank Akers said:

Coopers Brewery advises that the Premium Light advertisements appearing on this website were never commissioned by Coopers. Rest assured Coopers does not promote or condone disrespect for women under any circumstances. We are very disappointed that our product and company image would be portrayed in such a disrespectful manner.

Alcohol advertising has strict guidelines that ensure we do not fall into disrepute by vilifying any sector of the community. We are committed to adhering to these guidelines and our own company values of respect and responsibility. We at Coopers take pride in these values, and what is depicted in these Premium Light advertisements certainly does not show respect for women or responsible behaviour.

The images used have been obviously doctored, and if you look closely you can see the bottle image has simply been downloaded from the Coopers website. Our standard font style for wording is missing along with our advertising tagline of ‘Hand-made by the Cooper family’. It’s a point to note that all of our Coopers advertisements receive approval from the Australian Advertising Standards board prior to execution.

Coopers Brewery respectfully asks that these Premium Light advertisements be removed from the website, as they are misleading to the general public who view them. Coopers have also not given permission for the copyright of our product image to be used in this manner.

Kind regards,

Frank Akers
Customer Service
Coopers Brewery
http://www.coopers.com.au

customerservice@coopers.com.au

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

7 On September 16th, 2009, Karen said:

I got the same message in reply via email from Frank Akers. I’m extremely relieved that it’s not their company’s message, American beer commercials making that all too believable (I’m looking at you, Coors.) I really hope they have a way to go after the culprits then, as this is doing a lot of damage to their reputation.

posted on September 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

8 On September 17th, 2009, Seegz said:

Teetotaler.

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 3:18 am

9 On September 17th, 2009, arowan said:

This is actually a similar deal as to the Bacardi ads, in that those responsible for commisioning the ads were distributors of the product in a country where they (apparently) don’t have a corporate presence themselves – in this case, IBrew: http://www.ibrew.com.sg/, – Coopers did not commission these ads, but that’s no reason not to forward complaints to them, especially since they don’t seem to be directing anyone (myself included) as to who to send correspondence to and have not responded to me when I asked to know if they were taking any action against these ads or the people responsible, other than asking blogs to take the pictures down when someone sends a complaint their way.

Here are the (extremely hard to dig up) contact details of those directly responsible for the images themselves, the J. Walter Thompson Singapore branch:

Michael Maedel, CEO: michael.maedel@jwt.com

Trish Dickson, who may or may not still be Marketing Director: trish.dickson@jwt.com

Managing Director for Singapore, Angus Fraser: angus.fraser@jwt.com

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 8:17 am

10 On September 17th, 2009, Rachel said:

Oh, these poor alcohol companies. Unscrupulous advertisers just keep creating offensive imagery centered around their products that just so happen to win awards an accolades. Does anyone else find the repetition suspicious?

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 9:01 am

11 On September 17th, 2009, Reclame sexiste | Hazmedia said:

[...] sursa (No Ratings Yet) Loading … [...]

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 1:13 pm

12 On September 17th, 2009, Seegz said:

To clarify, I meant that I am a teetotaler, not calling you a teetotaler.

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 6:23 pm

13 On September 17th, 2009, Rachel said:

That’s okay, Seegz. I’m a teetotaler, too.

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 9:38 pm

14 On September 17th, 2009, Shiyiya said:

Me three! Now I feel less weird again, like I did when Penn Jillette said he’d never touched drugs or alcohol.

posted on September 17th, 2009 at 9:52 pm

15 On September 18th, 2009, EugenS said:

I’m actually finding them pretty good. Idea and so on. But then again, I don’t have a suit’s sensibility, so I won’t feel outraged by these ads. They deserve the Cannes they won.

posted on September 18th, 2009 at 7:11 am

16 On September 18th, 2009, Rachel said:

As a graphic designer, I agree that the ads are well done from a technical standpoint. But, assuming that Coopers is being honest here, I’m surprised that Cannes wouldn’t screen for potential illegal use of copyright. This isn’t a contest for amateurs, no? And there are cash prizes? Doesn’t profiting off the copyright of another constitute copyright infringement?

posted on September 18th, 2009 at 11:48 am

17 On September 25th, 2009, Jackie said: