You are welcome to look at the talkback but please consider that this article is over 6 years old before posting.
Forum - View topicINTEREST: Kirin Beverage in Hot Water Over Sexist Tea Girl Ads
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Coup d'État
 Posts: 179 |
|
|||||
|
Without going into what I think about those depictions, why did they think this was a great marketing idea? "Yeah, right, we will call our potential customers names, they'll love that." ... I mean?
They must have had some positive goal in mind while creating them, but what was that supposed to be? |
||||||
|
||||||
Beatdigga
 Posts: 4397 Location: New York |
|
|||||
|
I was kinda worried when I saw “sexist” because that could mean anything, but no, it’s the increasingly common trend of companies making fun of their customers. Why is everyone doing this now?
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
|
|||||
A well done joke can peek interest in buying a product, in this case the aim was off based on the response. |
||||||
|
||||||
chao8971
 Posts: 163 |
|
|||||
As someone who works in marketing this is a term called Troll Marketing. I personally hate this, but it seems to work for a few companies so they keep going at it. I feel like it kinda branched off of the brands on twitter getting followings and then just being rude. All we can do is hope for this craze to die, but I feel like its going to get way worse before it does. |
||||||
|
||||||
Draconix814
 Posts: 23 |
|
|||||
|
People sicken me... and it's more from the people backlashing than the company. It was just a harmless sketch, why does everyone have to be so triggered? I mean, I know why, but that doesn't make it any less illogical and in many cases rude.
Also, isn't the illustrator, Tsubo Yuri, female? I'm just scrolling down this person's twitter and crud and the person seems wholly dedicated to drawing women, and not the overly-sexualized kind (more like the opposite), this person even draws herself as an unattractive woman, which is not something guys tend to do. This is all just too hypocritical for me to take if this true, but even if the artist isn't female, it doesn't change the fact that these were harmless sketches. They may have been of stereotypical women, but stereotypes DO exist even if they don't represent the whole. |
||||||
|
||||||
whiskeyii
 Posts: 2249 |
|
|||||
I think you're maybe missing the forest for the trees here. This isn't about the sketches themselves, it's how they played into the tone of the marketing. It's like if a bubblegum company did an ad saying that they were perfect for blondes because blonde women are dumb or something. Blonde women already have plenty of 'blond joke' crap to deal with; a marketing team making their punchline basically, "Lol, this is perfect for you because you're so dumb!" isn't doing themselves any favors with that demographic. |
||||||
|
||||||
Tripple-A
 Posts: 383 Location: Hamburg, Germany |
|
|||||
|
Kirin Ichiban is a good beer (°3°)
|
||||||
|
||||||
Parse Error
 Posts: 592 |
|
|||||
Personally I do not see this as the same thing. Even if somebody hides it by dyeing their hair, "blonde" is still an identifying physical feature they were born with. This ad is poking fun at cliques which people choose whether or not to conform with, so it would be more like claiming Beavis & Butthead is bigoted for its portrayal of metalheads. That said, I do think I understand the basic concern here, which comes from fear that's it's dehumanizing to imply members of some group of people fit into such tidy and convenient little categories. However, there's not really a realistic way to entirely avoid this kind of thing except for not talking about people at all. Just try to spend a day or two talking about nonprotected classes without making any reference to categories or stereotypes within that group; it won't work out very well because it's a natural part of how the human brain makes sense of the world. We don't have enough space in our heads to imagine tens or hundreds of millions of individuals at once or enough knowledge and time to discuss each and every one by name, so instead we picture and talk about common types among the ones we've met. Obviously cases that encourage bigotry against anyone for what they were born as need to be dealt with, but it's probably not worth fretting over beyond that. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
whiskeyii
Posts: 2249 |
|
|||||
Boy, I wish I had made a point half as articulate as yours, but mainly I was just saying that it seems like the height of folly to insult the target demographic that you're, well, targeting. However, I'm starting to wonder if this kind of marketing isn't actually aimed at the people they claim to target; rather, it's aimed at the people around them, folks who agree with what they're saying--people who find this funny, or not offensive, or--shudder--perfectly on point. To borrow my earlier example, if I released a bubblegum ad painting trendy blondes as shallow and superficial and dumb, blondes might get pissed at me, but all the folks who go "Yeah, blondes are pretty dumb aren't' they?" would probably feel more predisposed to buy the bubblegum that quietly insinuates that it agrees with their worldview. Likewise, if this drink company's ad isn't so much a woefully misguided attempt to court other women into drinking their product as it is an attempt to court the people around those women, then yeah, I could see why "Lol, look at those try-hards/lolita weirdos/high-maintenance/socially awkward women, aren't they just the *worst*?  " is a less than female-friendly approach to marketing. :/ But hey, maybe I'm just overthinking this; I'd kind of like to think I am too. >.>
|
||||||
|
||||||
vanfanel
 Posts: 1245 |
|
|||||
|
One suggestion: let's get some scare quotes around the word "sexist" in the headline. Sexism is debatable here, and ANN is not the final arbiter of such things.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Parse Error
Posts: 592 |
|
|||||
If I'm actually making sense for a change then I must be way overdue for a drink!  I think there are instances like what you're describing, but with how this one seems to rely on self-identification, it makes me suspect they didn't expect people to take themselves quite so seriously. I haven't been paying enough attention to advertising to notice this trend, but if it's more of an internet advertising thing then perhaps people working in that field tend to have a more self-deprecating sense of humor which that type of marketing would appeal to, whereas it doesn't go over so well with the general population. Whatever the root cause may be, you're absolutely correct that it's not a very smart risk to take.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Kakorat859
Posts: 10 |
|
|||||
|
To quote a famous internet meme ”It’s just a game. Why you have to be mad?” I feel as though comedy flies over the heads of many peoples nowadays. I mean, if it’s just a joke whose whole purpose is to make fun of stereotypes, isn’t it kind of obvious that the people making it don’t believe the types they are mocking? In any case, there really shouldn’t be so much outrage over this, they are just employing a marketing strategy, no real harm is meant behind it. If you complain about this, you matter as well say that Wendys is harassing people on twitter.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Wtv
Posts: 157 |
|
|||||
This is no comedy. It's just being offensive. There's not play with expectations, there's no sense of absurd, there's not irony. There's nothing in this that could be seen as comedy in any definition. I guess some people find being offensive funny, but that's not what comedy is.
It's not obvious at all. People who make this kind of joke most of the time 100% believes what they're saying, even if there's some exception. Why should I conclude it's not the case here?
Because they're professional, they have a bigger responsibility for things like these. These people deal with a large public and are more influential than your everyday person. But better than that, they have studied, so they should know better. Also, no matter if people think "it's not big deal, I wouldn't care". Peoples have different sensibilities, and it's not out place to judge that. This is a company dealing with a public. A large group of that public isn't comfortable with this, and that's the fact. This is not one or two person, and this is Japan we're talking about, a place where people try to keep to them when something bothers them. So people clearly care, since they speak up, and I don't know why we should judge them when even the company accepted their errors. |
||||||
|
||||||
Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
|
|||||
|
I wouldn't mind dating a narcissistic loli like lady at least once, the others are annoying to miserable from my experience. I guess Japan has it's share of annoying harpies.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16939 |
|
|||||
|
Did some cleanup. Watch the trollish comments and keep it civil folks. Thank you.
|
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group