Voices: Will the Super Bowl fix its sexist commercials this year?
When the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles take the field for Super Bowl LVII this Sunday, approximately 46 million women are expected to tune in. That’s 46 percent of the estimated adult Super Bowl viewers. I’ll be watching, and like many, I’m almost as interested in the commercials as the game. Who could forget the Snickers ad featuring Betty White, the e-Trade baby, and of course Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial that introduced the Macintosh computer?
But it seems that for every clever, thought-provoking segment, or just plain fun 60-second spot, there’s a sexist ad waiting. Like Victoria’s Secret’s “Let the Real Games Begin” commercial, which imagines women waiting patiently in their lingerie for their own chance at a half-time show. Or Dorito’s “Double-D,” a heavy-handed and sexist ad that could not be more obvious were it aimed at teenage boys.
This is the 57th Super Bowl, and if precedent is anything to go by, the majority of ads are still produced by and for men. Will they finally get it right this year?
While researching for my novel, I conducted my own focus group of girls around the same age as my protagonist, a young teen who stands up against a harmful cigarette ad campaign and those behind it.
“Eww.”
“Cringe.”
That’s what the girls said when I showed them the vintage advertisements of the 1940s that were extremely derogatory to women. One of the girls went further. “Let me guess. Those were made by men,” she said with an eyeroll. I hadn’t even shown her the Super Bowl commercials, such as Miller Lite’s “Catfight” and Carl Junior’s … well, Carl Junior’s everything.
Seems the girls and I all went on the same emotional roller coaster as we examined how women have been portrayed across the years. Can domestic abuse sell coffee? Sure! Chase and Sanborn showed how it was perfectly acceptable for a husband to give his wife a spanking if she wasn’t ‘store-testing’ for fresher coffee. A Schlitz ad presented a husband consoling his wife with the tagline, “Don’t worry, you didn’t burn the beer.” Then there was Peloton’s recent Christmas commercial titled The Gift that Gives Back, in which a husband gives his wife a gift of a $2,245 exercise bike. That tone-deaf and sexist ad inspired numerous parodies, not to mention comparisons to the dystopian TV show Black Mirror.
Why is it so hard to get this right?
Since its inception, advertising has been rooted in aspiration, the notion that we can be better than we are. Advertising to women seems to go a step further, and a step too far. Buy this product or service and you’ll be a better wife and mother. You’ll be thinner and more desirable and look younger.
Men still dominate the advertising industry. Just ten years ago, women accounted for only three percent of all US Creative Directors. The disparity motivated Kat Gordon, an advertising executive, to create the 3% Movement, a group whose mission is to help female creatives get a leg up in a male-led industry.
“The more women make advertising, the more advertising makes of women,” Gordon says. “Through a mix of content, community and professional development, we’ve helped raise the number of female Creative Directors to 29 percent while giving agencies a clear road map of ways to champion female creative talent and leadership.”
Gordon notes that female representation at the creative drawing board makes good business sense. “We’re changing the ratio because the more varied the people who come up with ideas, the better the ideas will be. And in a world where women influence upwards of 80% of consumer spending and 60% of social media sharing, it’s business malpractice not to have them driving creative thinking.”
So, will the Super Bowl fix its sexist advertising?
The agencies may be trying, but some of their efforts miss the mark entirely. Consider the 2017 Super Bowl commercial that tried to make Mr. Clean into a sex symbol. “You gotta love a man who cleans,” ran the tagline. No doubt Proctor & Gamble figured they were turning sexism on its head by making the male the objectified figure. But of course this only served to reinforce the long-standing stereotype that men don’t clean, that it’s still a women’s job. The concept may have amused some viewers, but ultimately it didn’t deliver.
A look at some of the ads released ahead of Sunday’s game is promising. Bryan Cranston stars in a Breaking Bad-style ad for Pop Chips. Serena Williams and Brian Cox team up for a Caddy Shack-inspired spot, while Maya Rudolph takes over for the M&M spokescandies. The most risqué commercial I’ve seen so far is for Mexican Avocados, set in the Garden of Eden, with Anna Farris playing the biblical woman. Anna is, indeed, “naked,” but so is everyone in this fun commercial. "I love it that Avocado from Mexico wanted to hire a 46-year-old Eve," Anna Farris said; I do too.
“The Super Bowl ads are really a reflection of what’s going on in society,” says Steve Merino, Chief Creative Officer of Aloysius Butler & Clark. Maybe, but with $7 million just for the media buy for a 60-second spot, isn’t it time that advertising realized what was always going on? That women drive the majority of consumer spending through a combination of buying power and influence. Brands would be wise to appeal to this powerful, growing demographic.
Will they get it right this year?
Adele Myers has worked in advertising for more than 20 years and The Tobacco Wives is her first novel.
