WE Network--WTF?
This morning, on my way to the office, I was greeted with a giant outdoor board featuring the above visual and headline. How, I ask you, HOW is this pro-woman? What the fuck is the WE network thinking? I've sat idly by while the teaser ads for this show have grown more and more tasteless, but this latest one is too much. I had to say something. Just how does WE think that perpetuating negative stereotypes of women is "Empowering Women" as a tagline for another of their promotions claims?
I mean, just look at the images of women they're posting on their website. They held this contest in the middle of Times Square for a bunch of brides in wedding dresses to dig for cash inside a giant wedding cake.
Is this really the best female oriented content they could come up with? Women, desperate to get married, working against each other, GOLD DIGGING, with their out-of-control emotions leading the way? Sure those kinds of women exist in the world. There are a lot of Black guys in jail, too, but I think we reached our quota on those kinds of movie roles a long time ago, don't you? There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy, WE. And people who work in the media are very responsible for changing the image of the disenfranchised and underserved. I include myself in the responsible party because I'm not just a pissed off woman, I'm also a pissed off advertising copywriter.
So to that end, let me give you some of my creativity free of charge. Here's a contest idea: Get a bunch of single women to compete to win $50,000 so they can take a 2-year sabbatical from their careers to backpack around the world. The winner has a camera follow them around while they enlighten themselves on worldviews. You can get REI to sponsor it. You can change some people's lives. Think about it.
And another thing, being that I am an advertising creative I can tell you that not only are those ads sexist, they suck. Creatively speaking, they center on a tired, expected joke that insults your target audience. But, so does all your other content, so why should I be surprised?
I can't wait till this crap becomes the first advertising for a women's network to win the AWNY Grand Ugly Award . Hilarious.
Oh, and if you're comforting yourself with the thought that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and you're thinking this blog posting is the kind of advertising that money can't buy, you're right. But remember all the women who died trying to win the right for us to have a voice in this world. And then consider whether Bridezillas is the kind of message they were hoping we'd spread.
