The Reebok EasyTone fitness shoe came out with a series of advertisements geared toward... Well- I am still trying to figure that one out.
The ads feature women's body parts, never focusing on the actual woman wearing the shoes. The single commercial that features a woman talking about the specified shoe does little better to remedy this, and in fact the commercial's vantage point is from the camera"man" and "he" doesn't seem to be able to focus on what the woman is saying. The camera ends up on the woman's backside more than a few times during the commercial.
Online women's blogs have taken the story and, no pun intended, ran with it. Our Bodies, Our Blog wrote a piece about the EasyTone shoe, and were not in favor of the marketing. Women's blog Jezebel also condemns Reebok's commercials. The Jezebel link above gives a much better description of how women felt about the commercials than I can.
New Balance took a slightly different approach to targeting women for women's shoes. The truebalance collection commercial features a woman jogging through a park when she meets a man. The man is so distracted by her "fitness" shoes that he can't look up at her face. The next jogger, sporting New Balance's truebalance shoe, catches the man's attention, and he fully "checks her out." Women are still being objectified, but in a way that would make us actually go out and buy the shoe.
Advertising has taken a new level when it comes to women objectification. I am very interested to see the results from Reebok's EasyTone advertising venture.
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6 comments:
I like the topic of this blog because I know exactly what commercial this blog post is referring to. I actually like the commercial, though. I think Reebok presents a fresh, spunky, and fun strategy by using an "upbeat" way to advertise their new athletic shoe. It may be subjective in nature, but obviously the advertisement has worked because you remember the ad, even if you do view the ad in a negative way. Some women may not appreciate the ad for whatever the reason(s); However, some women may be inspired to purchase the shoes to look like the women being presented in these ads. After all, the shoe does claim to help tone women's bodies.
Some advertisements are pushing towards more of the "average" looking type of woman (no plastic surgery, not orange and little to no make up) to reach out to the general masses but this takes it to a new level by taking out the faces and focusing on what the shoe will "fix." I guess it's good in that it gets right to the point of what the buyer wants to achieve; they want the butts and the legs of the dancing women in the ad. Though it's odd to me to not have women in the add I think it's efficient in getting its message across.
I was not offended by this ad at all. I didn't think it was intended to be degrading in any way. I actually wanted to buy the shoes after veiwing the ad. It motivated me to have a butt like the women in the ad.The women in the ad were dancing and it made working out look fun and enjoyable. Honestly, I think the ad was pretty effective.
All the craze of the fitness shoes is driving me nuts!
The message is effective, but to what avail. I don't want to look good for men, I want to look good for myself. The ads, in my opinion, focus too much on the petty side of women like jealousy and having to appeal to men with sex. That's my point. The message, again, is effective, but not in a positive way for women.
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