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16 Things Super Bowl Ads Would Like You to Know About Women in 2012

Alyssa Rosenberg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:52:03 +0000

What would I do without Super Bowl ads to explain my own gender to me? Truly, I would be lost. Super Bowl 2012 actually seemed less egregiously sexist than previous years, even given the inevitable GoDaddy ad, so predictably gross that I don’t even include it here. But taken together, the ads form a pretty striking portrait of how American industry views American ladies. Let’s take a look, shall we?

1. Women don’t invent things (people of color don’t either), but they will sell you electronics:

2. When we’re superheroes, we get the cute little guns that can fit in a purse:

3. Seriously. Combat never stops us from looking hot:

4. That said, go up against a dude, and we’re super-defenseless:

5. You can make everything better by turning it into an unclothed woman who acts, quite literally, as an object for your use:

6. We live to seduce you so you will purchase motor vehicles:

7. Buy us flowers, and we will give you unreciprocated oral:

8. Because really, we’re more into yogurt than having sex:

9. Although we do dream of being rescued:

10. Which is maybe something we should work on, since it looks like none of us will survive the apocalypse:

11. Old ladies, though? Totally badass.

12. Even though they need insurance companies to help them make decisions:

13. Also, ladies are good at selling real estate:

14. And not acting like morons at parties:

15. Props to Budweiser for recognizing that ladies a) drink beer, b) like sports just as much as men:

16. Especially since the NFL seems to think we don’t play fantasy football:

The Ad Team Behind That Chrysler Clint Eastwood Super Bowl Ad

Alyssa Rosenberg — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:52:54 +0000

For two Super Bowls in a row, Chrysler’s been the company to watch, first dropping gorgeous art-deco spot about the revitalization of Detroit starring Eminem and a gospel choir, and this year, rolling out Clint Eastwood for an ad that sounded as much like an Obama campaign message as a pitch for cars:

The team behind both ads is Wieden + Kennedy, based out of Portland, Oregon. And they have a strong track record of creating inspiring advertising with communal messaging that even if it’s not specifically progressive, feels resonant with progressive values. They’re the team behind the Go Forth campaign for Levi’s that used Walt Whitman’s poem to argue “we must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger”:

And they did Coca-Cola’s “Hard Times” commercial, a recession-friendly spot that first stripped C. Montgomery Burns of his fortune and then brought him back into the Springfield community as a productive citizen who shared the rest of the town’s values (they also did this year’s Coke Polar Bear spots where fans of rival teams bond over Coke products):

Even their Velveeta ads employ a call to a return to traditional family values, leavening the stretch with a liberal dose of humor:

In other words, Wieden + Kennedy have a strong track record developing exactly the kind of messaging that the Obama administration will be looking for this fall. Even if the Eastwood spot wasn’t designed to give the incumbent a boost, the Obama re-elect campaign might consider looking West for ad help this fall.