advertising

This is why solar panel company Sunrun’s new ad campaign feels like a breath of fresh, sun-warmed air. It makes fun of solar energy’s leftist hippie stigma in a way that's funny and relatable for, say, my dad. Or whoever else! These ads avoid the exhausting political rhetoric and instead treat renewable energy like any other old industry, which can have nothing but positive effects at this point. Turning green energy into a political debate fuzzes the big picture; environmental issues like this one deserve an apolitical, agenda-free discussion. People don’t need to wear hemp and attend drum circles to be part of a movement that secures the future of clean air, clean water, and healthy land. We can all be different and still work together.

Recently, some friends and I saw the film Art & Copy, a documentary about the creative minds that make up the best of the advertising business. Now, there is a lot to be said about the problems inherent in advertising, but even the most skeptical viewer in our group (me), had to admit that she was impressed by the poise, tenacity, and apparent coolness of some of the film's subjects, especially Mary Wells.

Oh Ashton Kutcher. If it's not one douche-y thing with that guy, it's another. The Two and a Half Men star (I was going to make a douchebag joke there but "Two and a Half Men star" is a pretty good zinger on its own) is back in the news for all the wrong reasons again this week, this time for doing brownface in a Popchips ad.


UGH.

Nearly a decade after the "metrosexual" invaded the mainstream, men are taking grooming to the land down under.

While men give he-waxing glowing reviews, Cosmopolitan writers say they're "not so sure" about men "having zero hair where there should be at least a little." After all, body hair is (or was) considered manly. Some women worry that the "boyzilian wax" means that men are becoming, well, more like women.

Here's your weekly does of bad-vertising: Libra, a company who markets feminine hygiene products in Australia and New Zealand, recently released an ad that trades in transphobia and sexism:

H&M is taking fashion douchebaggery to the next level this week by using computer-generated models in its holiday lingerie campaign. As if the photo shopping, airbrushing, pushing up, and sucking in that goes on in a typical yuletide bra commercial wasn't enough to make the average shopper want to throw on a snuggie and call it a day, now the models selling us our delicates are actually virtual.


Ahahaha! We're just hanging out, having the exact same body! What, you don't look like this?

Not only does the ad offensively use women's bodies to sell a product it, also needlessly sexualizes a non-sexual product. It's ChapStick for god's sake! And now I have to think of this lady's ass every time I rub it on my lips? What? I didn't want that!

Earlier this year, personal care product brand Nivea pulled a men’s skincare ad and issued a public apology for its blatantly racist undertones. As reported on over at GOOD magazine, the ad in question "features a preppy, groomed black man holding the head of his former self, who's sporting a beard, an afro, and a pissed-off expression." The tag line? "Re-civilize yourself." As in, "Hey, black men, get with white mainstream culture and get rid of that 'uncivilized' African hair!"

Advertising is as much a part of pop culture as deliberately created works of art. Here in the United States, one of the most lasting contributions to perceptions of mental illness in society has come courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry, which spends an estimated $2.5 billion annually on reaching the public through advertising. Most people who have televisions or magazine subscriptions in the US have encountered pharmaceutical advertising, sometimes for products so vaguely described and marketed that viewers aren't actually sure what they are for.

If we already know advertisements are digitally altered, why do we have to get rid of them? Simple answer: Because humans are beautiful and it's time they know so.