Why the Target “snow angel” ad matters: Bringing the discussion back to parenting and corporate responsibility
Target’s ”snow angel” billboard is still the focus of frenzied energy in the blogosphere: Is the ad really offensive? And/or, Why won’t Target engage bloggers? (Update: New York Times article causing even more frenzy.)
The overwhelming sentiment in the responses that I received from my posts, from the WCCO-TV story, and in many of the discussions I’ve read elsewhere, can be summed up by this comment I received from Jennifer:
This is absolutely ridiculous. The woman is in full winter gear making snow angels, how can you find anything sexual in that? Anybody who looks at that add and sees something inappropriate already had their mind in the gutter. I would think someone that is a member of Parents for Ethical Marketing would have something better to complain about then a woman making snow angels. Get a grip!
Photo courtesy szlea.
Jennifer, this is why it is important to “complain:”
Objectifying women to sell product is nothing new; in fact, it has been almost thirty years since Jean Kilbourne’s video Killing Us Softly pioneered the study of gender in advertising.
Dr. Scott A. Lukas at Lake Tahoe Community College has created the Gender Ads Project. There, he describes several methods to “read” advertisements, including Katharine Frith’s Levels of Analysis (from Undressing the Ad: Reading Culture in Advertising). Frith describes three levels, or layers, in an advertisement:
1. The Surface Meaning . . . consists of the overall impression that a reader might get from quickly studying the advertisement . . . you can describe this surface level of meaning by simply listing all the objects and people in the ad.
2. The Advertiser’s Intended Meaning . . . is the sales message that the advertiser is trying to get across . . . the ‘preferred’ or expected meaning that a reader might get from the ad . . . the meaning that the advertiser intends for the reader to take with them.
3. The Cultural or Ideological Meaning . . . relies on the cultural knowledge and background of the reader. We all ‘make sense’ of ads by relating them to our culture and to the shared belief systems . . . .
I think the blogosphere’s discussions have centered around (1) and (2) but not so much (3). In our culture, women are objectified in advertisements. And targets are for shooting. Ideally, one shoots to hit the bullseye. The model’s legs are spread, her arms are outstretched, and she is on her back — she is powerless.
I know from the generous comments and emails I received, plus reading other blogs and message boards, that the image of the “crotch in the bullseye” was not lost on everyone. (Even though my “mind [was] in the gutter,” plenty of people commented about “hitting the bullseye.” Good one, guys.)
Even those who work in the advertising industry agreed that something is wrong here. From my inbox:
Snow angel, sure, but as an advertising professional, I can promise you that in concept meetings to develop that ad there was detailed discussion about how to the place the model’s body. That’s how advertising works.
No, this is not the most objectifying, the most sexual, the most demeaning, nor the most violent ad out there.
Usually I avoid those by not buying women’s magazines, staying out of malls, and not watching television.
And, it’s why this one stood out to me. Target? Why would a family-friendly, community-centered corporation approve an ad image that someone must have pointed out, hey, this is going to look bad?
Or, maybe no one did. That’s even sadder.
Here’s the deal: it’s time to stop. More corporations are telling young girls, through their advertising, how they should look, act, eat, and feel. And more young girls are affected by depression, eating disorders, and self-esteem problems than ever before.
Is this caused by a single Target ad? Of course not.
It’s our culture. Our culture that allows this objectification to continue without question.
As long as you are unable to decode the significance of ordinary things, and as long as you take the signs of your culture at face value, you will continue to be mastered by them. But once you see behind the surface of a sign into its hidden cultural significance, you can free yourself from that sign and perhaps find a new way of looking at the world. You will control the signs of your culture rather than having them control you. – Jack Solomon
Still reading? Then you may care enough to read Amy Jussel’s most recent attempt at reframing this issue (below the fold).
And a nice series of shots of the billboard being taken down in Times Square.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I have to say that I think you have gone a little overboard here. People see what they want to see. I showed the picture around work, on my blog and to my friends, and nobody - not one single person - thought that the ad was in any way sexual, demeaning to women or objectifying women. Yet, for some reason you see it. Is it that you are just too overzealous to find things wrong where women are concerned? Would the ad have elicited such a harsh and critical response from you if the ad would have featured a man in the same position? If not, why? Is it simply the assumption that anything that features a woman in a “perceived” compromising position, it is assumed that the woman is being sexually objectified?
I have no reason to accuse you of having your mind in the gutter, but I will say that I find it curious that you choose to see things that simply aren’t there. Yes, there are many advertising schemes that are very graphically sexual in their depiction of woman (and men), but to apply that same mentality to this Target ad is asinine at best. I mean, you are really making this into something that isn’t there, and it is of NO surprise whatsoever that nobody at Target pointed out “hey, this is going to look bad” because it ISN’T bad!
To wage this sort of campaign against Target over this ad does nothing to help your cause, because most people look at you and your cause as being overzealous, hypersensitive and excessively prudish - which translates into them not taking you in the least bit serious. If you want to be taken serious by the mainstream population, you need to pick your battles a little bit more wisely. But that is just my advice as part of the “mainstream population” out here.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Ryan, thanks for writing.
I’m not surprised that you cannot find one person who thinks the ad is a little odd — from what I’ve read in the online discussions it looks like a 50/50 split. So, some see it, some don’t. However, it’s not like I am the only person who is troubled by this ad — as I said, I’ve heard from men, women, and people in advertising who have all agreed with me. In fact, the reason I wrote about it in the first place was because I saw it on an advertising industry blog, where they were questioning it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “overboard.” All I have done is written a few blog posts and stopped shopping at Target. Is that what you consider “waging a campaign?” (If you are referring to the WCCO interview, they contacted me. I suppose I could have said no, but it all happened pretty fast, and I thought I was doing the right thing.)
Why is this topic so bothersome to those who think the ad is fine? Why do you think I’m getting such strong reactions?
Your advice is good, and believe me, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. But I also know that there really can’t be total agreement on any issue, and I can’t please all the people. I also wish that one of the other issues I write about had caught the attention of the mainstream media — but they weren’t. This one was.
I appreciate your feedback. If you are interested in issues around marketing to kids, you should join PEM to get our newsletter. Perhaps you can help keep me in touch with the mainstream population.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Hi Lisa, thanks for listening.
Let me put things another way, and I am only speaking from my own experience here as an activist in other areas…
You can’t bark up every tree. Success in attracting support for a cause is a matter of picking your battles wisely and letting less blatant issues go. I know it sounds contrary to what you would want to do, but trust me, if you pursue issues that don’t have a lot of support from “common” or “mainstream” people, you risk losing them and being stuck with just the zealots - and you don’t want that going against you if you want to be taken seriously.
While I understand that you (and some others) may find something wrong with the Target ad, the fact of the matter is that there are lots of people out there who are more likely to laugh at you for being over the top, prudish or any other number of things that would detract from the overall message of your cause. That, Lisa, is what I mean by “going overboard.” Pursuing an ad like the D&G ad you have above makes more sense and is much more likely to win you support from the masses because most people would question the content and rationale for that sort of advertising.
I’m not saying that you are at all wrong in what you did, but I would just caution you - based on the reactions I got when I brought this topic up - that people who are less sensitive to these sorts of things dismiss your protests as a joke or as senseless ranting of somebody who’s hypersensitive to female issues.
If you want to talk more about this sort of stuff, please don’t hesitate to email me, or we can just continue posting here if you’d like.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Lisa,
After being enrolled in a marketing class recently I can see your point about how some of the things that marketing companies do to market to children is hard to stomach. Are marketing agencies right in doing this? No, I agree with you it’s not right. Some of the things I have read in doing my research for class projects makes me wonder how any moral person could possibly want to be a marketing professional.
On the other hand, I learned through a nasty divorce that you cannot make people be who you want them to be. With as much as it would ease some of the burden of parenting to not have to protect your children from some of these marketing tactics, someone somewhere is always going to be putting something out there that you or someone else is going to find objectionable.
My biggest issue with organizations like yours that are going after these companies is that because you find it offensive and demand something be done such as removal of the ad, you are taking away others right to choose what to view and not to view. Its not particularly this Target ad I am defending, I don’t shop at Target often and if I had not seen this in the news I probably would never has seen the ad to start with, its more the whole “we think its wrong and need to protect the world from it” attitude. I can understand you wanting to protect YOUR children from unsuitable material at a young age, but some of us take offense to you telling us what OUR kids can see or can’t see.
I applaud you for trying to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, I just don’t agree with how you are trying to do it. I obviously have a much different parenting approach then you do. I see things like offensive ads as a teaching tool. I don’t believe in sheltering my children from the big bad world because one day they will need to live in it and be able to cope with it. I showed the Target ad to both of my girls, ages 10 and 15. My 15 year old looked at me like I was retarded for showing her a Target ad and said “Yeah, so what?” and my 10 year old immediately saw the snow angel. Kids see what you teach them to see. And as they get older and start learning other ways of looking at things I would much rather expend my energies teaching my kids that they don’t need to look like those super skinny models in the ads and how to look beyond the fun packaging of a product and read the fine print. How to do the research and see beyond what the marketing company wants them to see. To be who they want to be regardless of what a marketing company wants them to be.
Since the first blog about this Target ad I have been following your website. I was disturbed when I saw the quote from Cheryl Lanza that said “It is distressing that the industry response to parental concerns about media content is almost always to place the full burden on parents.” Full burden of raising a child SHOULD be on the parents. If you don’t want the full burden then you should not be a parent. I don’t expect anyone to make my job as a mother easier, its comments like hers that really state where the problem is in today’s society. Lazy parenting and I do not mean to label you as one. It is a parent’s job to control what a child has in their room. I read in an article for my marketing class that one Christmas FAO Schwartz marketed a lingerie Barbie. Absolutely disgusting! But who is worse, the marketing agency that came up with it and marketed it to children or the mother that actually went out and BOUGHT it?
You cannot control the public at large. Nor can you control big corporations and what they put on their shelves or in their ads. What you can control is your own home, what your kids think, how they see the world and how to deal with situations that they have little or no control over. I believe that a mothers time is better spent directing their energy into teaching children. While I am not always happy with what I see advertised to my child, I would much rather they see it while I am around to use it as a teaching experience, help them understand it and what to do in the future when they come across something similar, because I am sure they will. By not sheltering them and teaching them as issues like this come along they will be better equipped as adults. The thought of sending my girls off to college is a scary one but I feel better knowing they have a good base of knowledge and common sense under them to deal with life’s ups and downs.
I feel if I were to go after someone else, such as corporations, when my children question something that is not right, such as unsuitable ads, it is only teaching them that their happiness and well being is someone else’s responsibility. It’s not, its mine and it is theirs. Mine because it’s my JOB as a mother to raise a happy well adjusted child and theirs because how they deal with unpleasant situations will affect their lives. Life is what YOU make it, not what a corporation makes it.
I know you are thinking if corporations didn’t have these horrible ads we wouldn’t have to be worried about our kids needing to know how to deal with them. Well, that’s a nice thought but I never see that happening. People have been dreaming of a Utopia since the beginning of time, and yet again, nice thought but it’s not going to happen. I would rather spend my time on my children’s view of the world, something I can have an effect on.
So now that I have rambled on forever, why are you getting such a strong reaction? For me, it’s because you are infringing on my parenting style. As a very young mother I always had someone forcing their parenting views on me, creating kind of a hot button for me. You are taking away my right to decide what is right or wrong for me and my children. You are allowing some parents to lay the blame of their poor parenting on a corporation’s shoulders.
No matter how well intended, not everyone feels the world needs to be protected by you or organizations such as yours.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Ryan, thanks for clarifying, and I understand exactly what you are saying. Advice taken.
Jennifer, thank you for taking the time to elaborate and explain something I just did not understand. You are not the first person to bring this argument to my attention. I see now that it is something I will have to mull over and try to figure out. For now, let me try this:
I think that you and I are probably very much alike in our parenting styles. I constantly use offensive ads — any ads, actually — as a teaching tool. I don’t shelter my girls from advertising (you can’t). I am trying to do exactly what you are doing — teaching them to look beyond “the fine print” and to be themselves, not what corps tell them to be.
I also agree that ultimately, the responsibility lies on the parent — that statement is on my home page.
I don’t think think that holding a corporation responsible, however, is granting anyone permission to shrug off their parenting duties. In fact, I think that working to change what I see as unjust IS part of my parenting. Corporations make a lot of money and receive a lot of tax breaks. I don’t think they can be allowed to do whatever they want. There are consumer protection laws against false advertsing. There are laws that prohibit certain advertising (cigarettes, liquor) to minors. When corporations continue to promote things that are found to be harmful to kids, I think they need to be called on it.
The fact that you see this organization as one who is infringing on your parenting style is troublesome and an indication that I’m doing something wrong. As you know, PEM is very young, less than six months old, and we are working to find our voice. If you agree with at least some things we’re about, I urge you to join the mailing list and help steer our course.
I also understand that people do disagree on “what’s right.” (I think the smoking ban here in Minneapolis is ridiculous, and nothing would change my mind about that.) Maybe that’s how you’re feeling.
Thanks for reading, and stating your argument so well, instead of just calling me names! It was refreshing.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
All: Thank you for an interesting exchange. Lisa, don’t be too hard on yourself about the organization “infringing on parenting style.” PEM is supporting parents in their difficult challenge to battle the extremely sophisticated and ubiquitous self-serving messages from corporations to buy products and attitudes.
Jennifer (and Ryan), Lisa offered a couple of examples of consumer protection laws. One thing that’s troubling to hear, too often, is that “there are too many regulations.” It becomes, forgive me, a conservative mantra. And sure, there are goofy laws about this, that, and the other. But when you start looking at specifics, I just don’t think there’s that much to complain about. Would you rather the FDA not regulate the toothpaste your kids use? Would you rather the EPA not regulate water contaminants and air particulates? Someone not regulate the lead in toys, the ingredients in cough medicine, the quality of the tires you drive on with your children in their unregulated carseats?
You sound like a terrific mother. But be careful what you wish for. The next time you drive your kids across a bridge over the Mississippi River, be glad some bureaucrat somewhere figured out safety standards and that some State Bureau of Silly Regulations enforced by them.
No amount of good parenting by mothers and fathers who believe “their happiness and well being is not someone else’s responsibility” can help kids on an unregulated school bus with an unregulated driver–and the same can be said for the messages and greed of corporations you would so quickly deregulate or expect your kids could ignore.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Jeff. I will concede that there is most certainly a place for government regulation and protection; but at what point do you draw the line? Obviously helping to ensure the general safety and well-being of the public is a function of government, but where does that protection end?
I am all for advocacy, and I would like to believe that the free market works better without excessive regulation. In the case of advertising, I think that what Lisa and PEM is doing should be sufficient because it creates a dialog between consumers and corporations and if the corporations stray too far, the consumer is the one who straightens them out whether through advocacy action or attacking them economically (i.e. boycotting). If the corporation chooses to ignore the consumers, they will suffer and either be forced to change their ways or risk being run out of business.
As I have said before though, you need to be careful as to what battles you pursue, because if you take action against everything that COULD be considered offensive (vice things that would be considered “universally” offensive), you risk alienating the yourself from the majority of the population who would prefer a more moderate approach to things.
I will say that Jennifer hits on something, and that is the role that parents play in all of this. I have been all over the world, and I have seen all sorts of advertising - much of which was over the top risqué, and often times featured nudity and scenes that aren’t even allowed on cable television here in the states… Yet, in those countries there isn’t as big an issue when it comes to sex and objectification. Why? The people I had an opportunity to talk to over there generally explained to me that we’re a bunch of prudes who aren’t taught to respect the body and sex and are instead taught that sex and nudity is “bad” or “wrong.”
An interesting thought. Should parents be putting effort into taking the negative stigma out of sex? I don’t have an answer to that.
And Lisa, I’m with you on the smoking ban thing. I fought the MN ban and I am currently heavily involved in fighting against a Wisconsin smoking ban.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Lisa, did you see this? Target’s response to the issue is making news in the communications world.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Juliet, no, I hadn’t seen that one yet. Thanks!
February 1st, 2008 at 8:36 am
I completely disagree with the view that the problems of innappropriate marketing to and the corporate sexualisation of children is entirely a parent’s responsibility.
1. This view relies upon a very privelleged definition of home, not all children have fortified home-lives monitored and controlled by their ever-knowing and ever-present parents. Do we not feel any concern for the children who don’t happen to live in families with parents alert to the dangers of innappropriate advertising and with the capacity to control that influence on their children’s lives? And how exactly do you stop this marketing from entering your children’s lives, there is no buy-out option - it is everywhere, it is in public spaces, and it finds ways of entering private spaces?
2. We live in a society, children are not consumer goods to be paid for by parents as part of a user-pays transaction. In this society we are all benefitting from things we don’t directly pay for and we all impose costs that we aren’t directly compensating for either. And I hate to take this line because it is so dreadfully rationalist but we all benefit (financially even) from happy healthy children in our society, apart from anything they are more productive later as workers.
3. A call for limits on marketing methods is NOT a call for oppressive censorship and prudery and any claim to the contrary is in itself oppressively stifling.
4. We’re not talking about the entire world becoming a children’s playground, let there be sex, but lets make it a choice for people whether they want to access this very limited view of sexuality (with a dreadfully narrow range of looks and roles for men and women) which is sold by commercial enterprise, not have it in billboards and children’s t-shirts and play dolls.
5. It is not fair to reduce all accountability to finger-pointing and saying what kind of parent buys these lingerie barbies - the parents who have been immersed in advertising that sexualises everything until they believe that sexiness is the only version of power, of beauty, of fun, of playfulness, of humour, of everything… that kind of parent. And ok, parents are the primary agents responsible for their children, but we all share responsibility with them because we share an ability to influence that child and we also share a common interest with these parents in the outcomes for that child, in knowing that children are safe and ok.
6. Finally, on a personal level, I have no problem with my child seeing a nude body - I have a problem with the fact that she will only ever see nude bodies which have been photoshopped to perfection and that she will see women’s nude bodies constantly reduced to things and not people.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
Ryan, you sound as though you’re a thoughtful person, “an activist” as you say, as well as a member of the mainstream. If so, you’re perfectly representative of why criticism of this ad is not “overzealous.” I agree: activists must pick their battles. If they choose the wrong thing, they risk alienating the mainstream. But isn’t this the very reason that advocacy of so called unpopular issues is necessary, to educate? At one time segregation was so mainstream, it was codified by law. That didn’t mean MLK shouldn’t have advocated for desegregation. It meant changing peoples’ minds.
You say that the Target battle is too small; choose an ad like the D & G ad, but again, it is precisely that the Target ad is mainstream that it is relevant. Ads like the D & G ad have far less exposure. The mainstream, as you say, can express its distaste by simply not buying the magazine, etc. But the Target ad was displayed 20’ X 20’ in Times Square and more insidiously in the Sunday circulars that pervade nearly every household in the country. Its ubiquity made it the battleground.
This ad didn’t elicit a reaction from your peers probably because they’re—your peers. Most of my peers think like me too, so everyone I showed the ad to saw offense. This, however, didn’t prove its offensiveness any more than your experiment proved its innocuousness. To understand the offense, whether you see it immediately or not, admittedly takes a little effort, and PEM has provided some wonderful links above that describe the process of deconstructing an ad. Are social critics like Kilbourne, Lukas, and Frith going “overboard”? Are their minds in the gutter? My only suggestion is, before you make this judgment, you should take a look at these critics as well as at the entire canon of media analysis out there. Then perhaps when you show ads like this one to your friends, you can exercise your penchant for activism and change someone’s mind.
As for taking the negative stigma out of sex, this is exactly what criticizing this ad is all about. Take a look at your dictionary. Despite the retailer’s attempt to co-opt the definition, mine has nothing to say about a corporate logo. It merely defines a Target as “an object marked with concentric circles, to be aimed at in shooting practice.” If placing a woman’s crotch, clothed or otherwise, in the bulls eye doesn’t create a negative stigma, what does? It’s not about nudity at all. Splash all the nude women and men around you want, as long as they’re not representing body images that have nothing to do with reality nor are the objects of violence.
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[…] bullseye. I’m just sayin’. And so are some other people (see a random selection here, here, here, and here in the New York Times). Well, Target took at least one of the images down. […]