LATIN AMERICA:
Ad Agencies Slowly Turning Away from Sexist Commercials

Marcela Valente


BUENOS AIRES, (IPS) - Ordinary women and men who do not fit the stereotype of the beautiful thin, young, blond model are slowly making it into ads in Latin America.

But activists say there is still a long way to go to overcome resistance to change in the creative departments of advertising agencies and among clients who insist on images that associate their products with happy families that stick to traditional gender roles.

Today in Latin America ''there are much fewer openly sexist ads than five years ago,'' said Gloria Bonder, the head of the Programme for Strengthening Non-Sexist Publicity, which since 1998 awards print and TV ads that promote gender equality.

However, Bonder said in an interview with IPS that there is still much work to be done with today's young creative workers, who tend to resort to stereotypes with the aim of achieving the greatest possible impact.

She also said efforts must be made to analyse why there are so few women in the creative departments of ad agencies.

In their defence, creative professionals and professors in advertising and public relations say society and ad agency clients demand the link between products and beautiful models. But the strong impact of many of the ads that use ordinary people who are easier for the public to identify with is bringing about a change of mind among some creatives.

The Prize for Non-Sexist Advertising, which has the support of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), is awarded during the Ibero-American Publicity Festival hosted by Buenos Aires every year in April, in which more than 20 countries participate with a wide range of creative products.

The aim of the award is to promote ads that respect the dignity and rights of men and women and show them in a broad range of roles, while representing diversity in terms of physical appearance, age and ethnic and socio-economic background, and contributing to the construction of a more equal society.

Since its creation, the prize has helped generate debate in the region on sexism in advertising, which has led to an increasingly noticeable reduction in sexist ads. Although women still appear in shiny kitchens happily extolling the virtues of cleaning products, now ''they are modern, they work, and they need to save time,'' said Bonder.

But while many more ads are neutral, the total number of commercials that are explicitly non-sexist has remained unchanged, said the activist. In that category, prizes were granted this year to companies from Chile, Argentina and Spain for TV commercials, and to firms from Brazil, Costa Rica and Chile for print ads.

The prize for the best non-sexist TV ad went to a Chilean agency that showed ''chubby ordinary men and women in affectionate or romantic situations,'' said Bonder. ''I can't change your diet, but I can improve it,'' is the food product commercial's message.

The prize-winning Argentine commercial shows a group of former classmates who meet up again years later and embrace, recognising each other despite the immense physical changes they have undergone. The skinny boy is now heavy, while another is a transvestite.

The commercial ''shows great acceptance of differences in the world of men,'' said Bonder.

Another prize-winner this year was an ad produced for Spain's Labour Ministry, which calls for equal wages for men and women. It shows the prices of different services that are used by men and women alike, such as public telephones and parking meters, and asks ''why do we pay the same and earn differently?''

Bonder said that despite the fact that many creative workers are young and live in a society that is more flexible with regards to traditional gender roles, ''stereotypes continue to be reproduced'' in ads.

Images of svelte blonde women are still used to sell cars; pretty, sweet homemakers whose sole concerns are their homes and their children continue to rejoice over the latest cleaning product; and handsome strapping men smilingly accept their role as breadwinner and as the holder of medical and life insurance.

But there are also more and more commercials that incorporate ordinary people rather than picture-perfect models, and women who work outside the home, as well as men taking a more active part in child-rearing.

Still, the activist pointed to the persistence of one aspect that has not changed, and which could be one of the reasons for the slow progress made towards gender equality in advertising: the small proportion of women in the creative departments of advertising agencies.

''That is something that has not changed over the years. The overwhelming majority of creative workers are men, and women represent only 10 percent of creatives, despite the fact that men and women study advertising in similar proportions,'' said Bonder.

Creative professionals and academics in advertising agree that there are more female administrative and support staff and less women in the creative departments in ad agencies, but they disagree on the reasons.

''There are brilliant women in the creative area,'' but ''when they marry or have kids, some prefer to open their own businesses in order to have less stressful work schedules,'' said Eduardo Sánchez, a former advertising professional and the director of the advertising department at the private Universidad (University) del Salvador in Argentina.

According to Sánchez, ''sexism and stereotypes exist in advertising because they exist in society.

''The differences shown are the result of the different social roles: men are the breadwinners, and that forces us to form a stable economic foundation, while women are in charge of raising the children,'' he told IPS.

''It is part of women's mandate to enthrone men,'' which is why women creatives ''can be even more machista than men,'' he added.

Ricardo Landi, a former creative professional and the head of the advertising department at the private Universidad de Belgrano, admitted to IPS that although he cannot explain the reasons, there are much fewer women than men working as creatives in the advertising industry.

''Women discriminate against themselves, they apply less for these positions,'' he said.

With respect to ads, Landi said there have been changes, but ones that respond to the logic of the market, rather than deep underlying changes. ''In the past, women in their forties or fifties were seen as too old to appear in commercials, but now they are the target audience to which companies sell face creams and other products.

''So the age of the models was expanded, although the prettiest ones are still chosen,'' he said.

In Landi's view, the problem is that clients demand happy families with blonde, pretty wives and children and large, luminous, clean homes surrounded by huge lawns.

By contrast, ads produced for the government or public agencies tend to show darker-skinned people wearing well-used clothes.

Landi worked in an agency that produced a United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) ad to promote breastfeeding in Argentina a few years ago.

''There were many discussions about what kind of woman to show,'' until finally the agency decided to produce an ad in which only brassieres appear, with the slogan 'The best milk comes in the best package'.