The Super Bowl is Here, Time for Overly Sexualized Commercials

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events in sports and the largest event in advertising. Companies spend upwards of a million dollars to advertise their thirty minute commercials. Every year people tune in to see the most talked about ads, the half time show, and of course the game. Each year it seems that the commercials get more sexual in nature, which seems so ridiculous especially when they are just trying to sell you sneakers. Mercedes started to promote their ad early this year for a new car with super popular model Kate Upton. The feed back has been all around negative with people deeming the ad tacky and tasteless. I’m going to have to disagree with this one. The ad only uses Upton to get attention, the ones actually being somewhat sexualized are the men in the ad. I think the people upset by the ad are men in general because they wanted to see Upton get all down and dirty washing a car, but they were let down. As a woman I’m happy with the role reversal, but no one should be seen as a sexual object, that I am against. See the commercial for yourself and decided. http://youtu.be/uPq7jVGPs3g A new Mercedes-Benz ad starring the voluptuous Kate Upton is generating some surprisingly negative buzz in the blogosphere, with critics calling it cheap and tasteless—even wondering if it’s too sexy. “Hot girl, great car, and somehow I think this is the worst ad Mercedes has ever made,” and “Cheap and stupid. Worst ad Mercedes made. Whoever thought of this needs to be fired!” are among a slew of choice comments posted on the Mercedes-Benz Facebook page. The ad, set to air on February 3 during the Super Bowl, starts off with a slow pan upward, from feet to face, of a scantily clad Upton and her physical assets. Bluesy music blares. The screen goes blank except for a title: “Kate Upton Washes the New Mercedes CLA—in Slow Motion,” and then it’s back to the action, which consists of Upton suggestively blowing suds out of her hand, and then teasing and supervising a few young, wide-eyed young men in football jerseys who actually take care of washing the shiny new car. “It’s certainly very risky,” Dean Crutchfield, brand expert and Forbes advertising blogger told Yahoo! Shine about Mercedes-Benz’s move. “They’re clearly working on a new strategy, by picking a lane that’s not standard for a luxury brand.” Beginning with the choice of Upton—a “character” who is “not so high and mighty”—and then going in a direction that is so overtly sexy, Crutchfield noted, is surprising, as the strategy is usually reserved for ad categories like entertainment or food and beverage, or even cheaper cars. “To have an ad that would be perceived as crass? This would potentially have a negative impact,” he said—especially since some statistics have shown that it’s women who make at least 66% of car-purchase decisions. “The other side of it, though, is it stands out,” he added. “And you want to do that.” While sexism in advertising is an old story, one reason for such a heightened reaction in this case may be the blatantly, almost old-school sexy style of the ad, according to Wheelock College sociology and women’s studies professor Gail Dines. “Panning the body like that is something that belonged in media a while ago,” Dines, the co-author of Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Critical Reader, told Yahoo! Shine. “It’s so clearly turning her into an object. It’s a more traditional, old-fashioned sexism, one where the male gaze is clearly in charge.” Sexism in ads these days, she added, is typically more nuanced, with women acting as self-objectifiers who are “internalizing the male gaze.” Dines, whose newest book is Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, likens the whole setup, execution and obvious symbolism of the Mercedes ad to a scene out of any classic adult film—which may be why it’s making even some men squirm.