We love the bold stance taken by the ad agency Badger and Winters: “to never objectify women in our work.” In case you need to be reminded why that’s an important pledge, check out the post from Fast Company highlighting their commitment, as well as their video demonstrating the objectification of women in advertising, #WomenNotObjects, which went viral last month.
fastcocreate.com – An advertising agency CCO is spearheading a campaign to fight the objectification of women in ads and other media.
Madonna Badger, founder and CCO of Manhattan-based Badger and Winters Group, anonymously launched a video, “We are #WomenNotObjects” in mid-January. The two-and-a-half-minute-long film contains a montage of ads and branded social media posts, which were returned in response to a Google image search for “objectification of women.”
Some of these ads are reproduced in placard form and a series of women each hold an image, whilst delivering a sarcastic observation. For example, a highly suggestive image from Burger King is accompanied by the line, “I love giving blow-jobs to sandwiches.”
The campaign hopes to spark a wider conversation and drive change. Badger says: “The campaign is aimed at everyone who needs to think about what we are doing and how we can change the way we portray women in advertising and media.”
When viewing the images in the video, Badger’s message is one with which it is hard to disagree. It’s also fair to say that, while some brands appear to have been singled out, this really could have included ads from hundreds of brands, not just those featured. (Although, that Tom Ford Men’s cologne ad…)
Read the rest, including more on what drives Badger and her vision for her own female-lead creative agency, here.
