Tui needs to try harder
Media Statement – for immediate release 6 May
2012
Tui needs to try harder
Auckland
Feminist Action gives the latest Tui ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69kehXuJWYo
an E for Effort, and invites DB to have a beer with them
and discuss how to make an ad without dissing
women.
Feminist Action is delighted that its campaign contributed to the sexist Tui brewery ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O94GIT9Uo0 being taken off television and the Tui website, says spokeswoman Leonie Morris.
“We gave that ad an F for Fail,” she says, “but the new Tui ad, ‘Halftime distraction’, gets only an E for Effort. Tui needs to try harder.”
While the halftime ad doesn’t put women in the sexualised poses of the earlier brewery ads, the women are portrayed as just as stupid and helpless. They can’t get a kitten off a tree branch barely above their heads, navigate city streets or paint a sign without falling off the ladder.
What ties these ads together is that the only people equal to the lead male characters are their mates. Women are persistently excluded from equality in Tui ads. In “Halftime Distraction” a series of beautiful women can’t tempt the hero away from his mission - getting the beer for his mates during halftime in a rugby telecast.
Women are treated as distractions from the real thing: a men-only, testosterone-laden, beer-drinking sport session.
DB says camaraderie and irreverence are crucial aspects of the Tui brand. But the camaraderie is a superficial mateship, and the irreverence is expressed by treating women always as objects, rather than equals. “It’s no accident that women like these ads less than men, since women are always the target of the joke,” says Leonie.
“Tui
refuses to understand why this is sexist. We invite them to
have a drink with Feminist Action and discuss how to make
women equal in their ads,” she says. “Tui needs to stop
laughing at women and start laughing with
them.”
ends