Aren't we better than this?

Michael John

Michael John

Junior
Jun 25, 2011
352
9
18
Sydney, Australia
eclipseaudio.com
Yesterday I received an email from DiGiCo's distributor in Australia, Group Technologies which I felt was pretty disappointing.

The email was an add for the DiGiCo SD9 and featured a picture of a girl with extremely large and barely clad "assets" standing over a SD9 and holding a pair of interfaces called D-Racks. The add had the obvious tagline, "The Double D Pack."

Whilst I enjoy seeing beautiful girls as much as the next man, this add stooped pretty low in it's use of sex sells and reinforces a neanderthal male (and neanderthal sound male?) stereotype. I'd like to think that as audio professionals, we've moved past this type of exploitation. DiGiCo make great products for audio professionals, but this certainly lowers my view of the company and the distributor.

Best,
Michael
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Michael Smithers said:
Yesterday I received an email from DiGiCo's distributor in Australia, Group Technologies which I felt was pretty disappointing.

The add had the obvious tagline, "The Double D Pack."

Whilst I enjoy seeing beautiful girls as much as the next man, this add stooped pretty low in it's use of sex sells and reinforces a neanderthal male (and neanderthal sound male?) stereotype.

Michael
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I received the same email but I felt it was meant to be humour rather than sexploitation or degrading to women. Whatever the intention the advertising was effective in getting my attention, but unfortunately despite the low price I still can't afford a Digico.
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

In my collection of vintage catalogs, I have an add from Cerwin Vega from the 70's. It is introducing their Double "D" bass horn. 37Hz @145dB

There is a girl sitting in front of one of the cabinets-but it does not appear that she "fits" the name. Kinda hard to tell by the way whe is dressed-think "hippy chick" with ankle length skirt-long sleeves etc.

You would "think" they would have choosen somebody else-but this was decades ago.
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Jordan Lahr said:
It got your attention didn't it?

Sent from my ADR6300
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And now he is talking about it on a public forum. More advertisement.

Year ago we had a strip club open in town. One of the local churches started staging protets in the parking lot-they even brought out their kids with them. The Owner brought out sodas and cookies to give to the protesters.

It made front page of the local paper for a number of days (over a couple of week period). While the church thought they were doing something good-what it really did was bring free advertisement to the club. People who would not have known aobut it otherwise-were not informed.

Backfire-----------------------------
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Dick Rees said:
Personally, I enjoy seeing girls more than the next man......or any man, for that matter.

Heterosexually yours,

Your correspondent.
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+1 and... It has been one of my greatest joys in life to "see" beautiful Women.


While the OP may have a point (although, very small point IMO) ... that possibly... using large Breasted Women in an Advertisement, somehow demeans them or the product.... I will say that, the Woman in the photo IS a Woman herself, and, because she has large breasts, or is young and attractive is not demeaning to her. If she didn't appreciate that men will hold a certain value for her looks or attributes, she was free to NOT be involved in the advertisement.

As a society, we do need to keep watch for abuse and exploitation, but, I wouldn't consider this Ad as exploitation, I'm sure she got paid some amount of money. (she may be making rounds showing and telling her friends about her Ad at this moment)

I also believe that this Ad's eye-candy is probably right on target for those that use this Console. This model of Console is not designed (although some knuckle-head will probably argue against my point) to be used in a high profile Corporate type environment such as Broadcast or some wel known, boutique, Recording Studio . The Console is marketed to the guys in the trenches working R&R, Country, Jazz, R&B, etc...LIVE shows.

And...if anyone appreciates young, beautiful, big-breasted Women...it's the guys in the trenches. ;o)

If it offends...please look away...

Cheers,
Hammer
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

I'm gonna side with Michael on this one in that I think that such types of ads are lame - super cheesy and unprofessional. Call me a stick in the mud, but that's my take. I can think of lots of environments outside of "the trenches" where such an ad would be frowned on.

Maybe Digico is living by the celebrity concept of "there's no such thing as bad publicity"
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

It might be worth reflecting on why most people get involved in the music business in the first place... hint, it's to hook up.

Many would be musos, populate the ranks of all the other music industry jobs, when they don't make the big show.

I used a pretty girl in one ad at Peavey and would do it again, while perhaps not as crude as our friends from down under.

JR
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Mike's point, which I agree with, is that dropping to the lowest common denominator implies that the console or manufacturer is lacking when it comes to marketing a product based on technical merit. It also puts said product in a negative light for another large market, HoW (which we deal extensively with).
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

John Roberts said:
It might be worth reflecting on why most people get involved in the music business in the first place... hint, it's to hook up.

Many would be musos, populate the ranks of all the other music industry jobs, when they don't make the big show.

I used a pretty girl in one ad at Peavey and would do it again, while perhaps not as crude as our friends from down under.

JR
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I can't get past the "women from down under" picture you just put in my head.......
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Many young women wear short skirts,skin tight jeans and low cut tops because they want men to notice them.That's the same reason companies use women when advertising products men are interested in.They want to draw your attention to their product. It looks like it's working pretty well.
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Jeff Babcock said:
To counter, I suspect that the vast majority of women working in the music business would disagree with that idea being their "raison d'etre"
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I don't (can't) have first hand information, but women have somewhat similar biological urges as men, while they are motivated, or programmed differently (what a circus if they weren't). If I were being cynical I would point out that a woman who pursues a gig in a predominantly male field is not doing that to avoid the opposite sex. We are all still but a few steps from our caves, so lets not ignore the obvious.

I cringe at posts here and on similar forums are not very female friendly. The few women who tolerate us and hang here have pretty thick skins. Maybe if there were more around, people would be embarrassed to say and do some of what they say and do.

WRT advertising, sex sells, always has and always will, while that ad doesn't do much for me.. maybe it highlights a cultural difference too. I'm not so old that I don't appreciate such things. Not my cup(s) of tea.

JR
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Randy Gartner said:
Many young women wear short skirts,skin tight jeans and low cut tops because they want men to notice them.That's the same reason companies use women when advertising products men are interested in.They want to draw your attention to their product. It looks like it's working pretty well.
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And...I think it's belittling to suggest that Women in the MODERN World need to be protected from what Men think or feel. Women are much stronger in many ways than Men. While some Women may take offense to the use of large breasted Women in advertisements with products that are over-whelmingly used by Men, I'm certain that more Women would also find such situations humorus, silly or of no concern.

Breasts of all sizes have been around since humans first crawled around a cave. Why the outrage at this Ad ? Is it the Breasts themselves that offend, the use of a Woman in the Ad, or, the use of a Woman with large breasts in an Ad that's aimed at a market that some may consider a Higher Profession ?

Apparently, some think that their chosen Profession is an ideal model for societal behavior.... rubbish, as they tend to work long grueling hours, in extreme heat or cold, with many unsavory promoters, musicians, and coworkers, in dark, dingy, rat-nests, providing high SPLs to drunk and/or drug using attendees, many of which wear clothing that's as skimpy as in the Ad.

If of course, your only gig is in a house of worship... you can delete some of the above work conditions and possibly some of the attendee characteristics/habits, but, they've also been shown to pop up in such places on occasion too...while wanting your money pushed in a collection plate/basket.

What I find really astonishing...is that some grown Men consider the photo to be so offensive...in a World where we're surrounded by truly offensive behaviors, and, Wars, starvation, disease, murder, child abuse, slavery, lack of medical attention....

Hammer
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Charlie Zureki said:
What I find really astonishing...is that some grown Men consider the photo to be so offensive...in a World where we're surrounded by truly offensive behaviors, and, Wars, starvation, disease, murder, child abuse, slavery, lack of medical attention....

Hammer
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This is the PC movement run amok (IMO)... For another example how about the outrage over public funding of free birth control? Not remotely on the same scale as people being killed for different religious beliefs (happens every day), or expressing free speech (cartoons and criticism), but important to some for constitutional reasons so worth inspection, just with a lot less spin and drama.

Yes there is a lot of true obscenity around the world that does make this petty stuff rather embarrassing in comparison, but we are in the silly season for hyperbolic inflated claims about all kinds of hot button issues to inflame small people with small picture thinking over small issues, to manipulate their individual voting decisions for a larger prize.

Of course maybe I'm wrong and this stuff is really important... nah. :-(

JR
 
Re: Aren't we better than this?

Charlie Zureki said:
What I find really astonishing...is that some grown Men consider the photo to be so offensive...in a World where we're surrounded by truly offensive behaviors, and, Wars, starvation, disease, murder, child abuse, slavery, lack of medical attention....

Hammer
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In case of misinterpretation, I am not personally offended, but do think it's very cheesy, not very creative, and in poor taste. YMMV. Some folks may be offended, others will think it's fantastic. My point is more to do with their choice to not consider certain parts of their potential target market, which seems less than ideal from a marketing perspective. I can think of lots of creative and very successful marketing that has been done for products that did not depend on sexuality. It is possible, Digico just needs to stop using the company who makes Coors Light and GoDaddy commercials for their own ads.

Certainly the other issues you note are of significantly more importance. Don't get me started about human trafficking, I could quite honestly spend days ranting about the issues around that social injustice.

Those sorts of issues are of great importance to humanity, which begs the rhetorical question, if we truly agree with that, why does any of us post about issues of lesser importance?
 
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