Standing Up For The Little Guy

AdAge runs an interesting article on a group of men who have teamed up together to fight back against the advertising industry’s use of men in commercials. Unhappy with the way men keep getting portrayed as losers to poke fun at, they’ve started to fight back: after the SuperBowl dozens of emails were sent to the CEO of Pepsi, their agency, BBDO and publications such as Ad Age and The New York Times, complaining about the balls-banging treatment of Justin Timberlake in their latest commercial. Jonah Bloom is rather dismissive of the groups efforts:

A loose coalition of these hombres against humor has formed in the past few years. Led by a guy called Richard Smaglick, co-founder of a group called Fathers and Husbands, they’ve attacked a few different ad agencies. In particular they spent several months “torturing,” as one ad exec put it, Arnold Worldwide, which was considered guilty of “contemptuous depictions” of men in its ads for Fidelity Investments. The group even tried to persuade Volvo not to give its account to Arnold.

…the saddest thing about all this is the time and energy diverted from the more important ways advertising must be held to account. Right now, there are financial institutions with aggressive campaigns pushing credit to consumers whose debt loads are already crushing. Advertisers are spending billions to support an Olympics in a country with an abysmal human-rights record. There are companies with shocking environmental records making claims to environmental friendliness. There is a debate to be had about the merits and pitfalls of advertising drugs directly to consumers. Or, say, over whether a country that holds democracy dear should be happy its presidential primaries could come down to who spent the most on ads.

Whether you agree with Bloom or not, Fathers and Husbands is an interesting example of how people are ganging together and using digital means to lobby commercial enterprises.

Fathers and Husbands
Advertising Age