Here’s a contentious post for you this week, and opinion seems divided between the sexes, so let’s see what comments we get…
The news came out recently that a new piece of real estate will be utilised for advertising in the forthcoming London Olympics. QR codes will be placed on the briefs of the female beach volleyball players. For those of you who don’t know anything about QR codes or beach volleyball, here are:
Image via Wikipedia
The Facts
• QR codes are like barcodes, and are being used to send people to websites, offers, coupons etc – here is a QR code as an example – you need to scan it using a smartphone such as a BlackBerry or iPhone;
• Beach volleyball briefs for women have to be a certain size – i.e., they cannot be too big;
Oddly enough, beach volleyball has a lot of male followers…
This brings some questions to mind – not least of which is why aren’t they advertising on male athletes shorts?
Well, advertisers worth their salt know their audience – and advertisers in this case know that at least some men will be photographing women’s backsides, so they may as well take advantage of that and use it to send those people to offers.
The chances are that most women won’t be photographing male athletes’ lunchboxes, so that makes advertising on the front of sprinters shorts pointless…if you pardon the pun.
So How Does Mr Irons Fit In?
Well, recently he was quoted as saying, and I am paraphrasing here, that any woman worthy of attention ought to be able to cope with a smack on the behind – that effectively it was a form of physical communication, like a handshake.
Really Jeremy?
The consensus seems to be that he has just been disrespectful to women, and frankly made himself look a bit of a fool really.
His is clearly an extreme view, and a female acquaintance of mine did suggest that such unsolicited contact would in fact constitute assault. It does also beg the question; how far is it acceptable to exploit the female form?
Is it OK for advertisers to print advertising on female athletes backsides or not? Does this count as smart marketing or is it exploitation?
A quick canvas of women seems to suggest that it is just the targeting of an audience, although one lady did suggest that it is not all that flattering to men, as it does suggest that all men are the same and that effectively we’re all that shallow that we would spend our time studying women’s bums…
Interesting…
Further to that theory, what’s your view about lap dancing bars?
Who is exploiting who? Are the men the exploiters, looking at naked females for money, or are the in turn being exploited by the women that work there, who can persuade men to part company with money for a flash of flesh?
Again the female straw poll revealed a surprising result – a fair number thought that it was the women that were doing the exploiting, and the men were stupid enough to buy into it.
I think it is safe to say that Mr Irons probably won’t be guest of honour at the women’s beach volleyball finals however…
So what do you think? What is your view on the acceptable level of exploitation of human beings generally? Do you think there should be advertising on athletes more intimate areas?
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think…
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