Marketing beer in Russia has been a special challenge since at least 2004, when the Russian Parliament banned beer ads on television between the hours of 7am and 10pm. The use of people and animals in ads is also prohibited, as well as sending the message that beer will somehow improve your health, intelligence or social life. Sound confusing and vague to you? I thought so as well, especially since a search on YouTube for Russian beer commercials turns up plenty of examples using people and implications that beer = some kind of happiness (like the examples above). But starting in July of 2012, television ads for beer will be banned altogether in Russia. So I guess that clears the whole thing up, or at least makes it a moot point.

Citing an epidemic of alcoholism in the country, President Medvedev signed the bill into law as part of his effort to cut the amount of alcohol consumed yearly per person (18 liters) by over 50% as of the year 2020. If you’re like me, you read this and think, “If you want to address alcoholism in Russian, why go after beer? Don’t they all drink vodka?” Not so. As a product, beer has been classified as a “foodstuff,” meaning it can be sold and consumed in much the same way as we Americans enjoy our soda—openly, frequently, in public, and available to buy or sell at any store or kiosk. This is one factor making Russia one of the world’s top beer-drinking countries in recent years, beating out even Germany in 2007 for billions of liters consumed (see table above). It’s also notable that growth spiked sharply even after the 2004 restrictions were put in place, indicating that the advertising changes weren’t enough to decrease beer consumption. A tripling of excise taxes on beer in 2009 brought volume down about 10% in 2010, but apparently the Kremlin thinks the Russian people still have not been adequately sobered and so further measures are necessary.

I’ve written before that regulation on its own is not enough for a public shift in perspective towards advertising; education is also required. Fortunately, media literacy in Russia is alive and relatively well—it faces many of the same challenges as in America, like lack of funding, the bureaucracy around education and teachers that are already overworked and underpaid. However, unlike in the United States, Russia also has its history of communism as part of the mix; the country’s first efforts at media literacy in the 1920s were shut down by Stalin, and a free Russian press has yet to be realized. But thanks in part to efforts from UNESCO and UNICEF, media literacy and media education is growing in Russia. (Click here for an excellent library of English-language documents on media literacy in Russia.)

Particularly given the current state of Russian politics, it’s hard to imagine that President Medvedev will endorse media criticism as a tool for fighting misleading and harmful advertising, but without it, his anti-alcoholism work will continue to be undermined. The Russian beer industry will look to new avenues like digital media, which is more difficult to regulate, and will probably sharpen its already tight focus on building brand loyalty, thus shutting out smaller brewing companies that lack the budget to pursue aggressive, out-of-the-box advertising. The best hope lies in the fact that Russia is finally acknowledging beer as an alcoholic beverage; the shift in classification will be another interesting road for Russian advertisers to navigate. But in the months leading up to full implementation of the new restrictions, the people of Russia can expect a last gasp from advertisers eager to take advantage of their relative freedom. And once the ban is put in place, advertisers will surely get creative and find loopholes to reach and retain consumers. In both cases, media literacy is the best weapon the Russians can have to fight the onslaught.

–Emily Long

Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc

Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

From Go Daddy's first Super Bowl ad spot

Super Bowl 2012 is just under two months away, but the ad buzz has already started. While the rest of us are still wading through the current advertising barrage (also known as The Holiday Season), marketers are hard at work prepping for the next one. The biggest story so far? NBC approved a GoDaddy.com commercial–on the first draft!

Since 2005, we have been able to depend on sleazy, cheesy commercials featuring Danica Patrick and, more recently, Jillian Michaels–women who are otherwise pretty solid material for role models—putting on their best sexyfaces in the service of selling domain name registrations. And they’ve made a strategy of pushing a network’s level of decency, so that many of their television ads end with a message directing viewers to an “unrated” Internet-only version. It seems to be working out for them; last year, within just 15 minutes of GoDaddy’s Joan Rivers ad, business spiked a whopping 466%.

So, in the wake of that success, I was surprised to read that GoDaddy is changing its game plan and kicking sexy down a notch. For the first time since it began buying Super Bowl ad time, the network hosting the game (this year, NBC) has approved preliminary GoDaddy ad scripts. The reason? “We’re starting to get a little more aware of what they’re looking and what will pass and what won’t pass,” said Barb Rechterman, CMO of Go Daddy. Wow, it only took them six years.

GoDaddy Girl Danica Patrick in a previous Super Bowl ad

However, Go Daddy is not planning to change its ways entirely, and become responsible about its marketing practices—Rechterman confirms the upcoming Super Bowl ads are still “hot.” Which means GoDaddy is still uniting the disparate worlds of sex and domain name registration, in ads which blatantly insult the intelligence of potential customers. GoDaddy will probably continue to tell offended parties that they’re overreacting, as they more or less told author Lara Zielin when she wrote to them protesting last year’s Super Bowl ads. As GoDaddy pointed out in their response to her letter, what they’re doing is okay because not all of their commercials are sexist, and we should be more understanding that they need to reach “multiple customer demographics.” They must think pretty poorly of these customers if they think the only way to communicate with them is through sex.

The business of controversy is a profitable one, and the practice of advertisers creating and submitting commercials which they know will be rejected is not entirely new. PETA ads are banned on a fairly regular basis; if anything, it seems a point of pride for them. But lots of ads (even the ones selling something other than omnivore guilt) are rejected as well, and experience new lives online. As with the Joan Rivers ad, the company can still win. The commercial itself may not get the same number of eyeballs as it would from a TV set, but the company gets a chance to make hay from having been banned, and people who otherwise wouldn’t care about a Bud Light ad flock to YouTube to see what was too hot for television.

Why, then, would a company like GoDaddy have any interest in playing by the rules from the get-go? Maybe they’re still smarting from losing thousands of customers last April after their CEO posted a “vacation video” of himself killing an elephant, then tried to convince us it he was just trying to help a poor Zimbabwean village. When I read the news, I thought for a split second that perhaps GoDaddy is shifting gears to make commercials that are actually creative, rather than cheap and raunchy for the sole purpose of ruffling feathers and making money. GoDaddy commercials have always drawn fire for being offensive, but that’s been exactly their point. Until now, any negative response from the public was ignored at best, or, at worst, fuel for the GoDaddy publicity machine. Maybe, just maybe, this is a case where one shock jock realized it pays more to listen to media consumers rather than belittle them.  I’m not ready to declare victory for a critical mass just yet–there’s no proof that GoDaddy is directly responding to the people who stand up and demand more ethical media–but even a small demonstration of media adapting towards responsibility brings me hope.

–Emily Long

Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc
Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

Support The LAMP–participate in $11 for 2011!

The intention of LAMPlatoon’s Dr. Pepper Ten broken commercial is to get media consumers engaged with the dialogue around stereotypical scripts presented in the ad. Within the comments I read, again and again, people’s refusal to identify this campaign as sexist which, to me, seems to be the most overt thing about it (note: “not for women”). While some of the YouTube comments themselves are outright sexist (as JusXcore writes, “Lamplatoon is obvious full of women/idiot men”), there’s a consistent abstractness in the comments around sexism that people interpret as a lack thereof:

via Shift8YawnsShift8: “There’s adverts for tampons all the time which are targeted just at women, and nobody kicks up a fuss then.”

via poline9999: “If the target market is for men, then they successfully accomplished that. I don’t see why it has to be targeted for women too? I don’t see any straighteners marketed towards men?… OUTRAGE WHY SHOULDN’T IT BE, MEN HAVE HAIR TOO.”

via rstuckmaier: “As a guy with an IQ higher than 7 I actually understand that this is satire. I like Dr Pepper 10, my girlfriend likes Dr Pepper 10. I even joked when she took a drink of mine that she wasn’t allowed to drink it because she didn’t have a penis. Do you know what she did? She laughed like a normal person. Anti-sexism is the worst kind of sexism.”

The thing is, they’re missing the point (to which this could give them some perspective). These responses recycle the same types of language found within these scripts in an effort to excuse and deny their discriminatory effects. The idea that men and women are two essentially different, homogenous groups is eternally problematic. I wish I could say this was an outdated conversation but it seems to come up again and again, everywhere.

As with any critical dialogue, there are those voices who are vehemently resistant and those who are critically engaged. While there’s a pretty clear line between the two, they’re both significant because the resistance to the critical dialogues presented by LAMPlatoon reminds us of the need for them in the first place. Resistance like this shows us that the work is cut out for us — change is a long bumpy road, or maybe an endless cul-de-sac, and your neighbors will never hear your voice unless you knock on their door and get talking. And not all of them will feel comfortable with what you have to say.

–Emily Breitkopf

Emily Breitkopf is a contributing writer to The LAMPpost. You can read more of her work on her blog, Kids and Gender and follow her on Twitter @emilybreitkopf.

Dear James R. Trebilcock,

The other day I read Salon’s article about your new Dr Pepper Ten Campaign. After investigating your Facebook app and watching your commercial, I have a few concerns that you need to hear.

Screenshot from Dr. Pepper Ten Facebook app

I know you’ve expected some sort of backlash from women. (“Oh those Feminists, getting their panties all up in a bunch.”) Let’s be honest: The campaign is overtly sexist, homogenizing women’s identities into the most stereotypical gender role possible and actively discriminating against it. There’s no denying this. According to Salon, you’ve said that you’re “not worried that [women will] be offended by the campaign. The drink and marketing were tested in six different markets across the country before being rolled out nationally, and women weren’t offended.” This is ridiculous. Women of all identities have long suffered from male-supremacy and this is yet another ignorant display of douchebaggery which essentializes women into a pretty little package set aside from (and below) men. This is offensive.

But having worked for years as a caregiver of mainly young boys, I’m especially interested in how messages of shaming – like that which your advertisements condone – affects our larger society. Judging from your ad campaign, it seems you have forgotten that there’s an increased suicide rate for LGBTQ teens, especially young boys. It’s rooted in bullying that these kids endure both in their community and on the Internet, and it is most often enforced through shaming. The most recent suicide was Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy in Western NY who was shamed at school and on the Internet. After his death, Jamey’s mother spoke out: “He hung around with the girls a lot, so then the teasing started happening like ‘Oh you’re such a girl or you’re gay’ or whatever and that bothered him for many years.” Similarly, 15-year-old Justin Aaberg committed suicide in May 2010 after he “suffered sexual and gender-based harassment by his peers, including harassment based on his nonconformity to gender stereotypes.” In both your commercial and your Facebook app, I read the following phrases: “What, are you a woman?” “Lose your skirt and step your game up,” “You’ve got 23 seconds to take out all the girly stuff,” “If it’s girly, shoot it” and “This shooting gallery is no place for a woman like you.” These statements are eerily similar to those which I imagined were used to oppress Jamey, Justin, and boys all over the country.

According to Salon, your ad for Dr Pepper Ten “will air on all major networks, FX and ESPN during college football games.” A lot of young people, just like those who shamed Jamey and Justin, watch these networks and interact daily with Facebook where they learn phrases that they apply both at school and on the Internet. After his son’s suicide, Jamey’s father said in an interview, “To the kids who are bullying they have to realize that words are very powerful and what you think is just fun and games isn’t to some people, and you are destroying a lot of lives.” This is exactly what your advertising campaign is doing – turning the shaming of boys and men into “fun and games.” Words are very powerful, especially to young children. Since you’ve had two boys yourself, Mr. Trebilcock, I would hope this would be a concern of yours.

You’re fostering a culture of douchebags – the aggressive, homophobic, anti-woman, hyper-masculine man from whom I can confidently say much of my daily street harassment comes. I’m really tired of this model of a man and I would hope that, as a father of two sons, you wouldn’t want to have a hand in reinforcing it, Mr. Trebilcock. Whether or not your intention is to create shock-value in your advertisements, I refuse to pardon the implications of your messages especially for children who consume them. They re-enact these messages in their daily lives not only as young people, but as grown men.

Your notion that “women get the joke” shows me just how ignorant you are. Maybe you used to be the same hyper-masculine jerk in your target demographic, but I would hope that by your age that you’ve gotten a grip, or at least some social awareness that tells you that this type of advertising is idiotic and unintelligent. Your excuse for the joke is that, “‘Is this really for men or really for women?’ is a way to start the conversation that can spread and get people engaged in the product.” That literally doesn’t make any sense. You see, I don’t get the joke because there isn’t one.

In conclusion, I encourage you to contact The LAMP and schedule a personal Media Literacy class for you and the entire Dr. Pepper Ten marketing team. Clearly, you have a lot to learn.

Kind regards,
Emily Breitkopf

Emily Breitkopf is a contributing writer to The LAMPpost. You can read more of her work on her blog, Kids and Gender and follow her on Twitter @emilybreitkopf.

We at The LAMP address advertising messages with our LAMPlatoon project, where anyone can make and submit videos breaking down the infinite number of persuasive techniques used to sell goods and services. And yes, many LAMPlatoon videos are responding to harmful and negative messages which reinforce stereotypes or leave out key pieces of information, but we also want to acknowledge ads that serve their purpose without being offensive or misleading. Here’s one:

What ads do you like, and why? Leave a message in the comments below, or better yet, make your own LAMPlatoon video about what you’d like to see more of in advertising.

Whether or not this holds up in court, it’s not the first time (nor probably the last) that an Apple product aligns with the sci-fi masterpiece. Check out how the iPhone is made to resemble the iconic monolith:

So, like a kid in the sandbox, we’re here to say we saw it too.

For more revelations of what’s really going on in commercials, check out our full library of LAMPlatoon ads.

Still from Guess Who? The Mathematician and The Baker

Clocking in at just 2 minutes and 21 seconds, Guess Who? is a demonstration of how far we still have to go when it comes to gender stereotypes. The kids in the video don’t have the awareness to consider the potential set-up as they’re being interviewed, and that it’s possible they are being asked to answer a trick question. Even these kids–a group probably about 5-8 years old, racially diverse and composed of both boys and girls–believe that there are certain jobs women and man cannot or should not do. The innocence of their bias is candy-sweet for its honesty, but also unnerving as it demonstrates how young kids today are being taught some of the same fundamental prejudices that their grandparents learned decades ago.

However, there were a couple of disconnects in Guess Who? that I have trouble getting past. The video fails to make a link between gender stereotypes specifically within media, which is a critical part of the Geena Davis Institute’s mission. I get that the video is short out of necessity, but not connecting the fact that media may be at the root of the children’s beliefs about women and men in society seems to be a major oversight, and a few seconds could have been spared to make the link. I also had issue with the advertising that accompanied the video. As I’m watching a piece about stereotypes from an organization dedicated to raising awareness about the narrow field of roles and identities for women and girls in media, I get an “Oh my prom!” Flash ad in the video sidebar from Lord & Taylor for their makeup ranges.

When that’s over, I’m shown an ad for Jen Calonita’s Secrets Of My Hollywood Life series of books. The books are less problematic as an advertising choice in this instance; at their heart, they are debunking myths about the fortune and glamor of film and television, and encourage readers to look behind the curtain. But, why not make that point in the ad? Perhaps the Hollywood Life ad looked like mindless fluff because it followed a message that you need more makeup for prom, but for me, it didn’t do much to supplement either the Geena Davis Institute or the video running alongside it. I also understand that the advertising choices were probably made by Channel One and not the Institute, but I do hope that Channel One will be more thoughtful in the future.

I’d like to see more Guess Who? videos. While there is certainly room for the series to grow, I think this first effort was positive and enlightening. I’ll be keeping an eye out for what comes next.

–Emily Long
Follow me on Twitter on @emlong

Commercials for beauty products frequently use some of the techniques shown in this video–the product is positioned as a must-have for today’s busy woman who doesn’t have much time in her day for grooming, yet the women in the ads are depicted as young, playful and carefree. Allegedly, this is because they don’t have to touch up their concealer in between romps at the grocery store. The science bit attempts to appease the skeptics among us, but goes by so quickly that we barely have a second to process the information in any critical way, and is ultimately pretty condescending.

If you’re interested in shining a light on other persuasive techniques you see in commercials, email us today to join LAMPlatoon and take action. Next week, it could be your video featured in this space!

Follow The LAMP on @thelampnyc for the latest news and insight on media literacy!

LAMPlatoon is encouraging people to think critically about media they see every day. By unpacking the messages sent through advertisements, you are learning to navigate a world of media which can be overwhelming and confusing. LAMPlatoon is also an opportunity for you to exercise fair use, talk back to mass media, and hold media producers accountable for the ways in which their messages impact our lives. Want to see what we mean? You can click here for LAMPlatoon on YouTube, or view the videos on our own self-hosted platform. We’ve also pasted the full press release below. But what are you waiting for? Join LAMPlatoon today!

The LAMP Helps Consumers Talk Back to Ads
‘LAMPlatoon’ project uses commercials and fair use to teach media literacy

NEW YORK, NY: The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) announces the February 7, 2011 launch of LAMPlatoon, an interactive video project using commercials to teach basic media literacy skills and guidelines about fair use in new media. LAMPlatoon exists online at http://www.thelampnyc.org/lamplatoon and http://www.youtube.com/TheLAMPlatoon.

The launch coincides with the day after the Super Bowl, when people are often discussing commercials which aired during the game.

“It’s not uncommon for people to be as excited for the commercials as they are for the Super Bowl itself. LAMPlatoon is trying to harness this as an opportunity to teach people how to respond critically to those advertisements,” said LAMP Education Director, Katherine Fry, Ph.D. “They can impact decisions we make about our health, how we spend our money, how we understand others and how we think about ourselves. People need to be able to filter media and make choices that are right for them, rather than follow what media tell them to do.”

Studies have indicated that the average American sees over 3,000 advertisements every day, but many people lack the media literacy skills needed to understand how, why and for whom advertisements are made. LAMPlatoon encourages the building of these basic media literacy skills, and also offers a way for people to respond to commercials and advertisements.

“We wanted to provide a sandbox where people can talk back to media,” said D.C. Vito, Executive Director of The LAMP. “It is not enough to just point out negative messages, or how they are made. With LAMPlatoon, people can actively reject media they think are harmful or applaud those which are positive. And by sharing their responses on the Internet, people are proactively engaging media messages, rather than passively consuming them. Hopefully, media producers will listen.”

LAMPlatoon also engages the fair use section of the Copyright Act, which protects certain instances of copyrighted media reproduction from copyright infringement. Although studies have demonstrated that understanding fair use is critical to an information age economy, it is frequently misunderstood.

“We are pleased that this project will teach students valuable lessons about fair use and copyright,” said Michael Weinberg at Public Knowledge, a Washington D.C.-based public interest advocacy organization. “Through their experiences they will learn that it is perfectly legal to build on the efforts of others to create their own work and understand their media environment.”

A preview of LAMPlatoon videos can be seen prior to the launch by accessing the following links:
Bratz, “Walking Bratz”: http://youtu.be/pswJ8gpeQkQ
Burger King Texas Double Whopper, “I am Man”: http://youtu.be/s84Hl6UUt_o
Cover Girl Fruit Spritzers with Rihanna: http://youtu.be/76wLEMAhsbE

About The LAMP:
The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) envisions that one day media literacy will be seen as the critical requirement to understanding the world and our place in it. Founded in September 2007 by community organizer D.C. Vito and Katherine Fry, Ph.D., professor of media studies at Brooklyn College, The LAMP has brought free media literacy workshops and events to over 500 New York City youth, teens, parents and educators, most of whom are underserved. Visit The LAMP online at http://www.thelampnyc.org.

Contact:

Emily Long, Director of Communications and Development
The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project)
718-789-8170

http://www.thelampnyc.org

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