Original Ad:
For my Culture Jam Assignment, I have chosen an advertisement projected by CocaCola in June 2014 for the purposes of marketing their new dairy brand, Fairlife. The ad features a female model clad in nothing but heels and drenched in milk, with a shocked expression on her face. Resembling the theme of “pin-up” posters of women prevalent in the 1970s and 80s, the inherent sexism present in this ad is clearly evident. The advertisement works to objectify the female model in this case, portraying her as a canvas for the product to be displayed on, which is highly unrealistic and quite absurd. In conjunction with the visual depictions in the ad, the slogan “Drink What She’s Wearing” effectively hypersexualizes the female model, using her body dripping in milk to attract consumer culture. Not only is this toxic but also heavily problematic, especially in the current era where communities and companies alike should be trying to shift away from this sexist objectification and portrayal of women in marketing matters. Also, the lack of a male counterpart further aids in this derogatory purpose. It appears that sexualizing undertones are employed to promote a product which is otherwise correlated with nurturing and nursing.
Moreover, another harmful aspect of this ad is the inclusion of the image of the weight scale the female model is standing upon. The woman is slim, with long slender legs and perfectly smooth skin, which is in line with most Western beauty standards for models. Having her perched upon the weight scale works to promote unhealthy body standards, which are ‘scale-centred’. Although the motive of the company with regards to this could have been to showcase the ‘benefits’ their milk provides, boasting “50% more protein and calcium”, it is rather ignorant to have health depicted as a number on a scale – this provides a medium for body-negativity and weight-shaming.
Jammed Ad:
In my jammed version, I have made some alterations to the original which showcase the problems and absurdities associated with this advertisement. I changed the slogan of the ad to “Drink To… Objectify”, in order to exemplify the central objectification of the female model, which is outright unjust and nonsensical in this case. Having the model essentially “wear” the milk, in the form of being splattered across their bare body, violates the integrity of the ‘human image’, in the sense that it is unrealistic and resembles the manipulation of a cartoon or fictional character. Moreover, I switched the text to say, “milk with 50% more sexism and weight-shaming”, to relay that what the advertisement really contains a greater percentage of is more undertones and themes of prejudice, in comparison to other milk ads. The hyper-sexualization of the model is toxic and serves to do more harm than any possible good, representing a poor marketing strategy merely aimed at higher consumer activity based on visual attraction. Also, it is likely that software such as Photoshop and other visual editing tools were used to create the ideal image of the model, and this in conjunction with the weight scale included in the ad work to promote unhealthy standards of body image and weight perception.
Furthermore, I added a text bubble which shows the model exclaiming “This is just as comfortable as it looks!”, to highlight the absurdity of the stance the model is in, being in an arched position whilst wearing heels and standing on a scale. Again, this was done to further exemplify the unrealistic portrayal and objectification of the model. Lastly, I changed the brand name on the milk bottle from “Fairlife” to “Unfairlife”, to outline the irony of what the name of their company poses to represent vs. what they implicitly seem to be representing via undertones of sexism and weight-shaming – for their personal purpose.
The core objective of my jamming was to reveal the advertisement’s exploitation of the intersectionality’s of sexuality and body image, and also invoke a sense of conscientiousness in the consumer to be aware of these harmful marketing strategies which are quite prevalent, even today.
Source:
Dicker, R. (2017, December 7). Hey, Coca-Cola, Is This The Right Way To Sell Milk? Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/fairlife-sexist-milk-ads_n_6248376?ri18n=true