Lucy Garrido

The Latin American Advertising Festival is one of the most important international events at which prizes are awarded for creativity and production in publicity campaigns and advertisements.
This year, for the second year running, the Prize for Non-Sexist Advertising was awarded, an initiative founded by the Centre for Women's Studies (CEM, Argentina) with the support of the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

If it's a good thing to denounce sexism in advertising, it is even better to be able to say that many things are changing for the better: when we carried out our general assessment of the (thousands of) entries presented in the festival, we found that very few were openly sexist. There are almost no advertising copywriters left who would dare to sell their products with a jingle like, 'My husband kisses me at the table, for the salads, for the escalopes ... ever since I've been using Torino Oil, my lovely husband's come over all oily'; or which offer 'More power for women with Red Label Lavandina Detergent'; or who sell a special brand of whisky 'For men who know how to choose', because women are teetotal.

Now the copywriters make more of an effort and produce adverts like the one for a 'masculine' deodorant which is used by a woman by mistake and which makes all the women in the street follow her; or the other one in which a grandmother goes to buy a sports car for her grandson, but test-drives it herself first; or that one... Let's face it: things are changing for the better. And this change is due to the fact that to a large extent what was invisible has been made visible (and many men didn't want or couldn't continue to pretend to be blind) and to the fact that countless women have entered the advertising sector and are copywriters, producers, account controllers, owners of advertising agencies.

THE PRIZE WINNERS

In the Graphics Class (for the Household Appliances, Furniture and Home Accessories category) the prize was won by a Spanish advert entitled "Bisexual" which advertised Zanussi washing machines: almost the whole poster was taken up by a photo of the front of a washing machine, whose round window was formed by the superimposition of the symbols for man and woman. Below, the copy read that the washing machines were so easy to use that even men could use them.

In the same class, but in the Public Services category, Chile was awarded the prize: the photograph of a young boy's face showing marks of having been hit was accompanied by the words "Tiger's son", an expression used in the region by men who want to boast that their son is as macho as the father.

The winner in the Campaigns-Services category was a Brazilian advert in which a series of photos advertised cellular phones: in one a young man was cooking while talking on the phone; in the other there was a woman in her office, comfortably seated in a magnificent armchair, and talking on the phone, to say, undoubtedly, that she would be late for dinner.

There was a special mention for Barcelona Activa, the Job Placement Service: a large photo of a urinal and beside it the text "This is the only place in the company to which women can't gain access".

Among those selected that, however, were not awarded prizes, there were many interesting examples. Suffice it to mention, for its impact, the advert from Amnesty International's campaign against infibulation: against a black background, the symbol for woman in red crossed by a razor blade with the copy "200,000 are violated by their mothers every year in Africa".

In the Television Class First Prize went to Telecom's advertiser and was produced in Argentina. An middle-aged couple is sleeping when the crying of a baby girl wakes them. The man lets the woman rest and gets up to attend to the baby, while he remembers the phone call (made possible without doubt by Telecom) from his wife when she told him she was pregnant. As he approaches the cot, his voice-over tells us that he is 53 years old and that this baby girl arrived when they could best enjoy the peace which the independence of their other children had given them. In the last scene, he picks her up in his arms and says, "So the baby and I made a deal: I change her nappies ... and she changes my life".

This is the first time, in these parts of the world, that we see on television a woman carry on sleeping while her husband gets up to go to their daughter who is crying. But in addition, the style of the advert., filmed in black and white, is also original in another way: it focuses on the naked torso of an older man (on a skin which no longer has the tonality of the one seen in Armani's Gió Cologne adverts), on the lines of his face, on his baldness, and ends up contrasting his body with the baby's body.

Second Prize was awarded to an institutional advert for the Banco República of Uruguay. It opens with a woman leaving the head branch, wearing elegant sunglasses and a suit and jacket, the typical style of the majority of male Uruguayan "executives". She then appears directing a range of activities in the countryside (without doubt on "her" land) and also in industry. The advert closes with an image similar to the first one; no words have been spoken and the only ones that appear are in the copy "Banco República, the country's bank".

As well as being filmed beautifully, this advert not only shows a woman in a productive and management role in the most important economic sectors in society, but also presents her advertising the most important bank in the country - no insignificant detail, given that banks have traditionally been advertised by serious men, with eyebrows that meet in the middle and deep voices, in order to instill confidence in the investor.

An American advert for Nike was awarded Third Prize. In the advert a woman begins running in the desert, wearing the right trainers (of course) while a voice says "If you run when it's hot they say you're crazy", and we see the people in their houses, fanning themselves. She continues running while the voice-over adds, "If you run when it's cold they say you're crazy", and the people are in their houses protecting themselves from the cold. Finally, she runs in the rain while everyone is sheltering inside and the voice says "If you run in the rain they say you're crazy" and ends by saying... "However, it's they who are shut up inside". What do you reckon?

All in all, as the jury said, the messages which stood out in the advertisements that were awarded prizes were: responsible and enjoyable exercise of paternity; sharing of domestic tasks; rejection of violence as a resource in the construction of masculinity; affirmation of women's right to occupy all roles and positions of power; and promotion of the diversity of lifestyles enjoyed by men and women today.

P. S. It could be said that none of the adverts described above has exactly the gender perspective that it should. So what perspective is it?

Lucy Garrido journalist and member of the feminist group Cotidiano Mujer, Montevideo, Uruguay

GUIDELINES FOR DETECTING SEXISM

Participating in the jury were Gloria Bonder (CEM-Argentina), Branca Moreira (UNIFEM-Southern Cone Region), Lucy Garrido (Cotidiano Mujer-Uruguay), Jorge Dell'Oro (Dell'Oro/Trigo Agency-Argentina), Ana María Egaña (Aquisgran Productions-Chile), Viviana Erazo (FEMPRESS-Chile) and Daphne Plou (World Association of Christian Communication-WACC).

The jury was given guidelines drawn up by CEM to help carry out the selection of the winning advertisements, the main criteria of which were that:

they should present non-stereotyped and non-violent images of men and women;
they should respect the personal dignity of men and women and avoid their use as sex objects;
they should show the diverse range of lifestyles which men and women follow today;
they should reflect their capacity for personal development in all roles and functions;
they should express their creativity and contributions in all social spheres;
they should promote relations based on equity, respect and co-operation between men and women;
it is important to highlight the participation of boys, girls and youngsters according to the criteria given.

Translation from Spanish to English by Niki Johnson

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