Women's Day: When advertising lost an opportunity

This morning, we’ve been inundated by a flood of Women’s Day ads and content – most of both going through the motions of recognising the day and attempting to honour women. Most, as R Jagannathan wrote , fail miserably at the task. “Women should not be equal to men, says a Tata Tea ad featuring Shah Rukh Khan. “In fact, they should always be ahead of them.” The Bollywood star then goes on to say that he will always put the names of his women stars ahead of himself in future movies,” is how Jagannathan begins his piece. And, to begin with, the Tata Tea thought is not new. Take a look at the Marks & Spencer ad below: [caption id=“attachment_653217” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Marks and Spencer Ad.[/caption] Marks & Spencer put Jill ahead of Jack, and they put women first ages ago. It cannot be too difficult to move away from patronising and condescending ads in India, where we are seeing the growth of women in the workplace, an increase in women in education. It gets more challenging for women, torn as they are between the demands made by the home and the demands at the workplace. Look at the ad from Grazia at the bottom of the post: “In Italy, 52% of women are forced to quit their job after giving birth to a child. But the chance of reconciling maternity and career is an essential requirement of civility that the State must commit to guarantee…,” the ad continues. We couldn’t find figures for India – but they couldn’t be better – they’re more likely to be worse. There cannot be a day better than Women’s day to launch a debate on the issue, as Grazia seems to have done. There are other possibilities, as the one Dow saw in Chennai. Take a look at the bottom. Dow directly invited women engineers to tell the company about what needed to be done for women engineers, prompting issues such as flexible hours and day-care facilities – both of which would prevent the flood of women ending their careers after giving birth to a child. And finally, there’s the route that is the most obvious – recognising that there are many, many women super-achievers that men and women all over the world admire. Take this ad from the Cape Times. [caption id=“attachment_653211” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Cape Times AD with Rosa Parks[/caption] Rosa Parks, seated in the bus in the photograph, was asked by the driver to get off the bus. The rest, as they say, is history. Parks would later be called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement” by the US Congress. On 8 March 2014, can we see more ads like these, instead of rubbish offering discounts at gymnasiums for women?

Women’s Day by