You want thighs with that?
Who and what is this mystery girl?
As you can see, the HURRY! SALE is Now On.
Also On is a svelte siren with sparkly eyes and shiny lips.
Who is she and what does she mean to us as customers and businesspeople?
Is she
- The owner making a cameo (a la Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now)?
- A vain major shareholder, throwing her weight around?
- The GM’s niece, building a portfolio?
- A work experience student, tasting the coal face of commerce?
- The brochure designer, giving us a Rembrandt Night Watch moment?
- The receptionist?
- A sales person?
- A delivery driver?
- Something else?
On the scent
Flipping through the catalogue of business items, I found no link or reference to this nameless naiad.
Her secrets remain inviolate behind her purple screen.
What I do know is this. The more I wonder about her aspect, identity and purpose, the less I think about:
- Business consumables.
- Capital purchases.
- The focus and integrity of those in and behind this publication.
Is it her, or is it me?
Other women
I’m used to seeing come-hither sylphs draped over cars, reclining on lounges and sprinting inside watches.
Hell, I even had one punching a speedball in my last superannuation statement!
While none of these mascots has ever personally appeared in a supply chain, they always seem ‘there’.
So is their role more abstract than concrete?
Sex bomb
We often hear that ‘sex sells’.
Would this mystery miss help you buy $1,845 of selective pallet racking?
Or a $3,790 multifunction copier?
How about a $288 flagpole (with Aussie flag)?
I feel neutral at best about these things.
Maybe she’s not my type.
Or just maybe, in our enlightened, egalitarian world of 2010, female ornaments are neither needed nor welcome.
This catalogue is ‘delivered to 120,000 businesses by your friendly postie’.
I wonder what the other 119,999 think of it.
If you saw Miss Terry skipping down your street,
would you wait by the letter box?
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire
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I sigh, and shake my head. There is an element of truth in the power of using a human face, any human face as it is deeply, viscerally embedded in us to respond. As babies we are born with the urge to seek out and gaze at human faces, usually our mother’s, in order to create a bond and (hopefully) get loved, fed, held…
But, why plonk a pic of a pretty chicky-babe in there? As you say, is she really going to be the added ‘je ne sais quoi’ that influences a $2K purchase of selective pallet racking? I don’t think so! When sex sells it is because the leap from ‘buy this product’ to ‘because it will help you pull sexy chicky-babes like this’ has been convincingly and congruently made.
What a missed opportunity to use the power of the human face to truly create a connection with the advertisers market. How much better would it have been to have an image of ‘Bob’ from ‘Bob’s Pallets and More’, maybe with a brief statement about how Bob believes in his product so much that he offers 100% money back guarantee and is available via phone and email to answer customers queries.
When Joe from Really Big Warehouse comes in to view Bob’s range of pallet options, Joe already feels a connection with Bob, after all this is the second time he’s ‘met’ Bob.
We all crave connection, look at the popularity of Facebook, Twitter etc… Conversations and personal connections are changing the way we market our businesses. The worst possible thing we small business owners can do is try to be too corporate, faceless and bland. Look at the big boys like AAMI and iSelect, they’re imitating us, giving their brand a personality, one person (in the case of iSelect a somewhat loopy person) to connect with.
After ridding the world of pointless chicky-babes in advertising, I think my next mission is to ban all bland stock library images of ’successful teams’ or ‘distinguished-looking older business man’. But that’s another article.
Thanks for the opportunity to vent spleen Paul. I’ll go away and do some work now.
Dang, Angela. That’s some of the best spleen I’ve seen vented. Lucky I had my bucket ready.
Your thoughts are so deep and clear and beautifully expressed. Can you please write a guest post for us soon?!
I like your suggestion a lot. I often ring AAMI in the afternoons, in the vain hope I might have a word with that stunning girl on the brochure just once. No luck yet.
If I wanted pallet racking, I’d rather deal with Bob any day. Even if he were unshaven, overweight and mildly whiffy. So long as he knew his racks and gave a damn about my pallets.
Thank you so much for your contribution.
*SIGH*
Love to! You’re on. Topic and timing?
Cool! Given your background ANYTHING you write will be of interest to our readers.
Simply pitch a para to Naomi, who’ll guide you through the rest. Timing is whenever you damn well feel like it.
Hi Paul,
Honestly, I could just say “What she said” and reference Angela’s vent.
The one thing I would add is using a sexually appealing woman in promotional material is patronizing to all us women who make decisions about where money is being spent. In case anyone missed the myriad of research conducted on spending habits, women make most of the decisions.
The girl from AAMI doesn’t bother me. She’s a fresh-faced innocent which seems like a reasonable representation of a customer service operator. She’s attractive, for sure, but there’s nothing provocative about her.
Thanks for another insightful post.
I’m with you, Sarah. Vents don’t come much better.
That’s a very good point you make about who spends the loot. Talk about barking up the wrong tree!
I didn’t mean to imply that AAMI’s girl is provocative. My point was that I don’t believe she really works there. I think she’s a figurehead.
However, I just realised I could be very very wrong. Is there an AAMI rep in the house? Perhaps the lass herself could join us …
Many thanks for your input, Sarah.
Just Tweeted:
Calling AAMI. Does that pretty lass on your brochures actually work for you? If so, you can make me look REALLY silly @ http://bit.ly/9fncyx
Fingers crossed …
Yeah, now I’ve read and agree with all that you say but can you explain why women’s magazines almost always have young, slim good looking, cleavage displaying women on their front covers if the use of them “is patronizing to all us women”
You got me there, Winston. I’ve tried and tried to fathom those jolly mags, but I just can’t do it. I’m going to have to ask the audience …
Because in this instance it’s aspirational. The magazines are asking us women to ‘buy’ the idea of being the “slim good looking, cleavage displaying woman” on the cover. Bizarre though it might seem, it is actually convincing and congruent.
There are differences in marketing to men and women. Men will respond to images of beautiful women, so draping a slinky young lass (oh how old do I sound?) over a Lamborghini says ‘buy me and you’ll pull girls like this’. Women constantly reference each other, “am I as pretty as her?”, “would that outfit look good on me?” so the magazine uses a pretty woman to say ‘buy me and you’ll look like this’.
Are you attempting to understand women Winston? Always slippery turf
Thanks for helping us out, Angela!
I get the aspirational bit. I guess that’s why you see ripped blokes wearing chunky watches, sloshing themselves with cologne and driving 4WDs in those glossy business mags.
But what does it mean when a bad shot of a tired starlet is Photoshopped beyond ANY semblance of reality?
How can women aspire to THAT?!
And, given that they KNOW they’re being duped, how can they keep coming back for more?
I know this is dangerous ground, but I’d genuinely like to know how this works.
I may have to bow out of this one and request some input from a younger, less cynical woman as I don’t buy magazines.
As you say Paul, what’s to aspire to when the cover image is either a 16 year old who has cracked under the combined pressure of the paparazzi, her manager and probably her own fantasies and become a bulimic travesty of young womanhood or a 30+ year old, ‘POSITIVE ROLE MODEL FOR WOMEN’ yes, all in capital letters, who is so confident and at home in her skin that it took a team of retouchers a day to express her true self.
Talk about tangents from your original topic but I do so resent being sold fashion by models my daughters age or being asked to believe that Hollywood actresses, many years my senior actually look like the Photoshopped creations on the covers of the mainstream fashion magazines.
I take comfort in watching my daughters interact with the world, primarily through their computers, selecting and resisting as they see fit. Good luck to the advertisers trying to reach them as they are so savvy, so fast and so able to screen out the nonsense. This is the new generation rising up. Beware dinosaur companies who don’t respect this new generation of customers.
Good show, Angela. Sounds like a little sense remains yet.
I’d like nothing more than for your daughters to expose and excoriate the follies of their predecessors. All power to them.
BTW, we love tangents!
What a powerful series of comments…
Not much to add, except ‘yay’, and ‘one of the most affirming decisions I ever made, at about 24, was to stop buying and reading those magazines that pretend to be for women, but are really aimed forcing women into a very narrow stereotype of what is ‘feminine’ ’sexy’ and ‘acceptable’. My life took off from that day and is still going strong decades later!’
I am woman, I am strong…
That is really wonderful to hear, Joanna. The females portrayed in those mags are so far from the smart, powerful, switched-on women I know that it’s great to know you feel that way. Thanks for taking the time!
Meanwhile, Angela, ask your daughters to cast their gimlet eyes over these fine products:
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/actions/toady2010.html
Do you think these will fly in their brave new world?
When I see these young women appearing in advertising, I think “aargh, sexism!” – and worse – “aargh, stock photo!” Ditto pictures of men that don’t look like the ones one might meet in the street, minus the sexism comment.
Lower yourself to cliched stock photos and it just makes your brand look cheap, and like you don’t really care about your image and that Ms A. N. Onymous is perfect for your figurehead.
I so agree with Angela – get the real people from an organisation in the pictures, even if it does mean giving them a shave/tidy-up/full make-over. At least you won’t run the risk of seeing them advertising multiple, possibly incompatible, brands.
Wise words, Smiffy. Thank you for writing them, and for being part of our forum. The approach you describe sure worked a treat for Baker’s Delight. We really appreciate your view.
Your post has me rethinking my mantra of “It’s all about the words.”
Just listened (and glanced up here and there) to an infomercial on late night tv (EST USA) about “Free Money” and on one side of the table were two very attractive women dressed conservatively in business suits, and on the other side of the table were two bombshell buxomy babes (were they real?). And I’m still trying to figure out what they were doing at the table. (Not enough to really pay attention to the pitch of the background noise.)
And then I read your post by chance and now I’m cracking up.
I’d linger but a weight loss infomercial about a 550 pound woman just came on so I have to go. All this talk about metabolism and 85 pound weight loss in 9 months and body types is grabbing my attention. You know, a customized plan and wanting to learn how my body handles the food I put into it.
Keep the good stuff coming. It’s making all of us think.
Cheryl C. Cigan
http://www.known.org
Thanks a lot, Cheryl. I’m very pleased to hear we’re striking chords over the waves.
I’m also delighted to see your new article directory taking off. If you have a moment at some stage, I’d love you to summarise for our readers what you’re doing with that initiative.
Best regards, P.
LOL! Thank you Paul for your kind words and your invitation. I promise to return and give you a summary of progress with the new article directory.
I just can’t seem to pull myself away from this infomercial right now. It’s actually great copywriting and a phenomenal sales pitch of “The Offer”
Actually, it’s 2:00 am and I’m heading off to sleep!
Thank you again,
Cheryl
Any time will be ace, Cheryl. Sweet dreams!
Don’t feint…it’s tardy me…better late than never ey?
Well Cobba, I see your ‘Blakeian’ talent for ’seeing the world in a grain of sand’ is anything but diminishing
I would venture to opine that much of advertising has very little to do with reason…especially the kind of image-based advertising as above. It may have more to do with capturing what we do not know (or admit
), about ourselves…it targets the moments in between thoughts, where our nature abides. That quick reflex glance…gotcha! Then the numbers kick-in. Out of the 73% of hetero-males that have such a reflex, perhaps 20% may, having suffered a mild whip-lash, involuntarily read the add while they’re there?
Speaking of numbers…what are the ramifications of Conditioned Human Consumers (enbracket)’Constant and Never-Ending Stupidity’ multiplied by global communications divided by fewer and larger monopolies (close bracket), exponentiated?
Or in other words, is conditioning by definition unconscious?.. and if so, are we actually getting more predictable as consumers, whilst becoming less conscious and therefore less autonomous as humans? The paradox of information overload? Are we becoming dumber while at the same time believing that we are becoming smarter and better informed?
If it helps to alleviate the affronted ladies, perhaps we could reasonably change the adage that ’sex sells’ to ‘the primal urge to replicate leads to sales often enough to keep leveraging it’?
I think the bottom-line is that it is done because it works. e.g. It’s not politicians that scare me, it’s the idiots with 3 second attention-spans that swallow what they say that really scare me.
Example: And I don’t want it to sound like I’m lobbying for Uncle Kev here, it’s just an example; but how many people do you hear talking about the bluddy God-awful mess that John Howard left our Country in and how long it takes to even try to clean-up such a mess, let alone actually clean it up?
How many people have noticed that the Liberal strategy has ever been to create a mess that the Labour party couldn’t possibly clean-up in a term? Look at the numbers…it works. And you wonder why they don’t worry about having actual policies?
Meanwhile the Labour party actually believes that they can fix it? I studied economics…I learned about collusion… ;-P
You know we’re soaking in it…still
Cheers
Stephen G
Just as I fling my manacled body seaward, the great Log of Life that is Stephen cruises past and snares my final grasp.
If I see the world in a grain, Cobber, you see the universe in a bucket.
Yet instead of flinging it vainly at some dredging-denuded blue-ribbon beach, you turn it and build a castle, with flag and all.
We’ve been soaking a while. Now for the spin!
Hey all,
Found this page by random, and I believe I can answer the question about the AAMI girl. I worked at AAMI for 3 years and was asked at least once a day about her. Offically, she does work for aami. She is a model who is on a retainer and only works for aami. But here is a shock – she is really blonde. They “fix” her hair so that she continues the image of the aami girl. The first aami girl was a employee. We were told the current aami girl is a mother who lives in QLD.
Toodles
Fascinating stuff, presumed. Thank you very much for letting us know!