Perverted Persuasion
SEX SELLS! THE OLD ADAGE SAYS. This particular strategy of the liberal advertising machinery is becoming more apparent in our increasingly permissive society. The sexual allure of the female form is frequently denigrated to sell anything from a spark plug to farming implements. In their quest to eliminate any and all moral boundaries, advertising agencies have discarded with such trifling matters as human dignity and decency. A careful examination of the images and ideas being promoted by the secular humanistic marketing gurus, reveal a philosophy that is mostly at odds with South African society.
Sandton’s street promotions
A drive through Sandton’s main roads, namely Rivonia and William Nicol Drive can be quite disturbing. Massive billboards depicting scantily clad women in very provocative stances citing sexual innuendo’s are forced upon you. These advertisers probably think they are promoting women’s underwear but a snap survey of women of various ages decries something else. Everyone we questioned, without fail, felt the adverts were aimed at men rather than women. Women generally don’t like to see other women posing provocatively in their underwear. It shifts from being tasteful to sleazy.
Talking about sleazy, this town is also littered with billboards for strip clubs. One could be forgiven for thinking they were driving through Las Vegas not Sandton suburbia. Do these establishments have no regard for the property values they diminish in the suburbs? These adverts are shocking with their lavotorial humour and make for a very uncomfortable drive with one’s children in the car. An absolute disgrace! What has happened to common decency? The perverted thinking of a few are forcing their visual pollution upon innocent citizens of all ages. It is time to put a stop to this. Christians Arise!!! Pastors and leaders take a stand today and contact Christian Action Group, Tarryn Hodgen. See their advert on the next page and inquire about how to go about protesting this invasion in your suburb. If the churches in the area unite and encourage their congregations to do something then this new evil will be curbed. If we do nothing, we are actually allowing ourselves to become subliminally de-sensitised and things can only get worse. See the story in our news section on something similar overseas.
Another assault
The dignity of women and the aged - courtesy of the Saatchi & Saatchi Ad Agency in Johannesburg – came in the form of a print ad campaign for the South African Post Office. The ad, published in a major newspaper, featured a grandmotherly figure ogling a scantily clad image of a young male model. What this bizarre advertisement seemed to suggest is that the depths that advertising agencies are willing to sink in their relentless pursuit of more prestigious accolades, are limitless. Most ad campaigns today are more about winning awards than selling products. More concerning however, is the fact that a relatively benign institution like the Post Office would choose to adopt a sexually provocative marketing strategy that deliberately undermines the dignity and social standing of the aged.
16 days of activism
Tragically, the crude and deplorable sexual innuendo contained in the Post Office ad accurately reflects the moral ambivalence pervasive in contemporary South African society. The legitimisation and tacit acceptance of sexually deviant behaviour have already seriously undermined our foundational social institutions. A natural and frightening extension of this perverse ideology is the undermining of the dignity of our most precious assets – our senior citizens. Significantly, it is an indictment on our political leadership that a nation currently being decimated by the consequences of sexual irresponsible behaviour idly sits by, while a state owned institution actively contributes to the sexual denigration of women and the aged. What makes this all the more concerning is that this deplorable ad hit the newspapers at precisely the same time that government launched its much hyped – but toothless - 16 Days of Activism against the abuse of Women and Children campaign.
The profit incentives that perpetuate these advertising anomalies have often motivated advertisers to plumb the depths of depravity. Last year national free-to-air television channel, E-TV, broadcast a series of ads peddling explicit and erotic images of women, which could be downloaded to cell phones by simply smsing a message to the service provider. Reports of children downloading hard-core pornographic images to their cellphones and then sharing them with their friends soon hit the headlines.
Following this outrage and the resulting barrage of complaints submitted to the Advertising Standards Authority by horrified parents, an agreement was reached to better protect our children from being exposed to sexually explicit advertising. The Wireless Application Service Providers Association (WASPA) was formed to govern the code of conduct of cell-phone networks and protect the public against bad practices.
However, children are increasingly becoming the focus of advertising campaigns. Currently, the most targeted (and exploited) group in advertising is the youth. In fact, the advertising and marketing industry carefully tracks the shifting trends and fickle fancies of teens to determine what’s ‘in’ or ‘out’. Ad campaigns, for the most part, are geared to attract the attention of teens - arguably the most influential demographic group in our information driven and highly technological economy. This testosterone-charged setting presents advertisers with the perfect environment (and excuse) to constantly challenge society’s moral threshold. The more risqué the ad campaign, the more it is likely to attract the attention of our youth. Many social analysts agree that a large percentage of teen anti-social behaviour can be directly attributed to the role of the media. Ads aimed at young people consistently push the boundaries of morality and decency, mimicking the attitude so prevalent amongst our youth today. When one considers modern day advertising standards – it is a toss up whether art imitates life - or in the case of the irresistible and unrelenting influence of the media – life imitating art.
Print media
The print and electronic advertising medium is a powerful and compelling way of creatively communicating a message to the widest possible audience. The humanistic philosophy of complete sexual liberty has infiltrated the advertising message and is being utilized to subliminally recondition our largely conservative view of sexual behaviour. As a consequence, the Biblical view of human sexuality is being steadily eroded by the humanistic intelligentsias vice- like grip on the popular media. The evidence of this downward spiral into moral relativism is nowhere more apparent than in our daily ‘family’ newspapers. As front page headlines trumpet the latest incidence of family murder, rape, or abuse of our women and children, the back pages and classifieds invariably reveal the staggering hypocrisy latent in the media. Seedy advertisements for strip joints regularly feature scantily clad women in sexually suggestive and submissive poses, reinforcing the stereotype that women are nothing more than sex objects. The classifieds essentially transform the female gender into cheap commodities for sale - existing primarily for the sexual gratification of men.
The overall impact of these lewd and irresponsible advertising methods is tragically reflected in our daily news bulletins. South Africa boasts some of the highest incidences of murder, rape and abuse of women and children in the world. Inexplicably, the full horror of this national disgrace has not convinced the advertising fraternity to change its ways. This sad, but tragic, reality places the ball firmly in the court of the Church. Christians can, and must, make a difference. When we speak up and take action things invariably change. If ordinary Christians, in their thousands, took the time and responsibility to register their opposition to this lewd form of advertising, we could turn the tide. The lack of opposition to any form of abuse is generally translated as tacit approval. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was established to gauge society’s tolerance of advertising ethics. Whenever generally accepted moral standards are breached Christians should flood the ASA with well written objections. We are the moral guardians of society- whether we acknowledge it or not - after all the Book of Wisdom declares that ‘righteousness exalts a nation’.
By Errol Naidoo
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