11–20 of 44 posts
It doesn't look to me like any of the women in those examples were forced to pose a certain way. It's a problem if you make it a problem.
In almost all cases (barring special messaging/targeting), using pictures of attractive people will give better results - if you're using pictures of average people for no good reason, then you're hurting the outcome, putting out suboptimal product; it would be just like using a less-than-readable typeface for your marketing copy - unprofessional.
Gender of the pictures matters - it should be adjusted for target message and audience, but more often than not (2/3?) a picture of a woman will be more effective (attract attention and positive emotion) than a similar picture of a man. Take a look at magazine covers - both men-targeted and women-targeted magazines will prefer to have women on their covers, since that is what will get them more sales.
And that is not an arbitrary bias of publishers, this is a reflection of the true bias of the viewers, and it probably will stay that way until we're not entirely homo sapiens anymore.
I can’t stand this video. Watching toned men parade around with their junk sticking out makes me feel very uncomfortable. Obviously the author is not a fan of men in glittery pants, but I suspect that the video may not make quite the point intended.
Marketing copy with attractive people tends to convert better than marketing copy with unattractive people. Are we just supposed to sabotage our own marketing material in order to... what exactly?
If sex sells its not because IT is a male dominated industry, its because sex sells to the population at large. Why don't you go to Hollywood and tell them to start hiring more unattractive actresses in star roles, I'm sure that would have a much larger and more immediate impact than changing the marketing copy on a few landing pages.
You can't honestly expect IT to be the ones that pioneer more 'ethical' marketing practices.
It doesn't look to me like any of the women in those examples were forced to pose a certain way. It's a problem if you make it a problem.
I've never seen it before, but decided to watch it (discreetly as I could at work), and I don't see the author's issue with it. That paragraph, instead of coming off as "we wouldn't sexualize men, so we shouldn't sexualize women" instead comes off as "I am slightly homophobic and don't like seeing nearly naked men".
Honestly, I dug the video and thought it was pretty clever and funny. If the author has an issue with nearly naked men and their junk, perhaps that's a personal problem the author should address outside of the context of how to treat women.
Now, on to the actual message of the article. I get how sexualizing women in a workplace is bad. But to say "remove sexuality from marketing materials" (mockups are marketing materials, after all) is just dumb. Sex sells. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter what you're selling. That's why Fruit of the Looms commercials have buff men in underwear (they're marketing to wives/girlfriends who actually do the cloth purchasing) and why beer commercials have women in bikinis (marketing to men who buy beer).
So, sorry, but the sheer economics of it means that there's going to be sexualized materials in marketing (with both men and women being sexualized depending on the target audience).