The violently sexist fake Ford ads designed by some fertile minds at JWT India have little to do with the automotive company. Ford issued an apology, JWT fired the employees responsible, and the ads were never even commissioned, let alone meant for publication (though there is now even some confusion about that).
The ads speak naught about Ford, but volumes regarding the way many creatives – not just a handful at JWT India – misuse women in their work.
In this case, the images promoting Ford’s Figo hatchback surfaced at a particularly sensitive time. Last Thursday, the country approved tougher laws around sex crimes following international outcry and prolific local protests over some recent, heartrending incidents of rape. In North America, much attention has been paid to the sexual assault case in Steubenville, Ohio.
Discussions regarding violence against women have been prevalent in recent weeks because of these cases and others, and so the JWT ad has been chastised, rightfully, as though it’s the first advertising to not only demean women, but to implicitly condone the idea of violence toward them.
This is not to say that the widespread anger toward JWT India is undeserved. It is deserved. But would this ad have gone viral if it didn’t feature caricatures of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi alongside a pack of women tied up against their will? In another of the JWT mock-ups, it’s the Kardashian sisters, tied up in the trunk, illustrated to appear defenseless and traumatized. If the JWT staffers hadn’t depicted famous celebrities and a high-profile political figure in the ads, would the outrage be this severe?
A 2008 Duncan Quinn print campaign featured a scantily clad woman lying on the hood of a car while a well-dressed man strangled her with his necktie. An ad from Sisley (a clothing brand owned by Benetton Group) once showed a man rendering a scared-looking woman helpless by forcibly tying her up on a couch. In 2012, a Belvedere Vodka poster claimed its product went down smoothly “unlike some people,” and showed a woman, being groped, trying to escape the man attacking her. Belvedere eventually apologized, but as Forbes‘ James Poulos put it, “if you find yourself rushing to take down an ad that could be interpreted as making light of rape, you’re doing internet marketing wrong.”
JWT India’s misstep is not the first time an agency has used images of women being harmed to promote a product. If creatives learn anything from this embarrassing debacle, it’ll be the last.
