Nital, the Italian importer of Nikon products, begins this promotion:
The picture shows that buying a D700 for Dad, you get a vacuum cleaner (Roomba) for Mom. Photography is for male and housework for women, in Italy????? What do you think about?
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Nikon Ad Sexist?
(26 posts) (19 voices)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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Made me chuckle...
Posted 2 years ago # -
Chicks don't like vacuums as presents. Or stuff for the kitchen.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Change has to come from the top down (Berlusconi!) or from the bottom up (grass roots). Nital is irrelevant in this context.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I really don't see how this ad can be construed as being sexist :D What has the world come to when everywhere you look, someone is yelling racism, discrimination, etc.
No offence, but did you even think about the ad when you posted about it? I assume that you didn't. Because if you had, then you would have realised that an AUTOMATIC vacuum cleaner would actually liberate the wife/mom/female of the opposite sex of the housekeeping role bestowed upon her by the society. Look at it any way you like, but women tend to do the majority of the house cleaning chores, in our case mostly because the men spend their weekends in (insert favourite location here) taking/making photos :P I think this ad isn't sexist one bit. This is of course casting aside whether mom would want a vacuum cleaner as a present or not :D
Posted 2 years ago # -
Sexist perhaps, Real life definitely. fortunately I know better than to buy my wife a vacuum as a gift. When I want a new lens, I buy her jewelry.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I'm very suspicious of why this got posted so don't attempt to re-post a direct link to the importer.
Posted 2 years ago # -
So... Is my wife sexist against herself for asking for a vacuum for christmas? Or is
she trying to set me up?Posted 2 years ago # -
at least it's not saying to buy mom a scale. now that's suicide!
Posted 2 years ago # -
What if they were selling mom the D700 and dad the robot?
This would still be sexist, the poor woman would need to carry a brick around her neck to take tons of great shots of her husband and kids while having none of herself while the man could lazy around the house gaining weight while the robot do all the work.
Me I get the worst of both propositions, I carry the brick and do the vacuuming ;D
Posted 2 years ago # -
That's true
My mom always complains about not being in old family pictures because she always took themPosted 2 years ago # -
Pierre - You're not the only one ;)
Posted 2 years ago # -
Look up in the corner of the screen: the Roomba is located in the center of the symbol for "female". I've seen the full ad (this copy is cut off at the top) and it has the camera in the center of the symbol for "male". I think that pretty much pushes this ad over the top into the sexist realm.
Posted 2 years ago # -
You think this ad is sexist, you should see Italian TV......
Posted 2 years ago # -
Whats sexist about this? it may be a little lacking in "taste" but there is nothing "sexist" about this.
this is no more sexist than a makeup ad designed for women, or a powertool ad geared towards men
Posted 2 years ago # -
What on earth is sexist about a company realixing that for most part men are too lazy to clean the house and women (for most part) are not. Like I said before .. IT IS A ROBOT VACUUM ... how on earth is that sexist?
I really don't understand why the world has become so oversensitized to all **ist-s. I don't want to make this thread political but the last thing that pops to mind is a UK toystore removing pigs from sale because "they could offend muslims and jews". If the mentioned case had been widely publicised, I would have considered it a marketing stunt, but it came out because a parent who wanted to buy a toy pig for some toy set and couldn't, made a complaint.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The point of the ad was to show how both products make life easier.
I could do all the vacuuming. At least I would be in family pictures then.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I believe that it's sexist mostly because of our backgrounds, like this kind of sexism has happen for a while now and even though it's less popular now, we still see it from time to time.
I think what is unfair here is that they propose that the male gets a super awesome and expensive camera, which is a tool you produce content with, aka a noble object in a way, while the vacuum is only used to clean the space... it's a pointless tool other than make a repetitive none creative task, there's no prestige in that.
I'm wondering.. why are these things written on baby hands? I would have expected a woman hand and her husband.. idk.
Posted 2 years ago # -
This is nothing compared to the Nikon ad comparing a new COOLPIX camera to the older model. The ad had a woman with big boobs in front of a not so big boobed woman. Then there was the Nikon ad showing a woman eating a big sausage at a nude Bar-B-Q (picnic).
Posted 2 years ago # -
poster said:
The point of the ad was to show how both products make life easier.I could do all the vacuuming. At least I would be in family pictures then.
True. But, given that there are male and female symbols at the top of the page, and an icon of one product is contained in each symbol (camera=man, vacuum-woman), the ad explicitly states that the camera makes life easier for men and the vacuum makes life easier for women.
That kind of sucks if you are a woman. I am a man, so I am happy to get the camera.
However, my wife may see the ad and want to use that camera...MY camera. Nikon is not helping me.
Posted 2 years ago # -
To political for my taste.
To assume the surrounding values, typical roles, or advertising in an area apply to some other country has nothing to do with cameras, lenses, or rumors there of.
I say we close this one and direct topics like this for other venues.
Posted 2 years ago # -
>>>Because if you had, then you would have realised that an AUTOMATIC vacuum cleaner would actually liberate the wife/mom/female of the opposite sex of the housekeeping role bestowed upon her by the society.
Bull. That's like saying that all the homemaker ads from the 1950s were actually liberating for women because all the new electric appliances with timers and such somehow freed women from some of the drudgery of housework.
The ad is sexist because it makes the assumption that only Dad would be interested in the camera and only Mom would be interested in the vacuum. It assumes that the responsibility for cleaning the house is the woman's, even if her only act was to turn on the Roomba, and that the interest in photography would only come from the male.
There are many ways to make such a campaign non-sexist:
1) Don't make it about male/female roles: "Buy your family the most technologically advanced camera and we'll throw in the world's most technologically advanced vacuum!"2) Show that everyone has a potential interest in photography and also has an interest in keeping their place clean: Show a single guy or gal who has a big interest in photography, but lives alone and who has a dirty place and is in need of a vacuum. It could have been, "take amazing pictures while your house gets amazingly cleaned!"
3) As part of the same campaign, propose the reverse: "A new camera for Mom and an automatic vacuum for Dad!" They could show Mom taking pictures of something (street scenes, the kids, construction workers, brides) and Dad watching Sports or pursuing some hobby while the vacuum is working.
4) Show both Mom and Dad out taking photos and show the Roomba cleaning with no one home.
Aside from the sexism, this is a very poorly executed campaign anyway as it doesn't present a single benefit of owning that camera model aside from getting a vacuum. If another company's camera was also offered with a vacuum, then the Nikon holds no other differentiating factor, according to this ad. It's also an ugly ad. Writing on hands?
Posted 2 years ago #
Topic Closed
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