Then his next task is to highlight the product. With the earlier attraction in mind, steering the thoughts of potential consumers to a less attractive product certainly proves hard.
Then, do ads as such achieve their goal to “sell” the product with all its advantages? Or do ad agencies hope to cash in solely on the seductive charms of their brand ambassadors?
“I’m not a feminist or anything like that, but ads like these and some others that present women as completely incapable of making their own decisions irritates me immensely,” says Anita Thapa, President of Youth Initiative, putting aside a magazine with such an ad on its back cover.
Currently pursuing Women’s Studies at Tribhuvan University (TU), Thapa also has a keen interest in advertisement and promotional management.
“Sometimes, I wonder why women even do these kinds of ads. But it’s showbiz. If one doesn’t, someone else will,” she says.
According to her, ad messages, rather than informing, seem to be misguiding the society. Repeated messages like talents don’t work. Only beauty does. And to take that a woman is only as good as she is at household chores is detrimental to progressive psyche. Even multinational company adverts that are exposed to a large population – from urban centers to remote areas – neglect gender sensitivity, she says.
“It’s already frustrating to see women being constantly portrayed as domestic servers; and on top, they’re shown clueless about even the household issues, with men or even kids telling them what to choose. From concepts to cheesy tag lines, Nepali advertisements completely ignore gender perspectives,” she says.
At a recent talk program at Martin Chautari on the topic of “Portrayal of Women in TV Advertisements,” Indira Mishra, an M. Phil student at TU, stated that most Nepali advertisements are “jeopardizing women’s empowerment.”
By constantly presenting women as “passive, dependent, subservient, frivolous, materialistic” and by pressurizing them with the compulsion to look beautiful, such ads disempower them by filling them with either insecurities or vanities. She also noted that ads never include women in expertise, and some even tend to hamper women’s solidarity.
“Advertisements not only sell goods but ideologies, too. Nepali advertisements are sending out discriminatory patriarchal ideologies, and women have to be conscious when exposed to such messages repeatedly,” Mishra says. “Even women’s magazines seem to be catering more to the vanity of women – focusing on beauty tips and makeovers rather than women’s empowerment.” It is very much like health magazines promoting the need to look skinny, with the buzzword “zero size” on its cover.
Sunita Nhemaphuki, former Managing Director of Link Ad agency and currently studying at Dhaka University, says there are still not many women working in conceptual designs of advertisements.
“But even when we’re in the creative and design sector, we can’t change the concept in one day, as it depends on the product, the target audience, and the client’s requirements, with the major factor being the social structure,” she says. “It will take time.”
The question then is, how long will it take to bring that change in society?
Media has always played an important role in bringing about changes in society. The messages that are played and replayed through media go a long way in determining the mindsets of the people.
But when media itself sends out messages that not only retain but reinforce traditional and biased patriarchal ideologies, how can one expect the very society to progress to that change?
Aarti Chataut, Executive Producer at Nepal Television and a gender activist, says, “In developing countries like ours, media doesn’t only have the role to reflect but also guide the society.”
According to her, who has been monitoring national and international advertisements through gender perspectives, western advertisements can afford to be exclusively informative as they have sensitive and cognizant consumers. But for Nepal, “advertisements have to be message-oriented so that they can fill the vacuole in sending social messages that can create an awareness and empowered audience.”
Her report on monitoring Nepali electronic media during prime time in 2006-07 showed that 70% of visual advertisements used female models. In most, either they were presented as commodities to attract viewers, or molded them in subservient traditional roles, always catering to the male members.
“Presenting women in traditional roles isn’t the negative part, but demeaning her visually and verbally, commodifying her, and then using her in every product – some not even related to her – are objectionable,” she says.
When asked for an opinion on why most ads use female models, Bharat Lal Nyachhon, Executive Director of Advertising Association of Nepal, says, “It’s simple. This is a field of glamour. The need of the target audience, market and product is attraction, and female models can get you that.”
Chataut, however, believes that the need to use women in ads to attract is only a myth. “It’s the lack of creativity whereby you resort to such logic,” she says, “If ad is about glamour, fine, as women have always captivated men with their sex appeals. But where’s all the glamour and appeal for women? Ad makers tend to forget that the viewers also consist of women.”
As for the viewers or consumers, Chataut says that they too have to come out of their passive state and voice out against contents and messages that they find offensive.
But as long as the market, media and society are guided by patriarchal beliefs, ad makers will continue to ignore gender perspectives. Moreover, they are even free to convey whatever they like in ads, no matter how derogatory it is to women, because no rules or regulations will speak against it.
“Can you believe that only NTV asks for censorship approval certificates for visual ads, and no other channel do? We have no monitoring mechanism in Nepal,” says Chataut.
Santosh Poudel, creative supervisor at Business Advantage, a leading advertisement agency, says, “There’s no ad policy yet. So print ads are released without any censorship. As for TV ads, we process them through the Motion Picture Censor Board, so as to be on the safe side. But then, not all [TV] channels ask for censorship approval certificates; only government channels like NTV does.”
According to him, print ads can also be more indiscreet as they are released directly without any checks. So ad people don’t think about sensitive matters, and that can cause controversies in future.
Mahendra Guragain, President of the Censor Board, also adds that there is no separate law for monitoring advertisements in print, audio or visual as such.
“We review visual advertisements following the Motion Picture Act, and no ad with obscene content is cleared for broadcast. But there’s nothing particular on gender. I’m not exactly sure; we need to check the book,” Guragain says.
The Motion Picture Act, however, does not state anything on gender issue and nor does the National Broadcasting Act. Nonetheless, Guragain asserts that the Censor Board does have a female representative to see things through gender perspectives. It is important that more women are present at policy and decision making levels to raise gender issues. But that alone does not solve everything.
“Gender sensitivity and professionalism in the media sector is what’s more important,” says Chataut.
As the law does not state anything on the need to check or mandate censorship approval for ads, media houses are not bothered with it, either. Advertisement messages thus go uninhibited, and sensitive matters, such as gender issues, remain unaddressed.
While still at it, laws and code of ethics might be viewed and reviewed through gender perspectives. What is even more important is acknowledging them. This can be imagined only in a professional scenario, with trained human resources who are gender-sensitized and hold positive outlooks on self-monitoring of ad contents.
To bring about a change in social structure and outlook on women is definitely a daunting task. But if one truly believes in empowerment, all it takes is to rightly perceive and portray women, and have a progressive mindset at that.
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