Bloomingdale's and the Date-Rape Ad

It is a rare thing that keeps advertisers and marketing representatives alike; awake, wandering the halls of their quaint, urban, apartments at night: the fear encased in the release of new print or digital advertisements and exactly how the public will perceive it. Even with as much as advertisers can see into the mind of consumers everywhere (thanks to systems like Nielsen and Simmons), there is still a chance that the consumer won't appreciate a message the way you meant it to be. 

On that same coin, I can't place blame on consumers for seeing this message the way they did, and quite frankly, as an advertising fanatic student, I can't see how it made it out of the creative department in the first place. The print copy states "Spike your best friend's eggnog, when they're not looking." Kind of harmless, right? NO. And, if the copy itself weren't bad enough, the image features a man looking staring at a smiling woman, who just happens to be looking away, laughing. Now with tensions in the female community directly related to date-rape and similar traumas, one would assume we shouldn't joke about those kinds of things, thus normalizing rape - as is fairly typical of today's society. It's not just an issue with the desensitization of rape in our society, it's with the ultimate objectification of women that occurs every. single. day. 

(You can read the Ad Week article that features Bloomingdale's apology as well as a link to the image, here.)

Society as a whole has an issue with women, and even as a Strategic Communication (Advertising and Public Relations) major, I see it all the time in advertisements: from this BMW ad, to this Tom Ford ad, there is no shortage of creepy advertisements out there that have everything to do with making objects out of people. This is causing a much larger problem in society, and arguably contributing to not only violence towards women, but violence as a whole towards everyone. While I know there are several campaigns out there that have overly-sexualized men as a response, it is far more common for women to be portrayed as an object and no more. So when do we say no more? 

Recently, CollegeHumor released a video about sexual assault and violence, (here; seriously watch it, it's amazing) and it's purpose was comparing sexual assault to a bear. Joining ranks with other videos such as Consent (but with tea), it is using a humorous platform to stand up and speak out against date-rape, but the underlying issue still stands. Our society thinks of women as objects, inherently. Who knows if it started with cave-men, or if it lingered hard during the picturesque 1950's, but one thing is for certain, something needs to change. I am not an object. Women are not objects. Men aren't objects. People aren't objects. Objects are objects, and enough is enough. While I can't afford to shop at Bloomingdale's anyway, it's a testament to humanity that this ad got approved in the first place. Jokes are funny, violence isn't. Stand up for what you believe in, and one day we will all matter. 

Nous Sommes Tous Des Gens

Je ne m'en fous, a french phrase meaning I don't care. (Some translations include some more vulgar translations, but for this post, let's consider it I don't care.)

Je ne m'en fous si vous êtes américain. I don't care if you are American.
Je ne m'en fous si vous êtes jeune ou vieux. I don't care if you are young or old. Je ne m'en fous si vous êtes à propos de votre religion. I don't care about your religion.

What I do care about are people, and in Paris, yesterday, the world lost over 150 people. Normal, everyday people, out at a cafe, or enjoying a concert. 150 people have been hurt in this war. This war about conflicting view-points. This war that has killed not only hundreds of people in Paris, but thousands around the world. By no means am I trying to lessen the blow of the impact the Parisian Terror Attacks will have on global history, but I want people to know that there are several instances that do not get televised. Hundreds of people are killed everyday in Syria and Iraq, and this is so frequent that I AM SYRIA (a not-for-profit education resource) has an updated daily death toll calculator here. ISIS is terrorizing the entire world, and while the États Unis et Russie (United States and Russia) have made attempts at air strikes, it may be too late. One of the Parisian attackers was a French national, identified by fingerprints (source). I can't say for certain how many attacks there will be, or even if we will ever see and end, but I do know one thing, we will always stand together. Those of us who choose to band together, and not stand apart. Those of us who hold hands, instead of holding grudges. What these terrorists did was an attempt to tear us all apart, but we have the opportunity as Americans, Parisians, and people to bond together, to love each other through the hate. 


The day after 9/11, the headline of the French newspaper Le Monde read, "Nous sommes tous américains". Meaning, we are all American. Today, after the attacks in Paris, Le Soir (a different newspaper) reads, "Nous sommes tous des Parisiens". And today, after all has been said and done, I believe it to be Nous sommes tous des gens. We are all people.

My sincere apology for any misspellings or mistranslated phrases, I am an Elementary French II student, and not a native speaker.