Advertisers, challenged with cutting through a cluttered marketing environment, sometimes aim to shock. Unfortunately while their aim may be to get their client noticed, our research shows they continue to glorify the violent exploitation of women.

From an ex employee

The online world was all a buzz after hearing that construction company Geocon celebrated building Canberra's tallest residential tower by hiring topless waitresses to hand out drinks to employees on Friday afternoon.

We have a saying at Collective Shout:

Last night I attended a special preview screening of Taryn Brumfitt's new film Embrace. 

Mad Pizza E Bar don’t have the best marketing. That’s the simplest way to put it. Largely because their approach to getting people through the door looks closer to porn than pizza. From the naked women on the walls of their establishment to the close ups of breasts on their menus to the soft-core posts plastered all over their Facebook page, they don’t seem to spend much time focusing on their product – it’s all about the women posing around it.

In late 2015, model Gisele Bündchen starred in an advertising campaign for Stuart Weitzman, a luxury American footwear brand. In one shot for the campaign, Bündchen reclines in a white shirt, its buttons undone to the middle of her chest and her legs bare; in another she squats, topless, in black slacks. Her body becomes the salient point of each of the black and white images, with Weitzman’s shoes reduced to monochromatic props for Bündchen’s prone body in its various states of undress. 

What is objectification? What does it mean to be sexually objectified?

Meghan Murphy from Feminist Current unpacks in more detail with Lindsay Kite from Beauty Redefined. Here are some of Lindsay's answers. 

"Sexual objectification is generally thought of as looking at and viewing people’s bodies as objects for consumption — so, parts of people to be viewed, to be judged, to be consumed, to be used, to be discarded. Not seeing people in their full humanity. We aren’t valuing how they feel, what they do, what they say, what they contribute to the world. We’re simply valuing bodies (women’s bodies, especially) for what they can do for other people, particularly men — how men can consume those bodies, how men value those bodies."

Last month we reported on Calvin Klein's sexist billboard which suggested that while men can be successful in business women are only there for their sex appeal. Now Calvin Klein have come under fire for another ad with an up-skirting picture alongside a slogan 'I flash in #mycalvins'

Media release: Collective Shout, Good on You and STOP THE TRAFFIK Criticise Just Group for Letting Customers Down