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October 9, 2007
Contact: Josh Golin (617.278.4172;
jgolin@jbcc.harvard.edu)
For Immediate Release
CCFC to Unilever: Ax the Axe Campaign if You Care about
“Real Beauty”
BOSTON -- Citing the hypocrisy inherent
in Unilever’s marketing Dove products by promoting “Real
Beauty” for girls while simultaneously advertising Axe Body
Spray by degrading them, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free
Childhood (CCFC) has
launched a letter-writing campaign to Unilever demanding
that they end their Axe advertising.
“Even as Unilever basks in praise for its
Dove Real Beauty campaign, they are profiting from Axe
marketing that blatantly objectifies and degrades young
women,” said CCFC’s director and co-founder, Dr. Susan Linn.
The Dove Real Beauty Campaign has
garnered praise for challenging the standards of the beauty
industry. The campaign includes teaching materials that
purport to help girls deconstruct media and marketing
messages. Last week, Unilever released
Onslaught, a video examining disturbing images of
women in beauty-industry advertising before ending with the
message, “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry
does.”
Yet Unilver is the beauty
industry. It is the world’s second biggest advertiser and
manufacturer of skin whiteners, diet drinks, cosmetics, and
other beauty products.
The Axe male grooming line is marketed to
boys on the
Internet, through advertising in magazines with large
youth readership such as Maxim, and on MTV where its
sexist and degrading ads are seen by girls and boys of all
ages. On MySpace and other Internet sites, Axe is promoted by
a highly sexualized female singing group, the
Bom Chicka Wah Wahs, whose suggestive theme song and
video is all about the how the Axe aroma causes women to lose
control sexually (sample lyric: “If you have that aroma on,
you can have our whole band.”)
“The Axe campaign proves that a
corporation whose profits depend on the success of its
marketing messages cannot also have a vested interest helping
children resist them,” said Bob McCannon, co-president of the
Action Coalition for Media Education. “Unilever’s Dove Real
Beauty campaign is corporate marketing masquerading as media
literacy and just one more way to get branded materials into
schools before a captive audience of students. Profit trumps
aid to children.”
Added Linn, “The Axe campaign makes clear
that any concerns Unilever has about girls’ wellbeing take a
backseat to their desire to exploit stereotypes for profit.
With Axe, Unilever is creating the same toxic environment
addressed by its Dove Campaign. We hope that the creators of
the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, and everyone else who cares
about the wellbeing of girls, will join us in urging Unilever
to end its Axe marketing.”
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