Mow the lawn ! ! Do it ! Trim it !

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OK, so by now many of you will no doubt have seen the "hilarious" new advert promoting Wilkinson Sword.... "Mow the lawn"

Do you folks think it's highly amusing and witty... or do you feel that it's more just kind of crass and obnoxious ?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFSgXpyhoM[/youtube]

For the benefit of folk who can't watch the Youtube video for some reason...

The advert starts with a woman stroking a cat.
She's dressed in quite dark sombre-looking clothing.
She looks a bit down.
She starts singing all about how "Sometimes a girl can't help feeling a little blue. When things are a mess, her favourite thing to do ... is mow the lawn".

She bursts out of her front door dressed like some kind of Barbie doll in a pink flowery outfit.

Then she and two other women in revealing outfits prance about a garden (which is plainly not needing to be mowed) , mowing the lawn using bubblegum pink lawn mowers ; while hollering at the camera "mow it ! do it ! cut it ! trim it !"

A brown skinned woman (African American assumedly) says "some bushes are really big" , with a "cheeky" exaggerated wink.

Then an oriental looking woman (Japanese American probably, with a bonsai to represent her "bush") says "some gardens are mighty small" before being all stereotypically "teehee and sh*t", "giggling" with her hand over her mouth.

Then the three women stand behind three hedges (which are neatly trimmed into geometical shapes which cover their midriffs), while holding shears and insisting that "whatever the shape of your topiary it's easy to trim them all."

There are then scenes of the brown skinned woman angrily attacking a hedge with an electric power trimmer and the Barbie-dressed woman sitting behind a strategically placed perfectly spherical hedge with two prominent tulips sticking out of it.
While they unconvincingly lip-synch, the song sountrack goes on about how "whenever I see a weed, I mow that rascal down. So all there's left to see are tulips on the mound."

There's a view of a tool box with a fanny shaver in it, while the song sings about how "Tool shed's equipped. My floor is clipped."

Then a woman with a leaf blower aims it at a statue of a woman whose modesty is covered by leaves, while "singing" "no need to feel untidy. Just spruce up your Aphrodite."

There's more wiggling about behind the three shaped hedges again.

Then the main woman begins asks "Do you feel rough around the edges ?"
(the other women chime in with "Then mow the lawn"
and says "It feels great to trim the hedges"
(the other woman say "so mow the lawn")

You then see the main woman holding the same cat from the start of the advert, except that it's completely shaved.

Then the final scene is an areal view showing all of the women mowing different sections of the already highly mowed lawn using their bubblegum pink lawn mowers, while wiggling and waving at the camera.

The advert is then revealed to be for "Wilkinson Sword Quattro - Bikini"
I won't insult your intelligence by spelling out what exactly that is.
The tag line for the advert is "free your skin".


There are just so many levels of WTF here, that I don't even know where to start.
If this was a witty parody advert, deliberately created to highlight the idiocy of sexist beauty standards and the superficiality of gender targetted advertising... it could be pretty good. But as an actual genuine advert paid for by people trying to get women to buy their junk.... well, this is just tragic.

I mean, I was far from impressed by this advert promoting the same company and the same product, when it was shown on TV a lot for a while -

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgtMskfX8iw[/youtube]

But it's nothing compared to the trainwreck (featuring a bubblegum pink train, of course) of that "Mow the Lawn" version.

Are they bringing back old-fashioned safety razors?

Holy crap. That is so heavy-handed! Not subtle at all. Tulips (two lips) on the mound? The pussycat? They couldn't be more double-entendre cheesy if they'd tried. Overkill. Something much more subtle and matter-of-fact would appeal to me more, not this coy overload of silliness.

I think it's really dumb, and it's trying to make women feel insecure by saying that by mowing it, it's "tidying it up".

Why do these adverts have to pick on women so much? Men are the ones with the most hair, they could target men and make them feel insecure by pointing out that *shock, horror* - they're hairy! They could compare them to slow, dumb apes as much as they compare hairy women to dirty and disgusting when they don't "look after themselves".

Nothing wrong with hair done there. IMO there's nothing wrong with hair anywhere, though, I did try letting my underarms grow "wild" but I found anti-perspirant to be far less effective.

FWIW - it does not feel great when mowed, it itches like Hell!!

Another point to add that's a bit off topic - for the hair on your head, you do not need shampoo, just water. Another beauty product that can be taken off the list.

Ferchrisssakes... speak of the devil !
This is one of the adverts which keep being shown when I play Criminal Case... I logged on for a game just now, and there it is....

The Criminal Case version is (mercifully) an abbreviated version... it doesn't have the woman and the cat at the beginning or quite so much guff in the midde, but it's otherwise the same advert.

It does however have the 'delightful' addition of much encouraging to "Go brazilian - be pitch perfect" ...
In case the viewers are too thick to understand their point, they also have a top down view of their fanny shaver swooping over a football pitch "mowing" it.

that ad is vomit-inducing.

That video is from 2009

2009 !

So assumedly, the advert must be quite effective... or else they wouldn't still be wheeling it out now... because they will by now have had plenty of time to see whether it's an effective advert or counter-productive.
:-p

If it's an effective advert, then I think that says a lot about female psychology in a general sense.

My guess then, is that the "Go Brazilian" version of the "Lawn Mowing" advert is new, because on the "Wilkinson Sword for women" Facebook page they're going on about how it's "Brazilian Fever" time... and about how everyone should thus "Go Brazilian".
Google tells me that the 2014 World Cup is being held in Brazil.... so I guess that some genius over at Wilkinson Sword said "derp herp duh... Brazil... world cup... Brazil.... Brazilian... OMG .... "Go Brazilian... be pitch perfect" .... then the old Lawn Mowing advert was wheeled out and adapted.


There's another annoying (albeit 500% less ridiculous) advert which seems to be new from Wilkinson Sword, and for the same product.
I can't find it on Youtube, but it's the second one down on this page, "Discover the little things Olivia does to stay spontaneous"
http://www.wilkinsonsword.co.uk/tv-campaigns

It's not a patch on the lawn mowing one, but it's still pretty nauseating.
It seems to be on TV all-the-time just now.
I rarely watch TV, and even I've seen it three times lately.

The premise of the advert is this women talking about how she "stays spontaneous" ...
She says that she thinks we could all do with having a bit more spontaneity, then says that over the weekend she was invited to a barbecue by her friends, then in the middle of the barbecue everybody decided to strip off and jump in the pool.
She had to pause with a gasp and think "am I beach ready" ... which she says with pointed looks at her crotch and pointing at it, before adding that... OF COURSE she was beach ready.
Because she always shaves her fanny... just in case this sort of thing happens.
After all, like she says "You've always got to be ready down there."
Because hey, if you're going to enjoy a bit of spontaneity then it's best to shave your fanny constantly just on the off-chance that people around you start stripping off and jumping into a pool, and you want to join in.
The tag line for the advert is "Free your skin".

The woman didn't elaborate on whether all of her friends (female or male) were leaping into the pool with crotches shaved bald, or not.

I've done it before a really long time ago and found it very difficult to keep up with it so it wasn't like sandpaper down there and I'd get ingrown hairs. I'm never going to do it again. I don't shave anything any more.

Here are a couple of lines from a show I like. The first character was practicing waxing.

"How about you, Deb? You want me to give you a landing strip?"

"Thanks, but I prefer to keep the entire airport."

That is an awkward product to advertise, no ?

As for men being hairy but not being targeted by manufacturers - I personally don't like the clean shaven look. My husband is handsomest when he hasn't shaved in a few days - you know, a rough stubble, but no full blown beard or mustache.