This ad for the 2015 Kia Soul featuring hamster people is… charming.
It’s also a very good example of advertising that just up and shrugs and admits that its target is primarily men. The scientists and engineers are all male and the audience is intended to identify with them. The females are sexual objects that exist to attract and revel in male attention. They literally buy them at the pet store, for goodness’ sake.
Hello Kia Soul! Like, women are 51% of the population and we make purchasing decisions. Maybe go with advertising that’s a tad more inclusive? You know, one or two female scientists would have been totally do-able. Your weird science could have included some hunks alongside the hotties. Maybe one of your guy engineers would have liked that, too. I’m just saying. Being more inclusive would have been easy. There’s no excuse for this.
But thanks for the hamsters.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56C4kSlGkJ8[/youtube]
Thanks to @MLerner_RBS for the link!
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 11
Leslee Bottomley Beldotti — September 9, 2014
I saw this ad on TV and immediately thought, "Well, thanks Kia for believing that I'm totally NOT your target demographic!"
The sad part is that I actually LIKE the car and I'm seriously considering buying one, despite the fact that the ad is doing everything it can to dissuade me.
Mike — September 9, 2014
what i find most interesting is that the male hamsters are given bodies that anatomically reflect the fact that they are hamsters, while the female hamsters are just stereotypically-sexy human female bodies with hamster heads.
Davida — September 9, 2014
I hate this ad so much. Last night it came on and I thought, "so boy hamsters look like hamsters, and girl hamsters look like sexpots." Why!?!?!
Nora Dock — September 9, 2014
I thought this commercial was a pretty clear parody of/homage to the movie "Weird Science". Still problematic for the reasons listed by others in the comments section, but gives context for using exaggerated female form .
Albert — September 9, 2014
The Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn (no relation) has ran many hamster-themed commercials. This particular one was made for the soccer World Cup, and could be food for comparison (or just for fun).
I think here, it's more of a Smurfette principle thing going on, where only one hamster (right at the end) is probably a girl, or at least is wearing a dress, and all others (judging on voices, clothing styles, heterosexual flirting) are portrayed to be male. There is one with golden braids somewhere on the middle, but for the knowing eye, this is a common way for male (and sure, also female) Dutch soccer fans to dress up, a.k.a. have a wig on. There is hamster-to-sexy-woman flirting going on too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9V8EOlEyqY
Erika — September 9, 2014
Nobody has addressed one of more confusing aspects of this commercial, which is WHY do large, anthropomorphic hamsters have, themselves, smal, realistic hamster-hamsters as pets?!
More importantly, does this mean I can go out to a pet store later and buy a small human to run around my house and play with my dogs?
glojo — September 9, 2014
I agree with Albert that there's a lot more than just objectifying women. It's also heterocentric and the way gender is expressed through clothing is also interesting. Then there's also the stereotype of the geek who has to resort to "manufacturing." So, ok, hamsters are cute (actually I think they're disgusting rodents), but regardless this ad doesn't inspire me to buy a Kia.
ViktorNN — September 10, 2014
I'm not seeing a problem with ads which targets a certain demographic (in this case, it does a pretty good job of talking to tech-and-sex-obsessed young males who are into custom car culture). Happens all the time.
Inclusiveness is a nice ideal, but I suspect that those responsible for Kia's ad budget have calculated that their money is best spent talking to the people most likely to buy their car. Things like this aren't left up to chance - they have a very good idea of what approach will sell the best. There's a whole science to contemporary advertising.
In fact, the car was almost certainly originally designed with a specific demo in mind and ads which seek to talk to this demo are really just the tail end of the whole project.
In this sense, to be more "inclusive," for Kia, would mean going back to the drawing board and designing a completely different car.
I mean, come on, this is advertising/product design 101 stuff.
Holly — September 23, 2014
wait they are just animals , right ? not like homo sapiens sapiens ?